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CHAPTER
7

HOW TRUST IS BROKEN:
BETRAYAL

When trust breaks down, it is frustrating and painful. We may even feel betrayed. We shut down and are unwilling to put ourselves at risk. Further, it is difficult to work with people whom we don’t trust, to work in an environment of distrust and betrayal.

But betrayal means different things to different people. What do we mean by betrayal? We define betrayal as a breach of trust or the perception of such a breach. It can be intentional or unintentional. Intentional betrayal is a self-serving action committed with the purpose of hurting, damaging, or harming another person. Unintentional betrayal is the byproduct of a self-serving action that results in people’s being hurt, damaged, or harmed.

Betrayal is a dark word that means negative things to many people. Yet the word betrayal is no darker or more severe than the impact of betrayal. Some people run away from the word or avoid using it in their everyday language. Others seek to understand it, recognizing that betrayal is a natural part of relationships.

If you find yourself having difficulty relating to the word betrayal, you may consider other language, such as distrust, breakdown, or disappointment. What is most important is that we become aware of the shapes and forms betrayal takes, that we understand the impact it has on relationships and performance and, ultimately, what we can do in response to it. Yes, betrayal is a natural part of relationships, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do something to prevent or reduce it. As we become increasingly aware of behaviors that break trust, we become more able to make the conscious choice to behave differently. And when we are aware that betrayal has occurred, we may choose to deal with it rather than bury our hurt or turn the other cheek. Chapter Eight explores steps we can take to heal from betrayal and to rebuild trust.

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Betrayal happens. Although most of us strive to engage in relationships based on a foundation of trust, we are human, and that means trust will get broken; we will let one another down. We will fail to keep agreements; we will misunderstand each other’s communication; we will leave people out of key decisions and be left out; we will feel micromanaged by our managers, and our managers may feel that we have not delivered. We will be betrayed and we will betray. Betrayal comes with trust; it is part of the human condition. It complements our interactions like the yin and the yang, the ebb and flow, the expansion and contraction of human relationships.

Betrayal can be seen as occurring on a continuum from major intentional betrayal to unintentional minor betrayal (see Figure 4). Major intentional betrayals are carried out to hurt and harm. We feel them in our deepest core. Unintentional minor betrayals are incidental to other actions. We may not pay much attention to them initially—but they do add up! When they do, they may have the same impact and cost as major betrayals. Regardless of the nature of the betrayal, it erodes trust, compromises or even ends relationships, and certainly damages performance.

Major betrayals are often the by-products of fear and self-serving interests. They are caused by people deliberately failing to honor their commitments, knowingly withholding information or deceiving fellow coworkers, or even sabotaging their work to further their own ends. They are hurtful, ill-intended words or actions that break down trusting relationships. As one concerned employee said, “It is especially painful when we are stabbed in the back without warning by those closest to us. It knocks you off your feet.”

Although major betrayals do happen, most betrayals are minor. These are the more prevalent acts that happen each and every day in the workplace. People gossiping about one another behind their backs, arriving late for meetings consistently, hoarding pertinent information, not responding to requests made by others, blaming and finger pointing, and abdicating responsibility are examples of minor forms of betrayal. They alienate employees from their managers, their peers, and their subordinates.

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These subtle betrayals seem innocent and unimportant. They are often swept under the carpet and ignored; people may say, “Oh, let’s not waste time on that little stuff. Let’s get on with it; we have too much to do.” While we may try to deny their existence, they do not go away on their own. They can and do grow to more severe hurts and contribute significantly to the negative feelings that employees have toward their bosses, each other, and their companies.

These seemingly minor acts break down relationships if not addressed. Their cumulative weight is that of major betrayal. This occurs when minor betrayals stay alive in behavior and in people’s minds, resulting in a pattern of trust-breaking behavior. Over the course of time, they become bigger than the actual event or a single act.

How we might position an experience along the betrayal continuum depends on our perception of the betrayer’s intent and the impact on us— in other words, the degree to which we perceive that the individual intended to cause hurt, damage, or pain to us and the degree of hurt, damage, and pain actually caused or inflicted. For instance, accepting credit for someone else’s work may be a minor intentional betrayal in one circumstance, but if the person who falsely accepts credit gains greatly at the other’s expense (for example, if he or she gets promoted as a reward for something that in reality a coworker deserved credit for), it becomes a major intentional betrayal.

