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Leadership
2021, Vol. 0(0) 1–24
The development and disruption © The Author(s) 2021

of relationships between leaders Article reuse guidelines:

and organizational members [Link]/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/17427150211056738

and the importance of trust [Link]/home/lea

Julie A Wilson
Eastshaw Consultancy, England

Ann L Cunliffe
Fundação Getulio Vargas-EAESP, Sao Paulo, Brazil

Abstract
Our contribution lies in extending theorizing on relationship quality, by illustrating how the in-
terwoven relationships between a leader and ‘follower’ may support or disrupt relationship de-
velopment over time. Based on a study of leaders and organizational members in high-tech start-up
firms, we provide concurrently a broader, more in-depth understanding, and therefore a more
detailed and nuanced view, of how relationship quality develops or is disrupted. In particular, we
highlight the importance of trust, exploring the under-researched topic of how differing inter-
pretations of trust by leaders and organizational members can impact leaps of faith, acceptance,
short-term or longer-term relationship quality. The findings address critiques of Leader Member
Exchange (LMX) theory as the dominant explanatory construct for relationship quality, and highlight
the need for longitudinal qualitative studies to explore the meanings both leaders and individual
members of their organization give to their relationship over time.

Keywords
Relationships, longitudinal qualitative research, disruption, trust

Introduction
The increasing number of studies published each year demonstrate a continuing interest in the
quality of relationships between leaders and ‘followers’ (e.g. Carsten et al., 2018; Day and Miscenko
2015; Schedlitzki et al., 2018). The dominating theoretical construct used to explain this relationship

Corresponding author:
Julie A Wilson, Eastshaw Consultancy, England.
Email: eastshaw@[Link]
2 Leadership 0(0)

is Leader Member Exchange Theory or LMX (Bauer and Erdogan, 2016; Erdogan and Bauer, 2014),
in which quality reflects ‘the extent to which leader and subordinate mutually exchange resources
and support’ (Le Blanc and González-Romá 2012: 534).
LMX has been critiqued for its conceptual and methodological shortfalls. Conceptually, there is
a confusing array of descriptions of how leaders and followers relate and a lack of clarity about the
nature of the relationship being explored, for example, whether the focus is on leaders, followers, on
exchanges, perceptions of exchanges or on perceptions of relationship quality (see Sheer, 2015, for
an overview). The main focus of many studies lies on the four dimensions of LMX (affect, loyalty,
contribution and respect) and describe antecedents, outcomes and mediating/moderating variables of
leader–follower relationships (e.g. Dinh et al., 2014; Stentz et al., 2012), and there is relatively little
research on the factors that disrupt relationship quality (Nahrgang and Seo, 2016). From a meth-
odological perspective, the majority of LMX research is quantitative, based on retrospective surveys
and single time-point studies. This limits our understanding of how and why relationships between
leaders and organizational members change in four main ways. First, such studies use confirmatory
scales and tools that can only capture a limited number of variables/dimensions at any one time,
therefore potentially missing other factors influencing how relationships progress (Antonakis et al.,
2010). Studies focussing on testing one or two additional factors such as communication (Geertshuis
at al., 2015), trustworthiness (Brower et al., 2000; Walker et al., 2011), and trusting behaviours
(Wasti et al., 2011) offer a fractional view of how relationships function. Second, single time-point
studies fail to capture how relationships develop over time or how relationship quality fluctuates in
response to situations within the workplace (see Bauer and Green, 1996, for an exception). This
means that we can only describe the outcomes of positive or negative relationship development
linked to recalled events. Third, the majority of LMX studies connecting relationship quality and
performance are based on the perceptions of either leaders (Tourish, 2014) or followers (e.g. Carsten
et al., 2019) with few matched pairs being explored. Finally, few longitudinal inductive qualitative
studies with leaders and organizational members have been undertaken that elaborate the situated,
mutual, and experiential nature of relationship quality (e.g. Kabalo, 2017), looking for instance at
how communication, trustworthiness, trusting behaviour, emotions and performance at work may
interweave to support or disrupt the development of particular relationships over time (Oh and Farh,
2017).
Our paper addresses these conceptual and methodological issues by using a qualitative, sub-
jectivist, inductive, and longitudinal study of how relationships between leaders and their ‘followers’
develop or are disrupted over time. By development we mean that both participants increasingly
value and respect what each other brings to the relationship. For the purpose of our study, we define
disruption as an event, action, comment, or interaction on the part of either a leader or a follower, that
is contrary to the other person’s expectations and causes that person to question and reassess the
relationship. Disruption may lead to a failed relationship, where one or both parties terminate the
employment relationship. Our contribution lies in extending theories on relationship quality by
showing how relationships between leaders and members of their organization (staff) develop or
may be disrupted over time, and crucially: (a) how relationship quality is interpreted and considered
by both leaders and staff; (b) how and why relationships develop, are disrupted, or fail; and (c) how
trust is implicated. Our focus lies not on the nature of the hierarchical relationship, but the nature of
the interpersonal relationship.
Data collection took the form of a longitudinal study carried out over an 18-month period. During
this time, in order to follow relationship development, interviews were conducted with twelve pairs
of leaders and selected members of their organization at different time points. We focus on one key
theme that emerged inductively from the data, to address the primary research question of this paper:
Wilson and Cunliffe 3

How does the quality of relationships between leaders and their staff1 develop over time and what
role does trust play?
While we focus centrally on trust, we will identify and explain briefly other influences on re-
lationship development. In doing so, we go beyond LMX theory by examining relationship quality
as mutually implicated and unfolding within specific contexts. We therefore offer a more sub-
jectivist, relational, and situated view of the development or disruption of relationship quality.
The paper is organized as follows: First, we discuss why further research is needed on the role of
trust in examining the relationship quality of leaders and their staff. We then explain the meth-
odology and study findings, and finally discuss the implications for theory and practice.

