The latest edition of the Edelman Trust Barometer shows yet another drop in the trust vested in business leaders. According to the 2024 report 61% of respondents (32,000 people globally) worry that business leaders are purposely trying to mislead people by saying things they know are false or gross exaggerations (a 2% rise in the past year). And whilst there are greater worries about our Government leaders (63%) and journalists (64%), this level of mistrust is in need of positive action.
The focus of this year’s report is the effective integration and management of innovation which raises the subject of AI as one of the biggest challenges on the immediate horizon and how we can utilise it for good. For all the many clever and heavy-lifting roles AI will undoubtedly perform its less positive aspect is the challenge it brings to truth and reality.
Daily we can see and are exposed to AI generated fakery on the web and in the social media we consume. AI is used increasingly to create images, text and audio – all presented as real/fact whether that’s the case or not.
What we can trust and rely on is increasingly blurred. In the workplace, and in life, that’s a dangerous thing. Decisions affecting many risk being based on total fabrication. Individually we can make choices that adversely affect our material and mental wellbeing.
So we need to double down on truth and trust. Our antidote is in our human ability to question, to challenge, to fact check if you will. And for leaders it is about more than that.
The quality, clarity and veracity of our communication needs greater attention. We must be clear in the purpose of our communication, take care over the words we choose and shape the message in a way that our intended audience will both hear and listen. And then we need to engage in the dialogue that ensures the message has landed as intended and is truly understood so that it can be explored and debated.
And, to enable our communication to really take root and fulfil its purpose we must focus on the climate in which we are communicating. If we aren’t trusted, if trust isn’t flourishing in our team or organisation, we can be sure that what we have to say won’t be trusted either. The Edelman report’s findings aren’t new, rather they show the increasing scale of the problem. Isn’t it time to redouble our efforts?