A leader once asked me how to rebuild trust with a team after a major decision went sideways. I told him the truth he did not want to hear: you cannot. Not quickly, anyway. By the time you need trust, it is too late to build it. Trust is not constructed in crisis. It is accumulated in the thousand small moments when no one is watching and nothing important seems to be happening.
Most leaders think about reputation in terms of big moments. The product launch. The tough client conversation. The company-wide announcement during a layoff. Those moments matter, but they do not create your reputation. They reveal it. What people see in those high-stakes situations is the sum total of years of small, unglamorous decisions that no one was tracking. You do not rise to the occasion. You sink to the level of what you have already built.
Luke 16:10 makes this point with uncomfortable precision: “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much.” Notice the verb tense. It does not say you will become faithful in much if you practice in little things. It says you already are. The “much” is just the “little” under a magnifying glass. How you handle the $100 expense report predicts how you will handle the $1 million budget decision. How you treat the receptionist predicts how you will treat the CEO. The small things are not practice. They are the game.
Reputation compounds like interest in a savings account. Every time you credit someone else for a win, you make a deposit. Every time you admit you do not know something instead of faking it, you make a deposit. Every time you explain your reasoning instead of just announcing a decision, you make a deposit. These moments feel trivial in the moment. No one applauds. No one sends a thank-you note. But those deposits accumulate, and when the withdrawal moment comes, you either have the balance or you do not.
The same is true in reverse. Every time you take credit for a team effort, you make a withdrawal. Every time you pretend to have an answer you do not have, you make a withdrawal. Every time you say your door is always open but visibly bristle when someone walks through it, you make a withdrawal. These moments also feel small. You think no one noticed. But people always notice. And the withdrawals compound faster than you think.
David did not kill Goliath because he suddenly got brave on the day of the battle. He killed Goliath because he had spent years in the wilderness killing lions and bears when only sheep were watching. He built something in private that could hold in public. The Philistine army saw a boy with a sling. David knew he was standing in a fortress he had been building brick by brick for years. Goliath was not the test. The wilderness was the test. Goliath was just the reveal.
Your team is running the same calculation about you. They are not waiting for the crisis to decide whether they trust you. They are deciding right now based on whether you remembered their name, whether you interrupted them in the last meeting, whether you kept a small confidence they shared two months ago. Those are the bricks. The crisis just shows whether the wall holds.
Here is the hard part: you cannot fake this. Behavioral integrity is the alignment between what you say and what you do, and people are experts at detecting misalignment. If you say people matter but you check your phone during one-on-ones, they know. If you say mistakes are learning opportunities but you punish the first person who admits an error, they know. If you say your door is always open but you are annoyed every time someone walks through it, they know. Words are cheap. Patterns are expensive.
The most encouraging part of this is that you can start building today. You do not need permission. You do not need a title change. You do not need a crisis to prove yourself. You just need to start making deposits. Credit someone publicly for something you could have taken credit for. Admit in your next meeting that you do not know the answer to a question. Explain the reasoning behind a decision instead of just announcing it. Keep a confidence someone shared with you even though it would make a great story. Show up fully present in a meeting that does not matter. These are bricks. Lay enough of them, and you will have a fortress.
Proverbs 22:1 says that a good name is to be chosen rather than great riches. That is not just poetry. It is economics. Reputation is the currency that buys you the ability to lead when it costs people something to follow. Money can hire compliance. Only trust can buy commitment. And trust is not purchased in a moment. It is accumulated over years of small, faithful actions that no one was recording.
What small decision will you make today that no one will notice but everyone will feel?
I write about leadership at the intersection of timeless principles and modern workplaces. Follow for weekly insights on building teams that actually work. For more articles like this consider subscribing to my Substack at: https://justinwilson411.substack.com/