Relational leadership and trust

In 1986, Dienesch and Liden critiqued the then current state of LMX and called for researchers to
develop more multidimensional constructs related to the social aspects of leadership. Over the last
10–15 years, LMX theories, which continued to focus on social aspects by drawing on objectivist
and positivist approaches, have been supplemented by relational theories which draw on a range of
paradigmatic positions, including network, psychodynamic, communicative, and constructionist, to
focus on leadership as a phenomenon generated in the interactions between people. As Uhl-Bien and
Ospina (2012) note, within this paradigm interplay, ‘authors agree that leadership is a relational
(social) process, but they disagree on what that means’ (p.552). They differentiate between variance
and process approaches, with the former assuming causal relationships, fixed entities, and variables
and the latter focussing on relational and social processes of leadership. Relational theories taking
either approach are still mainly based on an objectivist ontology (Cunliffe, 2011), where lived
experience is objectivized as dynamics or processes (cognitive, linguistic, or interactional), traits,
variables, etc. (e.g. Cropanzano et al., 2017; Epitropaki et al., 2017; Fairhurst and Uhl-Bien, 2012).
Cunliffe and Ericksen (2011:1429, italics in original) offer an alternative relational perspective,
suggesting that leadership ‘occurs in embedded experience and relationships’ between people. They
argue that relational leadership is not a statement of relationships between objects or variables, nor
a study of cognition or of process dynamics, but a way of being and relating with others in lived
experience and living conversations. This more subjectivist/intersubjectivist approach to studying
leaders’ relationships is developing slowly (Hosking, 2011; Liu, 2017; Orr and Bennett, 2017; Reitz,
2015). For example, Jian (2021) argues that empathy unfolds in the intersubjective relationships
between leaders and others and this is also our focus – how leader–follower relationships unfold over
time in the specific relationship between a leader and a member of his/her staff.
Relationships between leaders and followers are complex (Wang and Clegg, 2007) and ob-
jectivist theories fail to capture the complex lived experience and situated meanings that both leaders
and organizational members give to the nature of their relationship. Our purpose is to ground our
understanding of relationship quality in real world experiences (Sheer, 2015). We therefore draw on
a subjectivist approach to relational leadership by exploring the meanings leaders and specific
members of their organization ascribe to their relationship: meanings that ‘cannot be isolated from
the context in which they are embedded’ (Benson et al., 2016: 951). In doing so, we aim to provide
concurrently a broader, more in-depth qualitative understanding and therefore a more detailed and
nuanced view of relationship quality.
An influential study of trust is Mayer et al. (1995) who propose a model which identifies three
factors of perceived trustworthiness – ability (skills, competence), benevolence (the trustee will act
to benefit the trustor) and integrity (acting in accordance with the trustor’s principles) – along with
the trustor’s propensity to trust. Further, McAllister (1995) differentiated between cognition-based
4 Leadership 0(0)

and affective-based trust. The former is evidential in terms of competence, performance, reliability,
dependability, etc. (e.g. Dietz and Hartog, 2006), while the latter relates to more emotional issues
such as care, concern, integrity, honesty, friendship (e.g. Nienaber et al., 2015). This work led to
further research on trust and relationship quality, much of which is quantitative and focuses on the
leader’s trust in the follower and the follower’s perception of the leader’s trust in him/her (Brower
et al., 2000).
Our study extends this work by using qualitative methods to examine how both leaders and
individual staff members interpret trustworthiness, trusting behaviour, and the impact on the nature
of their relationship. We define trustworthiness as occurring when one individual is willing to make
him or herself vulnerable to another (e.g. Rousseau et al., 1998). Trusting behaviours are defined as
risk-taking actions (Wasti et al., 2011), which may include a leader disclosing information, del-
egating or giving autonomy, supporting progression and promotion, and introducing staff to social
and professional networks. Trusting behaviours of staff include offering discretionary effort, dis-
closing information, and benevolent actions towards the leader (Wasti et al., 2011). We illustrate that
trusting behaviours and trustworthiness were noted as important by both leaders and staff in the
interviews in their assessment of their relationship.
Typically, leadership theorists view assessments of trustworthiness as antecedent to high-quality
relationships through an iterative exchange process (Bligh, 2017). Also, many existing studies
generally theorize trust, performance and relationship quality as outcomes of relationship de-
velopment, where leader interventions influence the level of trust that a leader can gain from his/her
followers (Hernandez et al., 2014). While this understanding has benefits, it can also lead to an
overly one-sided instrumental input-output focus and research is needed around how leadership and
trust develop and change within leader–follower dyads (Dinh et al., 2014). We propose that re-
lationship quality, trust, and trusting behaviours are not outcomes, but interrelated constituents of an
iterative and emergent process of relationship development on the part of both leaders and staff. In
particular, we address an under-theorized aspect – how relationships may be temporarily or per-
manently disrupted because of trust-related issues on the part of either leader or staff member. By
disrupted we refer to an event or issue that causes one or both persons to re-evaluate the relationship.

Methodology
[Wilson] designed a qualitative, inductive, longitudinal study to explore the perceptual, temporal
and experientially complex nature of relationship quality development. Twelve leader–staff pairs
were studied, consisting of 21 individuals in 8 UK hi-tech start-up firms. The leaders interviewed
were founders and owners of their organization. Members of staff were selected on the criteria that
they had been with the company for less than 6 months. The context was chosen because the quality
of relationships is particularly important in new technology firms, which ‘are known to be volatile
dynamic organizations whose innovations are subject to short life cycles and product imitability’
(Gannon et al., 2015: 27). The high-tech environment also offers an alternative to the majority of
leadership research, which is carried out in corporate organizations (Ayman and Korabik, 2010). All
start-up organizations are subject to both external pressures (competition, legislation, barriers to
entry) and internal issues (lack of funding, lack of experience, breakdown of relationships within the
firm). Hi-tech start-ups are particularly susceptible to such problems given the high costs of de-
veloping the product within rapidly changing market places where competition is likely to be fierce.
This environment increases the internal pressures within a start-up, so that leader–staff relationships
are vulnerable to failure (Zaech and Baldegger, 2017). This context therefore offers a fresh per-
spective on how relationship quality develops between leaders and staff.
Wilson and Cunliffe 5

The world of hi-tech start-ups is a fairly closed community, generally accessed through rec-
ommendation and personal introductions because of the competitive/sensitive nature of their
business, therefore a snowball sampling technique was used to gain access to a group of individuals
who were unlikely to respond using cold contact methods. The sample did not attempt to be
representative of the high-tech start-up environment, although the predominantly white, male and
under-35 set of participants mirrors the make-up of this context (Nathan et al., 2013).
Three sets of interviews with each leader–staff pair (each being interviewed separately) were
carried out every 3 months using semi-structured interview questions informed by theory but
deliberately left open to allow additional issues to emerge. The questions aimed to elucidate changes
in how each pair experienced their relationship over the three time points, and as such were broadly
similar in scope at each meeting. The questions were trialled in a pilot study of software engineers
involved in corporate banking in the City of London.
In total, sixty interviews took place over a period of 18 months in a variety of locations depending
on convenience and the need for privacy, including local coffee shops, work-space offices, and
where necessary Skype or telephone. All conversations were recorded digitally, anonymized to
maintain confidentiality and the transcript was shared with each respondent to ensure they were
happy with the information they had provided. Interviews lasted between 30 and 90 min with a mean
length of 57 min, and resulting in over 35,000 words. Longitudinal studies examining leader–
member relationships from early stages are rare, yet can add important insights relating to the
development of relationship quality (Liden et al., 2015: 415). The initial interviews in this study
were carried out soon after recruitment of the staff member.
With respect to the larger study, data were coded from a realist, objectivist perspective into
primary and secondary themes to allow comparison across the data set. However, we became aware
that the richness of the qualitative data and the emerging significance of the theme of trust, warranted
a more subjectivist and interpretive examination of how trust impacts relationship quality over time.
Therefore, this paper focuses primarily on the theme of trust, and consistent with our qualitative
subjectivist approach we returned to the raw data and used a more subjectivist grounded theory
approach (Charmaz, 2006). Staying close to the comments and language of participants, we
identified in vivo themes associated with trust, followed by a more focused thematic interpretation
relating to trust that allowed comparisons across the data and across the time points. Table 1
summarizes the in vivo and focused themes of relevance to this paper.

