The CTO's Trust Deficit

Why even the most brilliant technologists fail without this crucial asset

I'm sitting across from Tom, the CTO of a high-growth fintech company. We're in a dimly lit conference room of a downtown hotel. Even though we're meeting for the first time in person, I've known Tom virtually for nearly a year.

As a CTO coach, I've been guiding him through his company's hypergrowth trajectory, helping him scale his team from 20 to now over 80 engineers. On paper, Tom is crushing it. His CTO Levels™ assessment placed him squarely at a healthy Level 7 – remarkable for someone who's been in the role for just two years.

"So they fired me yesterday," he says. His voice is controlled, but I can see the devastation in his eyes.

I'm stunned. Just last week, we were celebrating his infrastructure overhaul that saved the company nearly $400K annually. His team had been consistently delivering on time. Their quality metrics were solid. He had eliminated tech debt. From where I stand, Tom had been doing everything right.

"What happened?" I ask, struggling to understand.

"The CEO said that there had been a series of conversations with the board about leadership alignment, and they didn't think I was the right fit anymore."

As Tom unpacks what led to this moment, a pattern emerges. The CEO had increasingly excluded him from strategic conversations. The CFO would question his budget requests with unusual scrutiny. The CPO would bypass him in technical decisions, seeking validation directly from engineering managers. Small paper cuts that eventually led to a fatal wound.

Here's what becomes painfully clear: despite Tom's technical excellence, despite his team's delivery, despite all the metrics pointing to success – what Tom had lost wasn't performance. He had lost trust.

Days later, I find myself on a call with another client, Sarah, the CTO of a healthcare analytics company. As we talk through a complex organizational challenge, I notice how differently her CEO speaks about her compared to Tom's situation. "We couldn't do this without Sarah," her CEO mentions casually when he pops into our call. "She's the backbone of everything we build."

The contrast is stark and revealing. Sarah isn't just respected for what she knows – she's trusted for who she is. That trust creates a foundation that allows her to navigate disagreements, make difficult decisions, and occasionally fail without having her fundamental value questioned.

Both CTOs were technically brilliant. Both had strong teams. But only one had cultivated what I've come to recognize as the most precious currency in the C-Suite: trust.

The Invisible Infrastructure

Trust is the infrastructure upon which all other C-Suite interactions are built. Just like the cloud infrastructure supporting your applications, when trust works well, nobody notices it. But when it breaks down, everything built on top of it fails.

For CTOs, this presents a unique challenge. We often rise through the ranks because of our technical acumen – our ability to understand complex systems, architect elegant solutions, and translate business needs into technical implementations. But once we join the C-Suite, these skills become table stakes. What differentiates effective CTOs isn't what they know, but how they're known.

The research backs this up. According to a 2024 study by Deloitte on executive team effectiveness, trust within the C-Suite was the single strongest predictor of overall company performance – more than strategy alignment, operational excellence, or even financial acumen.

In my decade of working with over 300 CTOs, I've observed a stark pattern: technical brilliance without relational trust is a fast track to irrelevance. The most successful CTOs aren't just architects of systems; they're architects of trust.

The Trust Equation

What exactly is trust in a C-Suite context? The Trust Equation, developed by David Maister, provides a useful framework:

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

For CTOs, this breaks down as:

• Credibility: Do you know what you're talking about? This is where technical excellence matters.

• Reliability: Do you deliver on your commitments? This is where execution matters.

• Intimacy: Can people be vulnerable with you? This is where relationship matters.

• Self-Orientation: Are you focused on yourself or others? This is where motivation matters.

Most CTOs excel at credibility – that's how they got the job. Many are strong at reliability – delivering what they promise. But the areas where trust often breaks down are intimacy and self-orientation.

Let me share a personal example. Years ago, as CTO of a growing SaaS company, I found myself increasingly at odds with our CFO. Every budget discussion became a battlefield. Every resource request met with skepticism. I was focused on showing how right I was, how necessary my requests were, how shortsighted his constraints seemed.

