Broken Trust at Work: How to Rebuild Team Relationships

When the USA has an accident with a nuclear weapon, they call it a broken arrow. Broken trust in the workplace follows a similar pattern. Something goes wrong, quietly, often incrementally, and by the time anyone names it, the damage is already hard to undo.

This happens in every organisation. However, when a neurodivergent employee is involved, broken trust can arrive faster, run deeper, and be harder to spot until it is too late. This post is for managers who sense something is off and want to understand what happened and what to do next.

TL;DR: Trust follows a formula: credibility, reliability, and intimacy, divided by self-orientation. When any one of those breaks down, the working relationship suffers. For neurodivergent employees, there are specific and often unrecognised ways this happens. This post explains what to watch for and how managers can start to rebuild.

Broken trust at work: why neurodivergent employees are at higher risk

Trust does not usually collapse in one dramatic moment. Instead, it erodes.

A manager who promised reasonable adjustments and never followed through. A performance conversation that missed how executive function difficulties affect consistency. Public feedback that landed far harder than the manager intended.

Neurodivergent employees often carry extra weight into these situations. Employers, schools, and systems have let many of them down before. By the time they are sitting across from you, some have already developed a finely tuned radar for when trust is about to break. And many are masking so effectively that you would never know.

As a result, what looks like disengagement, withdrawal, or inconsistent performance may actually be a broken arrow: a signal that trust has already broken down and that nobody has yet started the conversation.

The trust equation

A useful framework here is the trust equation:

Trust = (Credibility + Reliability + Intimacy) / Self-orientation

It sounds clinical, but it maps directly onto the moments that matter.

Credibility: Do you do what you say you will do? For example, if you commit to a reasonable adjustment and it does not happen, credibility takes a hit. This is especially damaging for neurodivergent employees who may already be uncertain about whether the organisation is genuinely on their side.

Reliability: Are you consistent? Changing how you communicate, altering expectations without warning, or giving feedback in formats that do not work for the individual all chip away at reliability. For someone with ADHD, dyslexia, or autism, inconsistency is not just frustrating. It can be genuinely destabilising.

Intimacy: This is about psychological safety. Does the person feel safe enough to be honest about what is and is not working? For many neurodivergent employees, intimacy is the hardest part of the equation. Masking (the effort of appearing neurotypical at work) actively prevents it. However, if someone cannot take off their mask with their manager, real trust is not possible.

Self-orientation: This is the divisor, so it carries the greatest power to undermine everything else. If an employee believes their manager is more interested in team metrics and optics than in their actual well-being, trust collapses. It does not matter how credible or reliable the manager appears to be.

Triggers managers might not recognise

Most broken arrows in neurodivergent workplaces are unintentional. Here are the situations that most often cause them.

Reasonable adjustments were agreed upon but never implemented. The gap between what a manager promised and what happened is one of the fastest ways to break trust. If adjustments have stalled, that gap needs to be addressed directly.

Performance processes that ignore neurodivergent traits. Measuring someone against standards that nobody designed with neurodivergent employees in mind will always create friction. Consistency, punctuality, response times, and communication style all look different through a neurodivergent lens.

Inconsistent communication. Changing format, channel, or tone without warning is disorienting. For practical guidance on communicating inclusively, Neuroinclusive Meetings: What an Excellent Recipe Looks Like is a good starting point.

Public criticism that lands badly. Often unintentional, but particularly damaging for employees with rejection sensitivity dysphoria. What a manager intends as a light-touch observation can register as a serious personal failure.

Disclosure handled badly. Once an employee shares their diagnosis, the way managers receive it shapes the entire relationship going forward. If the employee senses their disclosure has changed how they are perceived, even subtly, trust can break quickly and quietly.

How to start the conversation

Rebuilding broken trust starts with a conversation. Not a formal review, not a performance discussion. A genuine human conversation about the relationship and what has gone wrong.

That conversation needs three things.

Acknowledgement. Something has gone wrong. Name it, without defensiveness and without minimising it. This does not require blame. It requires honesty.

Curiosity. Ask what the person needs, not what you think they need. Neurodivergent employees often have a clear sense of what would help if they feel safe enough to say it. The question is never really the question. It is the space you create for an honest answer.

Commitment. Agree on something small and specific that you will do differently, and then do it. You rebuild trust through small, kept promises. Not grand gestures.

The hardest part is usually starting. The longer the broken trust goes unaddressed, the harder it becomes to approach. If you are not sure how to open the conversation, a Workplace Needs Assessment can provide a structured, supported way in.

Practical steps for managers

Audit your adjustments. Make a list of everything you agreed to do and check whether it happened. If not, either follow through or revisit the agreement honestly with the employee.

Check your communication. Is the way you communicate working for this person? Do not assume. Ask directly, and be prepared to change.

Read the signals. Withdrawal, inconsistency, and over-performance are all signs that something is off.

Be patient. Trust that has broken down over months does not rebuild in a single conversation. It requires consistent effort over time.

Think about the environment, not just the relationship. Sometimes broken trust is a symptom of a workplace that never had the right foundations for neurodivergent employees.

When to bring in support

Sometimes broken trust is too embedded for a manager to fix alone. The relationship has drifted too far, or organisational systems are getting in the way of progress.

In those situations, a Workplace Needs Assessment can provide an independent, structured look at what is and is not working. It gives both the manager and the employee a shared starting point for rebuilding, without either party having to carry the weight of the conversation alone.

If you would like to explore how we can support your team, get in touch.

Related reading

Loneliness and Masking: What HR Leaders Need to Know

Many broken arrows start with masking. This post explains why trust problems often stay invisible, and what that means for managers who want to get ahead of them.

Reasonable Adjustments: So What Is Reasonable?

If unmet adjustments are at the root of the broken trust, this is the place to start. Clear guidance on what reasonable actually means in practice.

Manager Role in Workplace Needs Assessment

When the conversation feels too hard to start alone, a Workplace Needs Assessment gives both manager and employee a structured, supported way in.

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