Findings
We now examine the progress of twelve relationships, starting with retrospective observations of
first impressions of each participant, then track how relationship quality grew or failed over the 18-
month period, including additional feedback from participants obtained after the study. We discuss
influences on the development or disruption of relationships at each of the three interviews. Table 2
presents an overview.
Overall, all twelve relationships had positive first impressions in the initial recruitment inter-
views. Had these been negative, the relationships would have ended at that point, in which case there
would have been no further relationship to study. From the first set of interviews, a number of
influences emerged inductively from the data, which demonstrated relationships were developing in
either a positive way or a negative way. Five of the relationships continued to grow positively
through over time. For three, the relationships were disrupted by events or issues that caused either
the leader or staff member to evaluate the relationship, but then the relationship recovered. For four
pairs, events took place that disrupted relationship quality to a point where employment was
6 Leadership 0(0)

Table 1. Summary of themes.

Time In vivo themes Focused themes

First impressions Skills and capabilities, intelligent, friendly, Affect, interpretations of ability,
open communication, manner, calm, interpretations
motivation, admiration, sense of humour, of potential trustworthiness of
honest, hope leader and employee
by each other, communication
First interviews Commitment, liking, fun, laughter, respect, loyalty, Affect, ability, performance,
admiration, unmet or met expectations, shared demonstrated trustworthiness,
values, stress, autonomy, integrity trusting behaviour (by leader and
employee)
Second interviews Calm, friendly, confident, open/closed Affect, ability, performance,
communication, close/distant relationship, ongoing trustworthiness,
hardworking, integrity, problem solver, trusting behaviour (by leader and
inability to complete work, loyalty, respect, employee)
valued contribution, delegation, un/predictable
behaviour,
defensiveness, over-reacting
Third interviews Friendly, ethical behaviour, open/closed Affect, ability, performance,
communication, pride in work, reliable, ongoing trustworthiness,
success, erratic behaviour, failure to act, trusting behaviour (by leader and
insecure employee)

terminated. We explicate the factors that appeared to support, disrupt or cause relationship quality to
become so negative that the relationship failed entirely. The results are presented in chronological
order, beginning with first impressions. To aid clarity, all leader pseudonyms are followed by the
letter ‘L’ and staff pseudonyms by ‘S’.

The development of relationship quality over time

First impressions
Relationships start to form on first meeting and first impressions inform the first few months of
interactions (Liden et al., 1993). Nahrgang et al. (2009) suggest that after the first few months,
relationships stabilize and first impressions diminish. [Wilson] asked participants retrospectively
about their first impressions of the other person between one and 6 months after they first met.
The importance of liking and ability are evident in these initial interviews. When Leon (L)
described meeting Edward (S) he was effusive about how much he liked him immediately and how
effective he thought he would be in his role:

Leon (L): I guess he’s about the nicest guy I’ve ever met… The guy is brilliant at his job with tons of
experience…he has this big open face, he’s really smiley. He didn’t look like he was trying to hide
anything. He seemed to care and when I introduced him to the rest of the board, they all really liked him
too and thought he was the kind of person they could work with.

While assessments of ability are unsurprising, they were matched with more personal and visual
interpretations by Leon of openness, caring and being ‘smiley’ – which we suggest are relational
Wilson and Cunliffe 7

Table 2. Development and disruption to relationships over time.

First After data

Leader Employee impressions First interview Second interview Third Interview collection

Lois Jeremy Positive Positive Positive Positive Positive

Les Dave Positive Positive Positive Dave returned
to the US
Laurence Fred Positive Positive Positive Positive Positive
Leopold Harry Positive Positive Positive Positive Positive
Lloyd Ken Positive Positive Positive Positive Positive
Maddie Positive Disrupted Failed - -
Conflicting Maddie
views of work resigned
requirements
Lorenzo Gail Positive Positive Positive Disrupted Positive
Gail Lorenzo
considered promoted
leaving based Gail, and
on Lorenzo’s provided
behaviour training
Lance Adrian Positive Positive Disrupted Positive Positive
Lance’s erratic Lance’s Adrian
behaviour & behaviour continued to
inconsistent improved work for
feedback Lance
Chris Positive Positive Disrupted Positive Positive
Lance’s erratic Lance’s Chris
behaviour & behaviour continued to
inconsistent improved work for
feedback Lance for 2
years
Bill Positive Positive Disrupted Disrupted Failed
Lance’s erratic Bill lost faith Bill resigned
behaviour & in Lance;
inconsistent Lance
feedback resented Bill’s
negativity
Leon Edward Positive Positive Disrupted Disrupted Failed
Edward’s lack Edward was Edward
of ability & demoted to resigned
feeling out of a lower role before he
the loop could be
fired
Lisa Izzy Positive Positive Positive Disrupted Failed
Lisa believed Izzy was let
Izzy was go
unable to fulfil
her role
8 Leadership 0(0)

qualities because they are connected with Edward’s potential trustworthiness and likability which he
saw as creating the potential for good quality relationships with others within the organization.
Reflecting on his first impressions of Ken (S), Lloyd (L) also spoke of likability and connected this
with honesty and intelligence:

Lloyd (L): You’ve got to be likable, but generally I think that if you’re honest, you’re generally going to
be likable, I think it’s mostly about being honest, articulate and being clever as well…He just came across
as all of those things.

Ken’s first impressions were also favourable, relating to his appreciation of Lloyd’s ‘good reputation
in the industry’ and his transparency about the company’s financial position and future. We suggest
this indicates that first impressions are therefore not only about ability, but also emotional and
affective connections and assessments of integrity.
The focused themes from reflections by all study participants suggest three influences on initial
relationship development, how each person assessed the: (i) trustworthiness (ability, honesty and
integrity); (ii) communication (open and articulate); and (iii) affect (likability) of the other. But,
whereas LMX theories often view trustworthiness as a discrete, early-stage relationship process
where trusting behaviours will follow later (Van der Werff and Buckley, 2017) our research
contained examples of trusting behaviours occurring early in the relationship connected with first
impressions. For example, Les’s (L) initial assessment of Dave’s (S) trustworthiness led to him
giving Dave access to the company’s most prized asset, the code base (the software that creates the
company’s product online) at the end of Dave’s job interview. This was a significant risk for Les that
could have backfired had Dave not accepted the job – with trust comes potential vulnerability – but
the relational and mutual aspect of trust can be seen in Dave’s comment that ‘I don’t think that ideas
should be secret’. Lance (L) acted similarly with his employees Adrian (S), Chris (S) and Bill (S).
This highlighted the reciprocal nature of trust with Adrian signing an employment contract giving
Lance control of any material that he produced outside of work hours. He commented:

Adrian (S): So signing that now is an act of trust because it means that if I want to work on anything
outside and not have [the company] own it I can’t unless Lance says so.

