If you don’t trust someone it is extremely hard to get past that feeling and get any quality work done. Mistrust causes stress and distraction. It leads to politics and disengagement. And sometimes we find ourselves wanting to trust a leader or a coworker – but not feeling as though we can.

For some professions (the military, police and fire departments, heavy equipment operators, and healthcare professionals to name just a few) trust can be a matter of life or death. These leaders and teams must have trust for physical safety.

In most professions the stakes aren’t that high. But trust is still really important. For my team trust is essential for peace of mind. Without it we cannot perform our best.

I have a responsibility to my team to keep our business thriving. To make sure that they feel confident in our company and our mission. This is their livelihood. When they walk out these doors they go home to aging parents, kids who need schools supplies, homes that need maintained, friends and families that need support.

My job as a leader (and my greatest hope) is to make sure my team trusts that our work together will take care of them and their families. That our work of improving leaders will fulfill them and give them purpose. That they will take pride in the great work that we are accomplishing together.

You must build trust. Each leader must show the team that they can be trusted. That they are worthy of trust.

And this is where we often fail. The 2016 Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report found that one in three employees don’t trust their employer. Another study by EY found that number to be even higher, stating that “less than half of global respondents have a ‘great deal of trust’ in their current employers.”

We have some work to do. Steffen Maier’s article “7 Ways Managers Can Build Trust in the Workplace” is a great place to start. Maier’s 7 rules provide logical, easy to implement steps for improving trust with your employees. They are also excellent characteristics of Approachable Leaders.