The opportunity for betrayal in any relationship at work or in our personal lives depends on the degree of trust we have in that individual, situation, or organization. An important aspect of trust has to do with our wondering if our expectations will be met. If an individual has few or no expectations and trust is low, the chances of being betrayed are not great. Consequently, that person is not particularly susceptible to disappointment, hurt, or betrayal. However, if he or she has higher expectations and greater involvement and loyalty in the relationship, the person is more vulnerable to betrayal. The more we have invested in a relationship, the more deeply hurt we may feel by a breach of trust. The illustration here reflects the correlation between the degree of trust and the opportunity for betrayal.

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THE HIGH COST OF BETRAYAL IN THE WORKPLACE

Organizations depend on trust and effective relationships among their people to function and to thrive. We must trust that company executives will keep people’s interests in mind when they make decisions to promote the health of the company. We need to know that we can rely on the skills and talents of others, that we can ask tough questions and get honest answers, that we can go directly to an individual with a problem or concern, and that we can give and in return receive feedback that strengthens the relationship and performance.

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When we trust in this way, we can focus on doing our jobs, developing our relationships, and contributing to ourselves, those we work with, and our organization. We are able to be in a “flow state.” Sure, we have our ups and downs, but the foundation of trust serves as the basis for consistency. We know we can count on one another.

Betrayal destroys the essential fabric of the relationships that keep our organizations operating and our people engaged. Major betrayals demolish the healthy trust that has existed; minor betrayals eat away at it bit by bit. Trust is energy producing; betrayal is energy depleting. Trust feeds performance; betrayal eats away at it.

Major betrayals are traumatic experiences that diminish people’s energy, cloud their thinking, sap their motivation, and derail their productivity. Minor betrayals also contribute incrementally to distractions; people are left wondering, “What is going on here?” Rather than focusing on doing their normal jobs, betrayed individuals attend to protecting themselves and possibly taking revenge on whoever betrayed them. Trust begets trust, and betrayal begets betrayal. When we hurt, we hate and want to get back. We want to get even! And sometimes we do.

In a climate of betrayal, productivity plummets and negatively affects the bottom line. The news headlines are filled with corporate scandals and ethical breaches that cost companies, customers, employees, and stockholders billions of dollars. The hallways, break rooms, and dining halls are filled with the whispers of betrayal and people wondering, “How much longer can I cope? When will something be done? I thought I belonged here; now I’m not sure. Maybe I don’t have what it takes after all.”

Yes, betrayal hurts. It hurts because we have suffered a loss, a significant disappointment. We may have lost an opportunity, our hope of what might have been, or a relationship. To guide employees out of betrayal toward trusting again, it is important first to understand the nature of betrayal. In an effort to rebuild trust, it is necessary for leaders to understand what betrayal is, the relationship of betrayal to trust, and the effect major and minor betrayals have on an employees’ capacity for trusting themselves, others, and relationships.

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THE EFFECT OF BETRAYAL ON OUR CAPACITY FOR TRUST

Whether a betrayal is major or minor, the experience affects our capacity to trust ourselves and others. People’s emotions vary in intensity, depending on their perceptions of the severity of the betrayal. As one employee sadly shared, “Betrayal makes me feel angry, sad, and lost. It destroys my faith in the betrayer, but also makes me question my own judgment for trusting in someone or something unworthy or undeserving of my trust.” Betrayal destroys confidence and morale and replaces it with self-doubt.

Leaders are in denial if they don’t believe that people have feelings about business transactions. We must not forget that business transactions are conducted through relationships, and feelings are an element of relationships.

Betrayal goes to the core of human vulnerability; it cuts through us to our deepest emotional layers. For example, one vice president of an international telecommunications company reflected on being betrayed by his boss: “I had to get out. I got myself transferred as soon as possible. I couldn’t work for someone I didn’t trust.” Betrayal is deeply felt—so much so that people use physical words to describe their emotional states. As a leader in a pharmaceutical company said, “I really got beat up in that board meeting this morning.”

Major Betrayal: Trusting Others

As we’ve already seen, major intentional betrayals are deliberately planned to manipulate others for self-gain. The perpetrators know that their actions will hurt others, and they justify them with self-serving arguments. Our level of trust in these individuals decreases dramatically, and our capacity to trust others can plummet.