When asked if he trusted Lance’s word, Adrian responded that he did, indicating that they trusted
each other having openly communicated about intellectual property rights. Indeed, within each
interviewed pair, trusting behaviour involved a mutual assessment of the trustworthiness of each
person, even in their first conversation. But, as Lorenzo (L) noted, trust also involves having faith in
yourself as well as others, and does not guarantee anything:

Lorenzo (L): You know, at interview, you hope, you trust your judgement but you can’t possibly trust the
person, there’s a lot of hope.

The start of Lisa (L) and Izzy’s (S) relationship provides another example of the relationship between
initial trust and early trusting behaviour. Izzy had returned from the USA and wanted an internship.
She contacted Lisa, whose company she had recently researched, feeling it offered an exciting
opportunity. At their initial meeting, Lisa was aware of Izzy’s lack of formal experience but risked
giving her a job, trusting that she could do it.
Wilson and Cunliffe 9

Lisa (L): She had some experience of social media stuff but she hadn’t worked in the technology sector or
anything like that before.

From Izzy’s perspective, she took the risk of offering her services for free on the basis of her first
impressions of Lisa’s talent and energy, trusting that she would eventually be financially
rewarded:

Izzy (S): At that time [Lisa] was doing it all by herself and I thought that’s bloody amazing, like you’ve
managed to put this app out, you’re doing all these interviews. You’re running it and trying to develop it
further all by yourself, this is incredible.

Her decision was based not only on an assessment of Lisa’s achievements, but also on her feelings of
admiration for how much had been accomplished and the women-focused social ethos of the
company, which Izzy found appealing.
These examples illustrate the interrelated nature of cognitive and affective aspects of trust
(Massey et al., 2019), that assessments of potential ability or integrity (cognitive) and liking and/or
feelings of admiration (affective) – in this case by both parties – influence relationship development
early on. Communication skills also appeared as a key factor in deciding to trust the other party.
Our findings contribute to the relatively small amount of work on the longitudinal process of
trust development (Van der Werff and Buckley, 2017) and differ from much of the existing
literature. Whereas much trust research focuses on followers demonstrating trusting behaviours
or garnering trust from leaders, our data shows that trust can be mutual based on how leaders and
followers interpret the words and actions of each other. In contrast to studies where trust is an
outcome of relationship quality (e.g. Dietz and Den Hartog, 2006), our data indicates that
trusting behaviour such as sharing the code base can occur early in a relationship and help build
mutual trust.
The first recognition of early trusting behaviours is found in work on predispositions to trust,
supported by more recent work on the influence of prior knowledge before leaders and followers
meet. McKnight et al. (1998) suggested that individuals were more predisposed to trust if they
had both a general faith in humanity and a trusting stance (where benefits derive from treating
others as though they are trustworthy until proved unreliable). Delgado-Márquez et al. (2015)
expanded this, arguing that a trustor’s prior knowledge about a trustee influences trusting
behaviours because initial knowledge reduces uncertainty and allows a trustor to more accu-
rately determine how a trustee might behave in future situations. While our data partially
supports this in that prior knowledge in the form of information about the company, owner and/
or past performance played a part, assessments about trustworthiness were more relational –
made upon first meeting by both leaders and staff member and based on affective issues such as
liking, openness, integrity, and caring. This suggests the need for a more comprehensive ex-
planation than predispositions.
What emerges from our study is that trust was not an outcome of trust-testing behaviours but
concurrent experiences including first impressions, and involved both cognition and affective-based
trust, that is, interwoven interpretations and feelings of liking, integrity, ability and communication
skills, that we suggest facilitate a socio-emotional connection between leaders and individual staff
members. Across the twelve relationships, these aspects appeared consistently at the start of each
relationship.
The next section describes how each pair viewed their relationship in the first interviews.
10 Leadership 0(0)

First interviews
Positive relationships. For many of the relationships in the study trustworthiness, trusting behaviour
and mutual trust continued in a positive vein. First impressions were strengthened around the
affective theme of liking, fun, laughter, and benevolence. These findings are in line with recent
literature around workplace relationships where affect and friendship are associated with positive
emotions at work, higher creativity, performance and reduced staff turnover (Buch and Kuvaas,
2016; Colbert et al., 2016; Little et al., 2016). They also appear to confirm Dysvik et al.’s (2015)
findings that the better the quality of socio-emotional relations, the greater the likelihood of co-
operation and information exchange between leaders and followers. But whereas these studies treat
socio-emotional aspects as causal factors in performance, we suggest they are relational qualities that
are key to leaders and staff making mutual connections that impact the trust and confidence each
place in the other – in positive and negative ways.
This is reinforced in the example below. The word ‘laughter’ appeared frequently from first
interviews onwards and was often teamed with performance:

Izzy (S): In the office it’s definitely a fun atmosphere. We definitely get our stuff done but we have room to
play around and have a laugh … but that’s also part of [The Company]. If we were just quiet, just solidly
working and in our own individual worlds [The Company] wouldn’t be what it is… So, if me and Lisa
didn’t get on or didn’t have a positive like fun friendly relationship in the office, the product would suffer.

Positive relationships were also linked to respect and loyalty. Both leaders and staff made comments
about having respect for each other and admiring the other party. Loyalty took the forms of ‘not
wanting to let the other person down’ and doing well for the other person – feelings that grew over
time unless something occurred to disrupt them as in Leon (L) and Edward (s) and Lisa (L) and Izzy
(S) relationships. Trust continued where promises were fulfilled and declined when one person felt
let down, demotivated or over-managed (on the part of staff), or promises or contracts were broken.
Our findings support Abu Bakar and Sheer (2013) and Sheer’s (2015) conclusions that positive
perceptions were linked to commitment, communication, support, trust, individual performance and
high-quality relationships. However, as we will now show, they differ in that this array of factors can
also disrupt relationships when problems arose.

Relationship disruptions
Whilst most relationships were doing well at this stage, some were not. Trust quickly deteriorated in
Lloyd (L) and Maddie’s (S) relationship. For Lloyd, this related to his feelings about Maddie’s signs
of extreme discomfort when she felt under stress:

Lloyd (L): Crying at work…at various times, you’d see her go to the toilets and crying… and that’s when
I thought it was all my fault. Oh my god, what have I done? I can’t believe I’ve ruined someone’s life …
She really wanted to do a good job… she wanted to do too much and got upset when things weren’t going
well on the project. In a small company you’ve got to do lots of things…and you’ve got to do them well
but you don’t have time to focus on one thing and I think she wasn’t suited to that.

His assessment of Maddie’s lack of ability to multitask and cope with stress was the undoing of their
relationship and caused him to reflect on his own judgement. While from Maddie’s perspective she
felt she was asked to take unacceptable shortcuts:
Wilson and Cunliffe 11

Maddie (S): There’ll be parts [of a project] that won’t work but you can still get it through…which I’m
not comfortable with… so my standards are a little bit lower… It really doesn’t sit well with me and
because I feel that my role has … not been properly defined or changed, I don’t have that much respect
and doubt the integrity of the company at the moment.

