Building teams through radical trust, biblical wisdom, and the courage to believe people are exactly who God made them to be
The Exhausting Theater of Professional Distrust
I’m in a review, in a dance I’ve seen AND done a thousand times. Everyone is armored up, waiting for someone else to take the first shot.
Nobody says “I don’t trust you,” of course. Because we are professionals. We say things like “Let’s align on this before moving forward” and “Can we validate this with data?” and “I just want to make sure we’re all on the same page.”
We’ve developed an entire vocabulary for distrust that sounds like collaboration.
The meeting ends. Nothing terrible happened, but nothing particularly good happened either. Everyone leaves a little more tired than when they arrived, having spent an hour in the exhausting performance of “trust but verify” — which really just means “don’t trust, but be polite about it.”
We’re all slowly dying from this. The constant vigilance and defensive posturing. The energy spent protecting our turf, our ideas, our credibility. We work in fields that supposedly value innovation and creativity, yet we’ve built cultures that punish the very vulnerability those things require. (BTW, this isn’t something new by any means)
I know this dance intimately because I’ve been both performer and choreographer. I’ve been the designer who had to prove every decision. I’ve been the manager who questioned everything. I’ve been the leader who hired talented people and then, somehow, couldn’t quite bring myself to simply trust them to be talented.
But I’ve also experienced the opposite. I’ve seen what happens when you make a different choice — when you start with trust rather than requiring people to earn it. And once you’ve seen that alternative, it’s hard to go back to the exhausting default.
The Brokenness We Don’t Name
Let’s start with why cynicism feels like wisdom and trust feels like naivety.
We’ve been hurt before. Bad managers who took credit for our work. Failed projects that damaged our credibility. Colleagues who smiled to our faces and undermined us behind our backs. We’ve all accumulated what I think of as a résumé of wounds — a growing list of experiences that teaches us to protect ourselves first and collaborate second.
In metrics-driven, reward-the-output cultures where everything must be measured, trust — being inherently unmeasurable — becomes suspect. “Show me the data” stops being about good decision-making and becomes “I don’t believe you.” We’ve convinced ourselves this is wisdom. The worst thing you can call someone in our world is “naïve”. (A Western idea if there ever was one)
Add to this the zero-sum thinking that pervades most organizations. Promotion pipelines that reward individual heroics over team success. Competition cultures disguised as “pursuing excellence.” The subtle scarcity message that if you succeed, somehow I lose.
But here’s what I’ve learned to believe: these aren’t just professional problems.
They’re spiritual ones.
Look at Genesis 3. The first thing that breaks after the fall isn’t just the relationship between humans and God — it’s the relationship between humans and each other. Adam and Eve, who moments before were naked and unashamed, are suddenly hiding. Covering themselves.
When God asks what happened, Adam immediately blames Eve.
Then Eve blames the serpent.
Trust’s opposite isn’t distrust — it’s fear.
And fear makes us hide, protect, deflect.
We’re still doing this. Every defensive design review. Every carefully worded email that protects us from accountability. Every time we hold back an idea because we’re not sure it’s safe. We’re still in the garden, still hiding, still afraid of being exposed.
Here’s the deeper issue: when I distrust you, I’m making a theological claim about you. I’m saying that the image of God (Imago Dei) in you is insufficient. That God’s work in you can’t be trusted. That I, with my limited perspective, can see more clearly than the one who knit you together. This is functional atheism in the workplace — managing as if God isn’t at work in the people around you.
When said aloud, the arrogance of this is staggering.
What God Shows Us About Trust
If you want to understand what trust actually looks like in practice, look at what God entrusts to profoundly imperfect people.
Start with the parable of the talents in Matthew 25.
A man going on a journey calls his servants and entrusts them with his wealth — five talents to one, two to another, one to another. Then he leaves. No oversight. No check-ins. No status reports. He just… trusts them with it and goes away.
When he returns, two servants have multiplied what they were given. The master’s response? “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things.”
But the third servant buried his talent in the ground. His explanation is telling: “I was afraid.” He knew the master was a hard man, so he played it safe. Protected what he was given. Made sure nothing went wrong.
The master’s response is harsh: “You wicked, lazy servant!” Not because the servant lost the money — because he didn’t even try. Because fear made him hide what he’d been entrusted with rather than investing it.
