A Jerry Macnamara term
What are the four pillars of trust?
The four pillars of trust are competency, consistency, integrity, and compassion. Lose any one of them and the whole thing wobbles, no matter how strong the other three are.
Where it comes from
I laid these out at the Jacksonville Football Club Coaches Symposium keynote on August 8, 2026, and I have used them with every organization I have led or advised.
They exist because “build trust” is useless advice. Trust is not a mood. It is four specific things people are unconsciously checking, and when it breaks you can almost always name which pillar gave way.
How to use it
Run yourself against the four honestly:
- Competency. Do you know your craft? Enthusiasm without skill burns trust rather than building it.
- Consistency. Are you the same person up three and down three? Predictability is a gift you give the people who work for you.
- Integrity. Do you do what you said you would do, including the small things nobody is tracking?
- Compassion. Do you care about the person, or only the role they fill?
The diagnostic value is in the specificity. When a relationship is not working, most leaders reach for “we need to build trust,” which gives them nothing to do on Monday. Naming the pillar gives you the actual repair.
And notice that all four sit on your side of the street. They are the content of your half under the 50 percent rule.
Questions people ask
Which pillar breaks most often?
Consistency, and it is rarely dramatic. It is the leader who is generous on a good week and short on a bad one. People do not need you at your best; they need to know which version of you is walking in.
Can you rebuild a pillar once it has broken?
Yes, but only with time and repetition, and only if you name it. Competency you can go get. Integrity is rebuilt by keeping small promises in public for longer than feels necessary.
Is compassion really a trust pillar, or is that just being nice?
It is not niceness. Compassion is whether people believe you would act in their interest when it costs you something. That belief is what makes the other three worth anything.
The pillars sit underneath everything in Influence: The Intersection of Authenticity, Intention, and Trust. If your leaders need it, start at speaking.