The quality of their relationship suffered because Maddie felt that Lloyd had let her down – she had
trusted him to provide a role that she could fulfil and he had failed to behave in a way that protected
her interests. Lloyd felt that Maddie was unable to cope with the work and that her personal
standards were more important than the company’s needs. Both withdrew trusting behaviours: Lloyd
stopped delegating tasks that were above routine and Maddie resigned shortly after the interview,
thus showing the mutual, darker and iterative side of trust and how it may decrease over time and
disrupt relationship quality.
Relationship quality can therefore be affected in positive and negative ways as cognition-based
(ability, predictability/reliability) and affect-based (respect, care, loyalty) trust plays through re-
lationships (Colquitt et al., 2007; Frazier et al., 2016). While there are questions in the literature
around whether ability, benevolence and integrity have a unique or collective impact (Poon, 2013),
our findings indicate that they are mutually implicated, that trust is an issue for both leaders and
individual staff members, situated in how each assesses the behaviour and intentions of the other and
understands the nature of their relationship.

Second interviews
Between the first and second interviews seven relationships developed, one relationship failed
(Lloyd (L) and Maddie (S)), and four were disrupted (Lance (L), Bill (s), Chris (S) and Adrian(S);
Leon (L) and Edward (S)). The reasons related to the main themes of trust, affect and ability.

Positive relationships
By the second interview, positive relationships were continuing with increasing reports of trust,
trusting behaviour, good communication, and strong affective ties. The interplay of these issues
seemed to strengthen relationships as seen in Jeremy (S) and Lois’s (L) case where each recognized
the other’s ability:

Lois (L): I think he’s starting to get used to the start-up environment. He’s always been in big corporates,
so I think that jumping ship and being in a start-up was a new scary thing for him… I think that now he
sees that we can try and do things and if we fail, that’s fine, we’ve learnt something.

And Jeremy’s confidence had grown in response to Lois’s trust in him, reflected in being given
autonomy ‘without fear’ – especially given that the business is Lois’s ‘life’:

Jeremy (S): [She] gives us all the power to go forward without fear, fear of repercussions… there’s
a certain amount of empowerment to stride forward in the vision as we see our own…she trusts that we’ll do
a good job. When someone does the business and you see how hard they work, but they leave you alone
because they know, trust that you’ll do your part to help that business. Because it’s not just her business, it’s
her life at the moment and she’s given me part of that … that’s very important, it is pretty cool.

Similarly, Izzy (S) respected Lisa’s (L) ability to remain calm and trusted her judgement:
12 Leadership 0(0)

I don’t see her panic very often, which is good, maybe she’s panicking inside and just doesn’t show it …
which is reassuring for me because inside I’m like going “what am I meant to be doing?”

These three excerpts illustrate the mutual and relational nature of trust and its impact on relationship
quality – how Lois’s trust in Jeremy is demonstrated through empowerment and respect (trusting
behaviour), to which Jeremy responds with respect and his absolute belief in her ability to lead the
company towards success (cognition-based trust). This example also highlights the role integrity
plays in trusting relationships, that while they have similar principles and values, importantly in
Jeremy’s eyes, Lois adheres to those principles. Both Izzy and Jeremy spoke about the affective
aspects of trust, being able to communicate, the friendship and laughter in the office. The interplay of
these relational aspects influences trustworthiness and respect: ‘trust begets trustworthiness and
trustworthiness begets trust’ (Korsgaard et al., 2014: 8).

Relationship disruptions
However, not all relationships were running smoothly – disruptions occurred relating to a person’s
unpredictability, ability, or a lack of challenge in work. Contextual issues also impacted trust and the
development of relationship quality.
Lance’s (L) firm needed refinancing and wasn’t performing as well as he’d hoped. He was
spending a lot of time in difficult negotiations with venture capitalists, and employees viewed his
behaviour as erratic. For Bill (a software engineer), Lance’s unpredictability made it difficult to read
his boss’ moods and he wasn’t sure how to react:

Bill (S): So this is why I say there is no real relationship ... Coz in that way I don’t know what are you
thinking, so I can’t know you, I can’t understand what are you thinking now and so what I’m doing [is]
wrong or right?... So, next time what I’m going to do? I don’t know.

This excerpt highlights the relational nature of trust in a sense of being able to understand and ‘know’
the other person, that if trust relates to the ‘expectation that one will find what is expected rather than
what is feared’ (McAllister, 1995: 25) then unknowing and unpredictability are key influences.
Thus, Bill’s uncertainty and Lance’s lack of feedback led to a deterioration in their relationship.
Interestingly, Bill’s and Lance’s views of their relationship contrasted:

Lance (L): I think Bill likes the team, me in particular, like I’m approachable, he comes up and talks to me.

This disparity of views occurred also with Chris (S) and Adrian (S).

Chris (S): He [Lance] has a way of looking at you like you should know your answer and a way of asking
probing questions that just push you into an area where you’re not entirely comfortable.

The relational nature of trust was evident in Lance’s comments about Adrian. While he had trusted
Adrian with the code base early at first meeting (page 12), he was now irritated because Adrian
wasn’t meeting his expectations:
Wilson and Cunliffe 13

Lance (L): I was the one finding the issues… and it’s like, I shouldn’t be finding this.

A similar deterioration occurred, despite a positive beginning, in Leon (L) and Edward’s (S) re-
lationship, also based on Edward’s ability:

Leon (L): We’ve started to divest some of his responsibility onto others. He came in and was doing
a great job on all areas of marketing, [but] he’s not terribly numerate…. So, we decided we would get
someone who could do basic maths in their head to come in and look after the other areas.

Leon’s faith in Edward’s ability (cognition-based trust) diminished and led to what Edward per-
ceived as non-trusting behaviour which caused him to rethink the nature of their relationship:

Edward (S): I just felt I’d been sort of kept out of the loop. I thought potentially I was going to be going
anyway … obviously the relationship between Leon and myself had become quite strained. I’d actually
prepared that Leon was going to let me go and give me my notice.

And later …

To be an entrepreneur as Leon is, you have to be of a certain mindset and maybe, that’s the type of person
I really don’t work well with.

The deterioration in their relationship led Edward to be demoted before the third set of interviews.

Third interviews
Between the second and third interviews, of the seven positive relationships four continued to be so,
one ended in a mutually amicable way, and one was disrupted. Of the four disrupted relationships,
two remained disrupted, while two recovered. This indicates the importance of longitudinal studies
in studying these issues.

Positive relationships
Laurence’s (L) early positive assessment of Fred (S) was upgraded as they got to know each other
over time, and by the last interview he had complete faith in Fred based on a set of judgements made
over the preceding months relating to ability, affect and trust:

Laurence (L): I’ve seen that Fred [is] actually really good at his job... he’s one of the nicest guys I ever
met, like he’s got great morals and he’s not a pushover […] he’s not gonna get walked over or anything
like that… I think better of Fred every day to be honest.