Now here’s the part we miss: this isn’t primarily about what the servants do with the talents. It’s about what the master entrusted them with in the first place. He gave them his wealth — significant amounts — and then… left. That’s radical trust. He created the conditions where multiplication was possible by giving both responsibility AND the freedom to exercise it.
The condemnation isn’t for trying and failing. It’s for treating the master’s trust as something to preserve rather than invest and multiply.
Jesus Trusts Imperfect People With Perfect Truth
But it goes further. Consider what Jesus does with his message.
He spends three years teaching his disciples, and then he sends them out two by two. Luke 10 is fascinating — he sends out seventy-two disciples ahead of him to every town he’s about to visit. Not just the twelve apostles. Seventy-two people, many of whom we never hear from again, are trusted with representing him and proclaiming the kingdom.
Think about what he’s trusting them with. This is the much needed good news of redemption. The message that will eventually transform the world. And he’s giving it to people who constantly misunderstand him, argue about who’s greatest, and will eventually abandon him when things get dangerous.
Peter will deny him three times. Thomas will doubt. They’ll all scatter when he’s arrested. Jesus knows this. And still, he trusts them.
Then comes the Great Commission: “Go and make disciples of all nations.” Not “wait until you’re perfect, then go.” Not “once you’ve got this figured out, share it with others.”
Just go. I’m trusting you with this.
But here’s what really captures the radical nature of God’s trust: Most of Scripture was written through human authors. God could have perfectly communicated His Word — carved it in stone or written on a wall — and made it unmistakably clear without human intermediary. Instead, He trusted people to write most of it.
Paul’s letters. Luke’s careful investigation and writing of his gospel and Acts. John’s gospel written down decades later from memory. Each author bringing their personality, their context, their particular way of understanding and expressing what God revealed.
God trusted broken, limited, culturally-bound human beings to capture and communicate His perfect Word. He could have controlled the process completely. Instead, He gave them agency — and support through the Holy Spirit — and trusted them to steward what they’d been given.
If God can trust imperfect people to write Scripture and proclaim the gospel, what does it say about us when we can’t trust our team members to make design decisions or solve technical problems?
What We’re Really Afraid Of
Let me name the fear that underlies most distrust, because until we acknowledge it, we can’t address it.
We’re afraid that if we trust people and they fail our trust, we get hurt, cheated, made to look a fool. We’re afraid that delegation looks like abdication, that if we’re not essential to every decision, we’re not valuable. We’re afraid that trusting others means losing control, and losing control means chaos.
Better to maintain the status quo than risk failure.
But here’s what the parable of the talents reveals: the master was angrier about fear-driven inaction than he would have been about risk-taken failure. The two servants who multiplied their talents could have lost it all through bad investments. That’s what risk means. But they tried, and the master celebrated their faithfulness.
I’ve led teams in both trust-rich and trust-poor environments. The difference wasn’t the team’s capability — it was whether people had the freedom to actually use their gifts. Under trust-first leadership, people take calculated risks, propose innovations, solve sticky problems creatively. Under control-oriented leadership, they play it safe and wait to be told what to do. Same people. Different environment. Completely different outcomes.
The cost of distrust isn’t just slower work or lower engagement. It’s that you never discover what people could have done if you’d actually trusted them.
You never see what they might have multiplied because you’re too busy ensuring nothing gets lost.
The Everyday Revolution
So what does trust-first actually look like on a random Tuesday?
It looks like starting from different assumptions.
Instead of “I need to verify this is correct,” you start with “I trust your judgment on this.”
Instead of “let me review before you share it,” you say “keep me posted on how stakeholders respond.”
Instead of “why did you make that choice,” you ask “what led you to that approach?”
The shift seems small. The impact is seismic.
In design reviews, start with “walk me through your thinking” rather than “here’s what I would have done differently.” Assume their decisions have reasoning behind them rather than requiring they prove their choices were correct.
When stakeholders challenge a design direction, ask your designers what they think before offering your own view. Often, they’ve already considered the concern and have good reasons for their approach. If you jump in to defend them before listening, you’re really saying “I don’t trust you to handle this” — even if you think you’re being supportive.
When someone makes a mistake — because everyone does — focus on what was learned rather than why it shouldn’t have happened. The fearful servant buried his talent because he was afraid of consequences. Creating environments where failure is catastrophic creates cultures of hiding and self-protection.