Sharon, a designer for a major advertising agency in New York, was severely shaken when a trusted friend and coworker stole her ideas for an ad campaign she had been working on. Sharon was further incensed when her colleague received a large year-end bonus as a reward for her deceitful actions. From that point on, Sharon cut all personal ties with this individual and became extremely cautious about sharing her ideas with anyone.

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Our level of trust and vulnerability determines the depth of betrayal we feel. In Sharon’s case, she trusted her colleague very much—perhaps unwisely and unrealistically. As a result, she was quite vulnerable and was caught off guard.

Though unintentional betrayal is a by-product of a self-serving action, it can have hurtful consequences. Losing a job or being demoted may be the by-product of downsizing, restructuring, or a merger, but people end up hurt nonetheless. Once an organization starts downsizing, the consequences are never-ending. Like betrayal, the negative consequences and the negative energy are larger than the act itself. The betrayal is implosive; it sucks productive energy from employees—especially those worrying about whether they are going to have a job next month. Typically, it is not the downsizing or restructuring itself that causes betrayal; rather, it is how the change is managed—the failure to acknowledge the impact of change on individuals and the lack of support people experienced to deal with it. As one manager expressed, “We were downsized twice in one year. When people left, we lost relationships. Yet we have been expected to behave as if that were not the case, to simply focus on getting the job done. The loss of those relationships hurt, and it hurt even more that leadership did not recognize that.”

Betrayal is systemic; it affects the whole system and everyone in it. For example, organizational changes affect the morale of the whole company, whether individuals in the company are affected directly or indirectly. People develop deep relationships with coworkers and come to care about them, perhaps love them. It hurts to lose those relationships.

Betrayal shuts down the whole system, removes trust, and destroys relationships. In some situations this occurs over time; in others it can happen in an instant. As one frustrated employee said, “I can do five hundred things to build trust in a relationship; then I do one act, and all the trust is gone in a split second.”

Every day on the job, leaders betray employees, and employees betray their leaders and one another, unintentionally. If you as a leader give an employee the responsibility but not the authority, trust, and support needed to do a project, you have destroyed the full potential of that employee’s contribution to the company. You have sent a message to that employee that says you don’t trust his or her skills. Likewise, employees betray leaders and their coworkers when they don’t fulfill their work-related agreements. How often do we hear employees lament, “I was counting on you, and you didn’t come through.”

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A major betrayal, intentional or not, is shocking and devastating. It grabs us when we least expect it. What we thought was dependable is not dependable; what we thought was permanent is not permanent. Our world is turned upside down, and we are tossed into emotional chaos. We wonder, “Where can I place my trust now?” “Whom can I trust?”

Major Betrayal: Trusting Ourselves

A major betrayal can decrease our capacity to trust ourselves. Because it slams us over the head and pierces us at our core, we feel vulnerable and wounded. It is a profound experience. It shakes our confidence, causes us to doubt ourselves, and causes us to question our trustworthiness. It deeply wounds a relationship. Betrayal is usually taken personally, and it is rarely forgotten.

Major betrayal touches the very center of our vulnerability. As one shaken coworker said, “You make yourself vulnerable to the other person, and he uses your own sword to betray you.” Being rejected against our will can severely damage our self-esteem, leaving us feeling powerless. Losing a job or being passed up for a promotion can bring up feelings of worthlessness and may be devastating to our capacity to trust. As one distraught employee explained, “My experience of betrayal is that I am standing on a rug, and the rug is suddenly pulled out from under me. I am tumbling helplessly out of control.”

Through self-exploration and self-awareness, we are able to shift out of the negative feelings of betrayal and view them as stepping stones to personal and spiritual growth. Most of the time, however, rather than working constructively with our pain, we typically give ourselves over to anger and resentment¹. When we act as victims after being betrayed, we lose the opportunity to learn and grow from the experience. If we take the traditional response to betrayal and operate out of fear or the desire to control or manipulate, we end up sabotaging ourselves as well as others.

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A personal crisis can teach us a lot about ourselves. Whether betrayal occurs in our private lives or our work lives, it can be an opportunity for inner growth, if we are willing to work through the feelings and endure the pain. In the next chapter, we will explore steps we can take to help heal themselves; in Chapter Eleven, we will explore the steps leaders can take to help others heal from betrayal.

Minor Betrayal: Trusting Others

One minor betrayal will probably not decrease our capacity to trust others. However, as minor betrayals accumulate, they will eventually affect our capacity to trust one another and will create distrust among us. Trust breaks down over time when we sense that another’s intentions and motives are not sincere and that the person in fact has ulterior motives.