Laurence valued Fred’s integrity as a moral human being and as someone who would stand up for
himself. This feeling was mutual, with Fred increasingly enjoying his role, becoming aware of
Laurence’s appreciation, and respecting his abilities as a leader:

Fred (S): I actually do have quite a lot of pride in my work and I want us to be really good… I’m seeing
more and more how he manages the team … I think that’s really good you know […] his leadership has
14 Leadership 0(0)

contributed to [our] success as well, he’s bought these people together and focused them on what they
need to be doing…

These two excerpts suggest that both leaders and members of their organization continually assess
the nature and quality of their relationships, and that this involves not only a mutual assessment of
ability but also socio-emotional aspects such as bringing people together, feelings of pride, and being
‘nice’. Together these can increase confidence and trust in each other.
Ongoing assessments of the relationship’s value by both leaders and individual staff members
was therefore an integral part of relationship quality development and included subjective per-
ceptions of trustworthiness, proven ability, and trusting behaviour. As Lloyd (L) commented about
Ken (S) in this third interview, his estimation of the quality of their relationship was based on
a number of factors:

Lloyd (L): He is someone who is cheerful, hardworking, reliable, capable, somebody who naturally gets
on with others anyway, so this is an easy working relationship.

And on this basis, he promoted Ken, indicating Ken’s trustworthiness and Lloyd’s trusting be-
haviour. As Kuvaas et al. (2012: 757) note, socio-emotional relationships are “characterized by
a long-term orientation, where the exchanges between leaders and followers are on-going and based
on feelings of diffuse obligation, and less in need of an immediate ‘pay off’.” These sentiments were
reflected in our data. Where relationships were positive, both leader and staff member wanted it to
continue, for example, Jeremy (F) felt that even if the business was bought out, he wouldn’t want his
working relationship with Lois (L) to end:

Jeremy (S): I’ve enjoyed working for her so much that I’d like to continue that…

Across the interviews we see a similar interplay of considerations across positive relationships over
time: respect, integrity, liking, pride, reliability and proven ability are all influential, linked to
trusting behaviour such as support and promotion (Wasti, et al., 2011). However, poor perceptions of
performance and disruptions to relationship quality were also evident in the third interviews.

Relationship disruptions
By contrast, a number of the relationships didn’t progress smoothly, disrupted by a perceived
inability of the leader or staff member to perform a role, or by breaches of trust. Lisa and Izzy’s
relationship – which started off on a positive footing – was disrupted and the quality of their
relationship decreased. Despite giving Izzy the benefit of the doubt in their initial meeting, coaching
her to develop her skills, and having a friendly relationship, in the final interview, Lisa was
struggling with Izzy’s inability to meet her expectations:

Lisa (L): For me, this is kind of the last thing, if she can’t do this, I’m gonna let her go […]. I’ve always
known this about her and I’ve been realizing that she couldn’t do it and I was expecting too much from
her. I think in a lot of businesses there’s always a need for people that are doers and get stuff done, but
we’re a start-up and there’s six people. And, if there’s one person that isn’t singlehandedly pushing
forward the part that they’re looking after, it’s not progressing and I can’t do her part of the business as
well as my part of the business.
Wilson and Cunliffe 15

Lisa’s comments raise two issues, trusting someone to do their job and trusting one’s own judgement
in relation to another person. Lisa risked giving Izzy a position without her having any experience
and in the first interviews, both commented on their close relationship. However, at this stage Lisa
feels she expected too much and that given the circumstances she had to let Izzy go.
The issue of trust and performance emerged in the study as reciprocal, not only in terms of leaders
feeling that it was part of their role to assist their employees to perform, but also in employees
supporting their leader:

Gail (S): …it would be nice for me to get to know him [Lorenzo]a bit better and also ask him what are
you doing, do you need help with it?

The relationship between trust and performance is complex and cannot be simplified to straight-
forward cause and effect as some studies imply (e.g. Gupta, et al., 2016; Peterson and Behfar, 2003).
For example, Gail (S) felt that a lack of transparency and inconsistency created tension in the
workplace and this led her to question Lorenzo’s trustworthiness and what had previously been
a particularly positive working relationship. Lorenzo was in a personal relationship with a senior
team member, which was negatively influencing office relationships because she enforced rules she
didn’t personally follow. Gail was sure that Lorenzo was aware of the inconsistencies but did nothing
about them. For Gail, this issue was significant because she felt the professional working atmosphere
was undermined and Lorenzo’s failure to act created tension and led to a lack of trust in his ability to
act ethically:

Gail (S): [This created] tension, bad feeling and hostility… I think if they weren’t together that that would
have been dealt with… nipped in the bud very, very early on, but it hasn’t been and as a result people
notice it and think that there’s a problem...

Failure to perform was undoing another relationship. Edward’s (S) and Leon’s (L) experiences had
become increasingly negative over time due to Edward’s lack of ability. Leon described his feelings
about Edward after he had hired a replacement Chief Marketing Officer, whilst Edward was still at
the company and nominally in that role:

Leon (L): I thought he was really great. I still think he’s great as a person, he deserves success in his life.
[…] If he had confidence, numerically, then he would do the tracking and get it right and lead with it as
a way to express ‘this is how well I’m doing or how badly I’m doing’.

So while Leon thought Edward was still a ‘great person’ (affect), his ability was lacking, he was
underperforming and Leon’s trust in him had diminished. Aware of this, Edward felt insecure and
unhappy:

Edward (S): …that was the point when I thought this is it, I can’t just keep doing this, this is not good,
this isn’t a good relationship.

Because of their assessment of the ability and intentions of each other, trust decreased, and so did
their relationship. Neither Edward or Leon seemed to feel that their relationship could be restored
and their increasingly negative views of each other were expressed though their interactions. Leon
knew that employing a new Chief Marketing Officer would impact Edward:
16 Leadership 0(0)

Leon (L): For Edward, it will be pretty galling, I think to be reporting to this guy, so that might be
a difficult conversation. That’s why I think this guy expects him to probably shuffle on.

Adrian (S) and Chris (S) described how their boss (Lance) became erratic and intimidating whilst he was
struggling to refinance the firm. In other words, his trustworthiness in terms of being predictable was
reduced, which influenced their respect for him. However, they forgave him when they later understood
the context and by interview three, they professed themselves content with their relationship. For Bill,
however, his trust in Lance did not recover and despite receiving his long-awaited pay rise he sought
employment elsewhere. Oh and Farh (2017) provide an explanation for these different responses arguing
that employee responses to abusive behaviours may differ depending on context. They may attribute poor
behaviours to the situation rather than to the leader and will therefore forgive displays of abuse, providing
that they are discontinued after the stressful situation has passed. Adrian and Chris forgave Lance because
they felt that his behaviour was situational and unlikely to return once the funding crisis was resolved.
Gail’s (S) relationship with Lorenzo (L) also recovered because Lorenzo had learned to trust her
ability, commenting:

Lorenzo (L): Now I have trust that she’ll certainly give it a good go, and also I guess I can trust a bit
more of my own judgement because I can see enough of her skills.