What I failed to understand was that by optimizing for being right, I was destroying trust. My high self-orientation – putting my department's needs above shared company outcomes – was eroding any credibility and reliability I had built.

The turning point came when I stopped treating our CFO as an obstacle and started genuinely trying to understand his pressures. I invited him to join our sprint reviews. I asked for his input earlier in planning cycles. I acknowledged his expertise instead of resenting his constraints.

Within months, our relationship transformed. Not because I became less technically correct, but because I became more relationally connected.

Trust Across the C-Suite

Trust manifests differently with each executive relationship. Here's what I've observed in my work with CTOs:

CEO

Trust with your CEO is built on strategic alignment. CEOs need to believe that you understand the business, not just the technology. They need to see that you're making trade-offs that optimize for company success, not engineering elegance.

Trust is lost when: You repeatedly push back on business requirements without offering alternatives, speak in technical jargon that creates distance, or fail to translate technical challenges into business impacts.

CFO

Trust with your CFO is built on financial transparency. CFOs need to believe that you're a responsible steward of company resources. They need to see that you understand the financial implications of your technical decisions.

Trust is lost when: You make surprise budget requests, can't explain ROI on technology investments, or dismiss financial constraints as "not understanding innovation."

COO

Trust with your COO is built on operational reliability. COOs need to believe that your systems will support the business processes they oversee. They need to see that you understand how technology enables operations.

Trust is lost when: Your systems experience unexpected downtime, you make changes without considering operational impacts, or you fail to communicate technical constraints that affect operations.

CHRO

Trust with your CHRO is built on talent development. CHROs need to believe that you're investing in your team's growth. They need to see that you understand people, not just technology.

Trust is lost when: You have high turnover on your team, you shield underperformers from accountability, or you fail to develop leadership within your ranks.

VP of Sales

Trust with your VP of Sales is built on customer impact. Sales leaders need to believe that your technology will deliver value to customers. They need to see that you understand the market, not just the code.

Trust is lost when: You repeatedly miss deadlines that impact sales commitments, you dismiss feature requests without exploring alternatives, or you fail to provide solutions to customer objections.

The Trust Bank Account

Stephen Covey introduced the concept of an "emotional bank account" – a metaphor for the trust that's built up in a relationship. Each positive interaction makes a deposit; each negative interaction makes a withdrawal.

For CTOs, certain behaviors make consistent deposits:

• Delivering on commitments

• Communicating proactively about challenges

• Taking ownership of failures

• Celebrating others' successes

• Showing vulnerability when appropriate

• Making decisions that benefit the company, not just engineering

And others make substantial withdrawals:

• Missing deadlines without early warning

• Blaming other departments for technical failures

• Speaking in technical jargon that excludes non-technical colleagues

• Dismissing business concerns as "not understanding technology"

• Optimizing for engineering elegance over business outcomes

• Keeping your team isolated from the rest of the company

The challenge is that withdrawals typically count more than deposits. Research from relationship science suggests that it takes approximately five positive interactions to offset one negative interaction. This means CTOs must be intentional about trust-building – it doesn't happen by accident.

Signs Your Trust Account Is Overdrawn

How do you know if your C-Suite trust is eroding? Here are the warning signs I've observed with CTOs who are losing trust:

1. You're excluded from strategic conversations that clearly have a technical component.

2. Your opinion is sought later in the process, after key decisions have already been shaped.

3. Your recommendations are frequently challenged with requests for additional validation.

4. Conversations stop when you enter the room or change topic subtly.

5. Your budget requests face disproportionate scrutiny compared to other departments.

6. Other executives go directly to your team rather than through you.

7. You're not included in informal gatherings of the executive team.

8. Your CEO has more frequent 1:1s than previously or starts checking in on details they didn't before.

If you're experiencing multiple items from this list, your trust account may be overdrawn. The good news is that trust can be rebuilt – but it requires intentional action.

Rebuilding Trust: A CTO's Playbook

When trust is broken, it can be repaired. But the approach must be tailored to the specific breach. Here's a playbook I've used with CTOs who needed to rebuild trust:

1. Acknowledge the Reality

The first step is the hardest: acknowledge that trust has been broken. This isn't about admitting fault (though that may be necessary in some cases). It's about recognizing the current state.