Distrust breeds distrust and ultimately betrayal. When a leader comes from a place of fear and caution, worrying about whether she can trust an employee, her behavior can backfire and cause the very distrust and betrayal she seeks to avoid.

Most betrayals are not intentionally malicious and are not designed to hurt others. They occur when we are overworked, stressed-out, and trying to do more with less. Yet these minor betrayals can create significant hurts, which lead to major betrayals. And major betrayals result when people realize the extent to which they have been quietly misled. The discovery of deception, dishonesty, or indirectness may prompt an abrupt exit from an effective working relationship between individuals. When people are allowed to get away with breaching trust in minor ways, it becomes easier to betray in major ways. The cumulative effect of these minor betrayals eats away at trust and damages working relationships between individuals and in the organization.

HOW WE BETRAY OURSELVES AND OTHERS

When we have betrayed another, the first person we have betrayed is ourselves. We betray ourselves by overriding our own needs and failing to speak our truth. We may not have asked questions for the clarification we needed. We may not have requested the additional support necessary to meet the deadline, so we are working sixteen-hour days. We may have agreed with a decision just to go along with the group, when we knew it would put us up against a wall. We may have agreed to moving the dates for this business trip knowing it would cut into precious family or weekend time. Or we may agree to a job assignment we know we will not enjoy because the boss asked us to, and we want to be seen as a team player. After all, it’s only for one year. That one year turns into a very long year!

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When we agree to terms and conditions that we know are not mutually serving to us, we override our own needs. We may push beyond our physical limits by working excessive hours, eat poorly because fast food was all that was available at 11:00 P.M. on our way home from work, and drop exercise because we can’t take the time out for it. We become skillful at overriding our own personal needs to get the job done. We become pressed and anxious, and we simply try to do too much.

Often at the core of behaviors that cause us to override our needs and to betray ourselves is fear: fear of not being good enough (“I have to do more”); fear of not being seen as competent (“I won’t ask for help because then they’ll be right”); fear of not being seen as cooperative (“I won’t disagree with others’ views”); fear of not being considered for promotion (“I’ll take on the extra assignments to show them what I can do, even if it means I don’t take a vacation this summer!”).

When we override our personal needs and become pushed, anxious, and overextended, we lose our center—our sense of being grounded. That sacred relationship with ourselves is compromised. As one senior vice president said, “I have been pushing so hard I can’t feel myself anymore.” When we are not aware of ourselves, we are not able to be aware of others. It is in this space of disconnection from ourselves that we let others down in our haste, pace, and pushing; we lose our footing.

THE INFLUENCE OF OUR PERCEPTIONS AND BELIEFS

Our capacity for trust influences our perceptions and beliefs, which in turn influence our readiness and willingness to trust ourselves and others. When our capacity for trust is constricted, we are not as ready to trust ourselves or others. This is when we are most vulnerable to betraying ourselves and others. The following questions illuminate how we may bring ourselves to relationships with others when we are not ready and willing to trust.

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Do We Expect to Be Rejected?

If we expect to be rejected or criticized, we may constantly test people’s loyalty and commitment to us. Rather than being open to what we might experience and assuming the best, we assume and look for the worst. “You’ll have to prove to me that you’re trustworthy first.” We find ourselves constantly on the defensive; we are ready to run from or “beat up on” those individuals who may present a danger to our delicate sense of safety and identity. People who have a low capacity for trust in themselves may project their inability to trust onto others. People who need solid or tangible evidence in order to trust their coworkers exhibit a concrete capacity to trust. They will not trust until it has been proven that it is indeed safe to trust. In this situation, trust may be a long time coming. It bears repeating: trust is reciprocal; if we are not willing to give it, we may not get it.

Do We Contribute to Conflict?

Our expectations of conflict generate the very conflict we fear. Our attitude influences our interactions with others. Do we enter a potential disagreement on the defensive, assuming that the other person is not aligned with us? As one factory worker said to a coworker, “If you are looking for a fight, by golly I’m going to help you find one!”

Thought is creative. When we perceive that others are going to bring us harm before we have even examined our assumptions about their intentions, we may tend to bring ourselves to them with judgment and criticism. When we have low capacity for trust in others, we may exhibit protective behaviors that cause other individuals to react in a similar fashion. We may not give trust the opportunity to form.

Are We Mostly Preoccupied with Our Own Problems?