A few weeks after the third interview (November 2014), [Wilson] contacted Gail to see how things
were progressing. She reported that the inconsistencies had finally been dealt with and that because
of her performance, Lorenzo was aiming to promote her into a new role. This recognition of her
performance, Lorenzo’s resolution of the issues (his performance), and Gail’s promotion (Lorenzo
displaying a trusting behaviour) restored her view of their relationship.
In the relationships where trust was disrupted, Edward, Bill and Maddie (Ss) resigned, feeling
their relationships with their respective bosses Leon, Lance and Lloyd (Ls) were sufficiently toxic
that they had to leave. Lisa (L) made Izzy (S) redundant despite her initial leap of faith in giving her
a job and their close relationship: the company’s product was a social media application and both
women worked together with consumers. Leon (L) deliberately created a situation of demoting
Edward (S) and bringing in someone else to do Edward’s role and line manage him.

Leon commented:

Ed was exceptional, because Ed lives an hour and a half commute away… he does 9-5 every day and then
he goes home and he also carries on working… we understand and trust that he can do that and that he
will go home and work.

Edward’s work ethic however, wasn’t enough for Leon to overlook what he perceived to be
Edward’s shortcomings and Leon was relieved when Edward found another role elsewhere.

Discussion
Relational leadership theories presume that leadership is effective when high-quality relationships
exist. Within LMX, such relationships are characterized by high levels of affect (liking), loyalty,
respect, and contribution (Bligh and Kohles, 2013; Dulebohn et al., 2017; Graen and Scandura,
1987), and feelings of psychological safety which ‘blends trust and respect’ (Edmondson, 2019: 6).
However, when relationships are seen instrumentally as a way of improving productivity and
Wilson and Cunliffe 17

interactions are transactional, low levels of trust, affect, loyalty and respect often occur (Dansereau
et al., 1973; Martin et al., 2016; Schyns and Schilling, 2013). Our findings indicate that relationship
quality is more complex, can shift over time and is situated in that it depends on a particular
relationship – developing in either a positive way or a disrupted way – based on the subjective
interpretations of both leaders and staff of each other as they continually assessed the nature and
quality of their relationship. Trust was an integral part of their assessment, which was not purely
transactional, but also socio-emotional, related to liking, laughter and enjoyment of the work re-
lationship. We also suggest that high-quality relationships are often perceived to be long-term in
focus, involving open communication and a willingness to work through differences by each person.
The study contributes to our understanding of the quality of the relationship between leaders and
followers in three main ways: (1) It extends current theorizing around relational leadership and trust
by illustrating that trust and trusting behaviour are deeply implicated in relationship quality, oc-
curring ongoingly and interrelatedly over time, influenced by both leaders and staff members. (2)
Extending a rarely researched issue – the impact of the disruption of trust on relationship quality – an
aspect that emerged inductively from the data. (3) We also illustrate the value of adopting a lon-
gitudinal interpretive methodology – rarely used on this topic – in providing data on how leaders and
members of their organization experience and give meaning to their relationships over time. We will
expand below.
(1) Trust, trusting behaviour and relationship quality occur ongoingly and interrelatedly over
time: Over the last 10 years, relational leadership theory has expanded beyond positivist, leader-
centric and psychological approaches to study relational processes between leaders and followers as
discursive (e.g. Fairhurst and Uhl-Bien, 2012), co-constructed (e.g. Sklaveniti, 2020), and as re-
lational practices (e.g. Raelin, 2016). While trust has been theorized as an important aspect of
relational leadership (Brower et al., 2000), it is, as Sánchez et al. (2020) observe, often absent from
empirical studies, is rarely studied from a subjectivist and interpretivist perspective, and studies of
trust need to consider role of context and time in ‘real work situations’ (Reid and Karambayya, 2016:
621). Brower et al.’s (2000) integrated model of relational leadership combines LMX and trust to
theorize trust as dynamic and based on a continuous evaluation. Our study addresses this gap,
highlighting the emergent and complex nature of relationships between leaders and staff members,
how they may develop or be disrupted over time, and how trust is implicated in relationship quality.
In contrast to many studies of relationship quality and trust which examine and generalize the impact
of leader and/or followers’ personal characteristics, competence, similarities of attributes and
expectations by using instruments that measure and rate these elements (see Nahrgang and Seo,
2016, for an overview), our findings highlight that trust and trusting behaviours are embedded in the
lived relationships between leaders and staff – in other words they are personal, relate to specific
people, behaviours, events and experiences. As such, they cannot be theorized in simple cause-
effect, predictive, or process terms – we need to consider the meanings each person gives to the
relationship. For example, while Lance (L) and Bill’s (S) relationship deteriorated because of
Lance’s erratic behaviour and Bill left the company, Chris (S) and Adrian (S) continued to work for
Lance despite the disruption; Gail (S) and Lorenzo’s (L) relationship deteriorated as she perceived
him acting with little integrity but then recovered; and Laurence (L) and Fred’s (S) trust and re-
lationship grew over time. While Hernandez et al. (2014) theorize trust as an outcome of relational
leadership behaviour, our study suggests that trust may be expressed upon initially meeting and is
intricately and ongoingly connected with how specific relationships develop over time. We therefore
supplement relational leadership theories by arguing that trusting relationships between leaders and
individual staff members are:
18 Leadership 0(0)

· Mutable – not always an outcome but may be enacted in initial impressions by both leaders and
staff as a ‘leap of faith’. Returning to our working definition of trust as making oneself vulnerable
to another, the study highlights a number of instances where this occurred, as in Lisa and Izzy’s
and Lance and Adrian’s relationship. Trust relationships also change over time depending upon
how each person interprets the relationship and the outcome is not always predictable, as in
Lorenzo’s and Gail’s or Lance’s and Chris’s relationship in which trust was disrupted and
restored.
· Mutual – embedded in the particular relationship and interactions between a leader and staff
member and how they relate with each other. This extends to issues of trust, Cunliffe and
Eriksen’s (2011) observation that leadership is negotiated and constructed in relationships be-
tween people. In doing so we highlight the importance of temporality in the development of
relationships and trust, as we indicate in Table 2.
· Complex – a balance between a number of features including affective (socio-emotional), and
ongoing assessments of ability, performance and trustworthiness of leader and staff member by
each other. Even if some aspects of the relationship are positive, interpretations can disrupt
relationship quality. As Leon (L) stated about Edward (S), ‘I still think he’s great as a person, he
deserves success in his life’, but his lack of trust in Edward’s ability to perform his role meant he
was prepared to take action that would lead to Edward’s resignation.
· Idiosyncratic – while trust influences the development or disruption of relationships it may be
interpreted differently in specific relationships. Trust is therefore embedded in the specific
experiences and interpretations of each pair as each person assesses the other’s integrity,
openness, likeability, ability, behaviour, and performance.

