Every system teaches that trust is the foundation of influence. They build courses, frameworks and entire professions around it. Leaders are trained to look trustworthy. Teams are told that trust is their greatest asset. There are trust surveys, trust indexes and trust workshops. It’s a full-time performance.
Trust creates the conditions for cooperation and belief, but it can also be used to shape perception. The same behaviours that signal reliability can be learned and performed without sincerity. The appearance of integrity can operate as a strategy of control. When people feel safe a relational context, they stop examining motives and outcomes, which is how influence becomes indistinguishable from manipulation. The intention to reassure becomes a way to manage others’ uncertainty, and trust shifts from a relational exchange to an instrument of control.
Trust is what allows one person to influence another’s wellbeing, believing that this influence will be exercised responsibly. When we seek help or guidance, trust becomes an active process rather than an ideal. It shifts from a general expectation about others to a deliberate act of entrusting. We allow another person to enter our uncertainty and shape our state of mind or circumstances. That act requires a temporary suspension of self-protection so the other can participate in our problem, decision or healing. In that moment, trust becomes a lived transaction that exposes our dependence on the integrity of the other.
The same act that makes collaboration and repair possible also opens the possibility of harm. Trust gives another person access to our confidence, our loyalty and sometimes our reputation. When the person receiving that trust acts from self-interest, the balance or power shifts. Individuals with narcissistic or manipulative traits often treat trust as an opportunity for leverage rather than as a mutual commitment grounded in mutual respect. They build credibility through warmth or expertise, then use it to secure admiration or control. Once they gain your trust, it becomes a resource to manage rather than a sacred responsibility to uphold.
Not everyone who exploits trust is aware they are doing it, no matter how obvious it is to you. Many professionals act from an unconscious narcissism that equates being perceived as good with being trustworthy, and their sense of integrity depends on protecting that image. When their trustworthiness is questioned, they defend their reputation instead of engaging with the challenge and sincerely examining their actions that made someone experience them as untrustworthy. Their need to appear ethical replaces the capacity to behave ethically.
Unsurprisingly, institutions mirror this process. They often reward performances of confidence, conflated with competence, rather than embodied character and maturity. The ones who look composed are promoted as safe and dependable. Over time, image becomes a proxy for trustworthiness. Policies and values statements create the appearance of fairness but often protect those who manage perception best. This is how institutional trust morphs into reputational trust, built through image control rather than through reciprocal relationships.
Confidence in institutions is restored through visible acts of responsibility that involve cost and transparency, not through apologies. Yet, like narcissistic individuals, bureaucratic systems often choose to look sorry rather than change. They apologise, promise review, coaching or training, and continue as before. Admitting fault exposes them to reputational, financial and legal risk, which are consequences accountability averse institutions (and people) are unwilling to wear.
The familiar instruction to trust the process is often a signal to suppress doubt. It asks you to silence the inner whispers of intuition that register danger or detect incongruence between stated values and actual behaviour. It’s a subtle form of emotional management that frames discernment as disloyalty. When you question a process, you’re positioned as resistant or ungrateful rather than perceptive.
The demand for trust in this context becomes moralised. You’re prompted to feel guilty for doubting good intentions, even when those intentions or their outcomes are producing the very harms your doubt was meant to prevent. The onus shifts from the system to the person raising the concern, who becomes responsible for the consequences of that system. The institution or authority figure avoids scrutiny by reframing healthy scepticism as a failure of faith and loyalty.
The narcissistic dynamic employs soft control that relies on a convincing idealised image, assumed moral authority and emotional management to secure cooperation. The dominant individual or system exploits others’ wish to be seen as cooperative and morally upright, turning goodwill into compliance. In these environments, trust is not always a conscious act. People sense a familiar signature of authority that signals safety rather than danger and respond automatically. The absence of discernment makes this trust both easily given and easily manipulated.
When betrayal occurs, whether through a broken promise or systemic neglect, institutions protect their image before protecting those who depend on them. Preserving legitimacy becomes more important than restoring trust. Those who are harmed are expected to forgive, stay loyal by remaining silent, or demonstrate resilience so the system can maintain the illusion of stability. Time doesn’t heal wounds, nor does trust magically restore with the passage of time. It can only be repaired through acknowledgement of harm or betrayal and through consistent conduct that restores predictability and demonstrates accountability over time. Repair happens when actions provide evidence of accountability that is valued more than reputation. Repair occurs when accountability is demonstrated through consistent behaviour that restores confidence and shows that trust is deserved.
In my conversation with
, I said that we need to make accountability sexy. By that I mean restoring accountability as a living expression of responsibility rather than punishment or surveillance.The discussion that follows continues this inquiry with Dr Simon Rogoff, whose work examines narcissism and trauma through the lens of performance, fame and identity. He writes about how the drive to be seen and admired can evolve into a system of self-protection that hides vulnerability, both in individuals and in institutions. His essays trace the tension between image and reality and how culture confuses charisma with character.
You can read more of his work and subscribe to his Substack, The Psychology of Narcissism and Trauma, here:
Thank you
, , , , , and many others for tuning into my live video with !Summary of what we discussed
00:00 to 10:00 We began by examining how trust forms between strangers and how easily warmth and familiarity can replace discernment.
10:00 to 20:00 We explored why people trust authority and charisma even when both are performances of confidence rather than signs of reliability.
20:00 to 30:00 We spoke about the ways narcissistic dynamics distort relationships, turning admiration and cooperation into tools of control.
30:00 to 40:00 We looked at how institutions mirror these dynamics by protecting image over accountability and mistaking reputation for integrity.
40:00 to 50:00 We discussed the emotional cost of betrayal and the psychological conditions that make repair possible.
50:00 to 60:00 We asked what accountability looks like when trust has been broken and how evidence rather than sentiment restores faith in people and systems.
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I believe that a common threat to our individual and collective thriving is an addiction to power and control. This addiction fuels and is fuelled by greed - the desire to accumulate and control resources in social, information (and attention), economic, ecological, geographical and political systems.
While activists focus on fighting macro issues, I believe that activism also needs to focus on the micro issues - the narcissistic traits that pollute relationships between you and I, and between each other, without contributing to existing injustice. It’s not as exciting as fighting the Big Baddies yet hacking, resisting, overriding and deprogramming our tendencies to control others that also manifest as our macro issues is my full-time job.
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