High trust and low trust organizations

Low trust	High trust
Focus on accountability	Focus on learning
Doesn’t require alignment or context	Requires alignment and lots of context
Command and control	Autonomy and alignment
Scary to reveal problems, risk.	Eager to explore problems, risks
Leaders get poor information.	Leaders get good information.
Focus on commitments. Changes require lots of scrutiny and explanation.	Focus on estimates, update as you get new information. Changes are inexpensive.
Fatalism	Optimism
Low retention	High retention
Individual performance	Team performance
Leaders focus on activities	Leaders focus on outcomes
Functions blame each other for problems	Functions (product, eng, design) work together, share problems
People that raise problems are criticized	People that raise problems are praised
People with a high tolerance for conflict speak up.	People who can contribute speak up

Subscribe
Engineering Leadership Weekly & Frontline Management & Decoding leadership podcast

Contact
I advise startups and help in a variety of ways. Contact me.