We suggest that relationship quality cannot be theorized in simple cause-effect, objectivized, or

predictive terms as often seen in dominant LMX relational theories. Rather, consistent with
a subjectivist ontology and epistemology we offer interpretive insights that may alert leaders and
‘followers’ to notice what may be happening in their relationship as a means of anticipating how trust
may be impacted and how the quality of their relationship may be disrupted. We build on Sheer’s
(2015) reconceptualization of LMX’s theorization of relationship quality as a two-way social in-
teraction between leaders and followers, suggesting that quality is more than interaction, it relates to
the nature of the relationship and how trust and trusting behaviours are perceived and interpreted by
leaders and staff. The findings indicate that relationship quality emerges, shifts over time – from first
impressions onwards – and is embedded in the interpretations of self and other in specific
relationships.
In summary, our study builds on current relational leadership and trust theories by highlighting
that: (1) Trusting behaviours may occur at the beginning of relationship development rather than
developing after relationships become established; (2) both leader and staff member’s interpretations
of each other’s actions and talk are integral to relationship quality; (3) the development of re-
lationship quality is temporal and iterative based on ongoing assessments that may support or disrupt
relationships; and (4) friendship and emotion are important influences on the process.
(2) The impact of the disruption of trust on relationship quality: The second contribution of the
study lies in foregrounding and illustrating the role of disruption in trust and relationship quality.
Few studies exist on the role of disruption of trust in relational leadership theories. Many trust studies
take a cognitive perspective and few social constructionist researchers have explored trust and
relational leadership (Sánchez et al., 2020). From our relational perspective, trust requires that we are
true to our word and that we act accordingly or as others expect us to, that is, that others perceive us
as being trustworthy. When this does not happen, relationships are disrupted and our findings
Wilson and Cunliffe 19

indicate that responses by leaders and staff to disruption vary and are emergent depending on the
nature of the particular relationship and circumstances. We extend Cunliffe and Eriksen’s (2011)
intersubjective notion of relational integrity by illustrating how trust is based on a sense of moral
responsibility to the other and implicated in moments of difference that are potentially disruptive.
For example, Lisa (L) felt responsible for helping Izzy (S) succeed by supporting her development as
far as she was able, and Gail’s (S) growing frustration with Lorenzo’s (L) behaviour receded when he
indicated his trust by promoting her. Our data indicates that trust is also interpersonal in that both
leaders and ‘followers’ assess and respond to how they are treated by the other, that is, an ethics of
reciprocity (Cunliffe and Eriksen, 2011: p.1439) over time. This brings us to our next point.
(3) The value of a qualitative longitudinal methodology: Ospina et al. (2020) note that collective
and relational leadership scholars must ‘work collectively to clarify appropriate theory–methods
connections’ (p.442). Some longitudinal studies of trust use techniques such as observational
interaction to remove self-reporting bias (e.g. Maxwell and Lévesque, 2014); many qualitative
studies of trust are not longitudinal (e.g. Scarbrough, et al., 2013); and many are neither qualitative
nor longitudinal (e.g. Yang and Mossholder, 2010). We argue that studies employing theoretical
constructs and academic instruments limit what can be said about how relationships develop beyond
identifying a number of causal dimensions. Edmondson (2107, p.17) argues that trust is an ‘ex-
pectation about whether another person or organization can be counted on to do what it promises to
do in some future moment’ and as we have seen in the data, expectations of leaders and staff are
situated in their specific relationship and also vary over time as each responds to the other. This
underlines the need for both longitudinal and qualitative studies because a leader and a staff
member’s expectations of each other, how each sees and interprets trust and the nature of their
relationship, is important in understanding that relationship. The value of a longitudinal qualitative
methodology therefore, lies in capturing how trust, trusting behaviour, and relationship quality are
experienced and shift over time highlighting reasons that may be unanticipated.

Conclusion
The significance of this study lies in illustrating how trust is implicated in leader and staff inter-
pretations of the actions, the intentions of each other, and develops in far more complex and nuanced
ways than current studies allow for. Trust is embedded in specific relationships that may develop or
be disrupted over time as leaders and staff make ongoing assessments relating to the nature of their
relationship. This draws attention to the need for more longitudinal and qualitative studies that
examine the nature of trust and relationship quality within specific relationship contexts, and as
mutual and emergent rather than as causal elements. The study also suggests that contrary to many
LMX studies, relationship quality cannot be determined by surveying leaders and ‘followers’
separately and purely on the basis of theoretical constructs. Rather, we build on relational leadership
theory by drawing attention to the need to consider the entwined, situated and experiential nature of
relationships between leaders and their staff, and how they may develop or be disrupted over time by
a specific event, action, comment, or interaction that is contrary to the other person’s expectations
and causes that person to question and reassess the relationship. Our study also highlights the
personal and emergent nature of relationships and the agency of both leaders and staff in assessing,
influencing and acting upon their subjective perceptions of relationship quality. This suggests that
qualitative longitudinal research on how both leaders and staff perceive their relationship would be
beneficial in furthering the development of theory and in providing organizations with practical
opportunities to improve relationship quality and performance at work.
20 Leadership 0(0)

If researchers want to understand how to improve workplace experience, relationships and

productivity, the quality of leader–staff relationships needs to be considered wholistically, within
a specific relationship context, and as reciprocal and emergent, rather than separate causal elements
that can be measured. Our findings also draw attention to the need for leaders and organization
members to be sensitive to the impact of their actions and words on the quality of their relationships,
to consider relationships as mutually constituted, and to understand how trust can be built from day
one. Central to this is a need for reflexive practice, for questioning how one’s assumptions, words
and actions impact others. By doing so, potential disruptions can be anticipated and dealt with
appropriately (by building or ending the relationship) through dialogue and discussion. Addressing
these issues would add another dimension to relational leadership theories, the need to consider
temporality and to develop research around the ‘living conversations’ (Cunliffe and Eriksen, 2011)
between leaders and staff. Because it is in these conversations and interactions that trust and re-
lationships develop in meaningful, as opposed to instrumental, ways.
Finally, while this study has examined vertical relationships between leaders and staff in a high-
tech start-up context, extending qualitative and quantitative studies across different contexts and also
in relation to managers and employees could develop the resulting ideas. In addition, while our
sample was representative of the high-tech start-up population, addressing the development of
relationship quality in more diverse settings and considering the impact of gender, race, ethnicity,
and sexuality would further enhance our understanding.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or
publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD
Julie A Wilson  [Link]

Note
1. As the terms ‘leader’ and ‘follower’ are integral to LMX theory and are contested, we now use the terms
leaders and staff.

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Author biographies
Julie Wilson focuses on relational leadership and how relations differ in corporate, start-up and third
sector contexts, with a focus on leader–follower relationships in social enterprise organizations. She
has contributed to the Sage Companion of Leadership. Julie is a proponent of mixed methods
approaches to explore workplace relations, trust and performance.

Ann Cunliffe works at FGV-EAESP, Brazil, and is Visiting Professor at the Catholic University of
Milan and Aalborg University, Denmark. She has published work on qualitative research, leadership
and sensemaking in Organizational Research Methods, Human Relations and the British Journal of
Management. She organizes the Qualitative Research in Management Conference.