People trust CEOs. Sort of.

According to the 2026 PwC US Trust in Leadership Study [PDF], released earlier this week, employees place a lot of value in what CEOs have to say about the well-being of the economy in general. But they’re more skeptical about what they say about the state of their own organizations. Fewer than half (43 percent) say “they completely or nearly completely trust that their CEO communicates honestly about company challenges.”

That shouldn’t be too surprising. Humans are built for pattern recognition, and that skill is particularly strong when the pattern of what they see and what a leader says isn’t matching up. They also know it’s difficult to speak confidently about the future, which is why they’re skittish about CEO proclamations about AI. Only about half of employees are confident their CEO knows about AI’s impact on employment, their industry, and its operations.

This is more than just an abstract consideration around how employees feel about their CEO—it’s about what draws people to your organization and encourages them to say. The report notes that 90 percent of employees say the CEO’s reputation is a key factor in whether they join, stay at, or leave a company.

All of which is to say that what you as a leader say, and how you say it, matters. As the report puts it: “Employee trust is the result of your statements, actions, and policies. Your top employees want to know that you meet their standards for honesty and integrity and, when it comes to specific programs like AI, you’re thinking about their needs and interests. We see time and time again that t. The successful execution of your strategy may very well depend on getting this right.”

This challenge is particularly acute for association executives, because their trust-building work has an impact on both staff and membership. People who join your association because they perceive it as a leader in knowledge around their industry and how to get ahead in it—a group that makes achieving their goals easier than Google, social media, and job sites. Communicating that you understand those needs and are able to deliver on serving them is critical. 

The PwC report makes a handful of recommendations about how to improve that trust with your stakeholders, but two of them stick out. One is to know your spots. The survey found that employees are comfortable with CEOs speaking out about social issues—only 20 percent gave a hard “no” to that. But people want to feel like it’s limited to issues that truly matter to the organization.

The second trust-building gesture leaders can make is straight talk. Big promises and aspirational statements are one thing, the report says, “but you will also want them to understand what gets in your way, and that you too must adapt when things change.”

These are disruptive times—socially, economically, and politically. There’s no value in pretending they’re not, or in pretending you have all the solutions. But communicating that you know the challenges well and are ready to listen to what your people need in the midst of them can help you keep the people you need.