If we are constantly preoccupied with our own problems, we may be totally unaware of our self-absorption and the consequential impact of our behavior on others. For example, if we are fostering an attitude that the world is treating us poorly, we rarely feel responsible for the pain we cause others. We are too consumed by our own issues to be aware of or sensitive to those of others. People with a low capacity to trust in themselves may feel victimized by their circumstances and the unresolved patterns of betrayal they have experienced in their lives. They may come across as needy and emotionally draining to their coworkers. Their preoccupation with themselves causes them to be unaware of their actions. These people break promises, miss deadlines, and are insensitive to the problems they cause others. When the problems are brought to their attention, they may fail to take responsibility, tending to justify and rationalize their behavior.

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Do We Create Difficulty Unnecessarily?

If people are preoccupied with a frantic search for certainty and predictability, they may be unable to understand the complexity of dynamic relationships at work. For example, in conversations with coworkers, these individuals may have little tolerance for differences with others. They may come across as self-righteous, speaking in absolutes and thinking in simplistic, black-or-white, good-or-bad terms. If they disagree with or don’t understand the points they are hearing, they may react with a verbal attack. For these people, life is a battle to be won, and the goal is being right and winning at all costs.

People with this approach tend to have a low-complexity capacity to trust and may have a limited ability to deal with the uncertainty of new situations. For example, when facilitating a team meeting, they may come across as domineering: “My way is the right way.” They may have difficulty leading a dialogue session that lacks a formal structure.

Do We Discount People?

If we feel hurt, embarrassed, or frightened in our association with someone, we may conjure up an elaborate mental smoke screen to protect ourselves from feeling the memories of past painful experiences. By devaluing the other individual(s), we are able to distance ourselves from them. History has shown that in war, countries discount other nations or ethnic groups by labeling them the enemy and portraying them in nonhuman, demeaning terms. It is easier to drop a bomb on our enemies if we convince ourselves that they are subhuman and evil.

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In the workplace, people fostering this perspective tend to have a low or undifferentiated capacity for trust. They are unable to distinguish individuals from the groups in which they are members and may prejudge others without fully understanding them. Because these people have a low capacity to trust others, they don’t cooperate with others. As a result, they don’t readily share information and resources to accomplish the job, working relationships suffer, and the organization is cheated of the affected employees’ potential performance.

BETRAYAL CAN BE A TEACHER IF WE LET IT

As we have seen, betrayal happens every day; it is a natural part of human relationships. Although betrayal does not feel good and certainly complicates life, it can provide us with invaluable lessons. Betrayal can be a gift and teacher if we let it. Choosing to embrace betrayal and to work through the pain will strengthen us and deepen our understanding of ourselves and relationships. Knowing how to deal with betrayal is essential to maintaining healthy levels of trust in relationships. Healing from betrayal and rebuilding trust are the topics of the next chapter.

TRUST BUILDING IN ACTION

Reflecting on Your Experience

Reflect on a time in your life when you felt let down, hurt, disappointed, and betrayed, intentionally or unintentionally, and consider these questions:

1. What happened? How did you feel—emotionally, psychologically, spiritually—when it happened to you? What did you do about the situation? How did you respond to the experience of betrayal? What short-term and long-term impact did the experience have on you?
2. Describe a major and a minor personal or work-related betrayal that you have experienced. In what ways did your experience of them differ? What were the feelings you had in response to each of these experiences?

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Application Exercise: The Betrayal Continuum

The following two exercises are designed to help you as an individual become more aware of the kinds of betrayal you see and experience and to help your team or organization become aware of its issues and areas of vulnerability in order to begin to deal with them.

1. Individual Reflection. List the kinds of betrayal that you see and experience in your organization, team, or individual relationships. Don’t overthink the appropriate category in which to place the kind of betrayal; list it in the first place that comes to your mind. You may have a behavior listed in more than one place.
2. Team or Organizational Betrayal Continuum. Draw the betrayal continuum template on a large flipchart or scroll paper on the wall. Have team members record their experiences under each type of betrayal as they relate to the team or organization. Then review and discuss their observations.
   1. Ask the team, “What story does this tell us about us?” What key insights emerge?
   2. Discuss with your team key observations and insights. Identify the team’s critical issues and areas of vulnerability.

Trust Note

We betray others when we are absorbed with ourselves. In our absorption, we lose sight of others. As a result, when we betray another, we first betray ourselves.

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