This is what Brené Brown’s vulnerability research really measures: what happens when people feel safe to try, fail, learn, and try again. Scripture showed us this pattern thousands of years before Brown collected her data. Peter denied Jesus and was restored to leadership. Paul persecuted Christians and became an apostle. The entire biblical narrative is God trusting people who have already failed, because failure isn’t disqualifying — fear is.
Seth Godin frames this shift differently in The Song of Significance: we’re moving from cultures built for compliance to cultures built for significance. Industrial-era management (oh, this will be a topic for a different article) treated people as interchangeable parts who needed oversight and control. But people don’t want to be managed into compliance — they want to contribute to work that matters. When you trust someone with something significant, when you give them both agency and support, they don’t just complete tasks — they create meaning. What Godin describes in business terms is what Scripture has been showing us all along: people aren’t resources to extract value from.
They’re God’s image-bearers with gifts meant to flourish.
The choice between compliance and significance is really the choice between the fearful servant who buries his talent and the faithful servants who multiply theirs.
When someone makes a different choice than you would have made, we need to be curious rather than corrective. “Tell me about your thinking here” reveals that most of the time, they considered factors you didn’t, understood context you missed, or applied expertise you don’t have. Starting with trust means starting with curiosity rather than judgment.
This doesn’t mean absent leadership. There’s accountability in stewardship. But there’s a difference between “show me what you’ve created” and “show me every step of how you created it.”
Support plus agency. Context plus autonomy. Trust plus accountability.
Trust as Worship, Work as Sacred
Here’s what might make some people uncomfortable: the idea that our work is secular and our faith is sacred is a Western thought invention that would have confused the apostles.
When Paul writes in Colossians 1:16 that “all things were created through him and for him,” he means all things. Not just church things. Not just obviously spiritual things.
Your design practice.
Your product strategy.
Your sprint planning.
All of it was created through Christ and for Christ. (Yeah, even if you aren’t a believer… surprise!)
Which means trusting your team isn’t just good management — it’s worship.
Think about it: when you design something, you’re participating in the creative mandate of Genesis 1:28. When you solve a user problem, you’re stewarding the capacity God gave you. When you lead a team, you’re stewarding the gifts God gave others.
The talents parable isn’t about investment strategy. It’s about stewardship of what God has entrusted to us. Every team member or peer is a talent you’ve been given. Their gifts, their capacity, their creative potential — these are from God, and you’ve been entrusted to steward them.
When we micromanage someone whose work should be trusted, we’re living out that functional atheism — acting as if oversight makes gifts valuable rather than trusting that God’s image in them is already sufficient.
When you refuse to delegate, you’re breaking the Sabbath principle. God rested not because He was tired, but to model trust. He trusted creation to function according to the patterns He established. Your inability to rest, to let your team function without your constant presence, reveals an inability to trust that God is at work in others.
Every standup meeting is holy ground.
Every design review or 1:1 sync is an opportunity to recognize God’s image in your colleagues.
Every project kickoff is a chance to steward the gifts God gave someone else.
The work of design and the work of faith are not separate. When you give people agency to use their gifts, you’re participating in the multiplication the master expects. When you trust your team, you’re trusting God’s work in them.
This is what Colossians 3:23–24 means: “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.” Your design team isn’t just a work team. It’s a community of image-bearers stewarding the creative capacity God gave them.
Trust isn’t a management technique. It’s a theological position.
An Invitation, Not a Formula
So where does this leave us?
The revolution isn’t about new management frameworks or organizational structures. It’s about a daily choice:
Start with trust or require people to earn it?
Believe God’s image in them is real or require proof first?
Give both support and agency, or instead offer help while withholding freedom?
If God can trust us with the gospel — broken, limited, frequently wrong us — can we trust your team members with the much smaller thing of your organization’s work?
What if trust isn’t the risk we think it is, but the only path to the multiplication we’re actually looking for?
What if the revolution starts Monday morning at standup, when you look at your team and choose to see image-bearers with gifts to multiply rather than resources to manage?
This is an invitation to see your work differently. Not as separate from your faith, but as the very place where your faith becomes visible. Where theology becomes practice. Where worship happens in sprint planning and design reviews and difficult conversations about failed experiments.
Every day, we get to choose: Will we operate like the fearful servant, protecting what you’ve been given? Or will we trust that what God has entrusted to us — including the people on our team — was meant to be multiplied?
The work continues. What God entrusts gets multiplied. And we get to participate in watching His image in others shine brighter than we imagined possible.
That’s not just good leadership. That’s kingdom work.