I've seen this work effectively when a CTO noticed their relationship with the CEO deteriorating. Instead of becoming defensive, they opened their next one-on-one with: "I've noticed a change in our working relationship, and I value it too much not to address it. Can we talk about what's happening?"

This simple act of acknowledgment opened a conversation that revealed misaligned expectations that had been festering for months.

2. Listen Without Defending

When trust is broken, the natural response is to defend yourself. Resist this urge. Instead, listen with the goal of understanding, not responding.

In one organization, when a CTO discovered the VP of Sales had lost confidence in the engineering team, they resisted explaining all the reasons why the Sales team's requests were unreasonable. Instead, they simply asked: "What would success look like from your perspective?" and then listened. The insights gained transformed their approach to product development.

3. Make and Keep Small Commitments

Trust is rebuilt through consistent reliability. Start with small commitments that you know you can keep, then gradually expand.

After a major budget overrun damaged trust with a CFO, one technology leader started sending weekly updates on spending against projections. These small acts of proactive transparency gradually rebuilt the financial team's confidence in their stewardship.

4. Change Your Patterns

If certain behaviors have eroded trust, changing those patterns signals your commitment to rebuilding.

I worked with a leadership team where the CTO had damaged relationships by dominating meetings with technical details. They adopted a new approach: limiting themselves to three key points in executive meetings and following up with detailed documentation for those who wanted to dive deeper. This simple change dramatically improved their standing with the executive team.

5. Invest in Relationships Beyond Transactions

Trust flourishes when relationships extend beyond immediate work needs. Find opportunities to connect with your C-Suite colleagues as people, not just roles.

One particularly effective strategy I've witnessed is a monthly informal session where technical concepts relevant to current business challenges are explained in accessible terms. What often begins as an educational initiative becomes a relationship-building opportunity that transforms how the executive team views technology decisions.

Measuring Trust: The CTO's Trust Scorecard

Trust can seem intangible, but it can be measured. Here's a simple scorecard I use with CTOs to assess their trust across the C-Suite:

For each executive relationship, rate yourself on a scale of 1-5 (1=Poor, 5=Excellent) on:

1. Communication: How openly do you share information?

2. Collaboration: How effectively do you work together on shared goals?

3. Conflict: How constructively do you navigate disagreements?

4. Commitment: How consistently do you deliver on promises to each other?

5. Contribution: How much value do you add to each other's success?

A total score below 15 for any relationship indicates a trust deficit that needs attention.

Beyond the C-Suite: Trust with Your Team

While this article has focused on trust within the C-Suite, the principles apply equally to your relationship with your engineering team. In fact, trust with your team amplifies your effectiveness in the C-Suite.

Leaders who aren't trusted by their teams can't effectively represent those teams at the executive level. The misalignment becomes apparent, undermining your credibility.

Signs that trust with your team is eroding include:

• Decreased voluntary communication

• Information being withheld until explicitly requested

• Reduced innovation and risk-taking

• Increased attrition, especially among high performers

• Compliance rather than commitment to decisions

Building trust with your team follows the same principles as with the C-Suite: demonstrate credibility, reliability, intimacy, and low self-orientation. The difference is in the specifics of what matters to engineers, which typically includes:

• Technical competence (not necessarily superiority)

• Protection from organizational politics

• Clear, consistent prioritization

• Recognition of good work

• Support for growth and learning

• Transparent decision-making

The Long Game

Building and maintaining trust isn't a one-time effort – it's a daily practice. The most trusted CTOs I work with have made this practice habitual.

They begin meetings by checking in on people before diving into agenda items. They proactively communicate both successes and challenges. They ask for feedback regularly. They admit mistakes quickly. They celebrate others' contributions generously.

Most importantly, they recognize that trust isn't just a means to an end – it's the foundation upon which all other success is built.

Making Trust Your Superpower

As CTOs, we often pride ourselves on our technical capabilities. We stay current on emerging technologies, architectural patterns, and development methodologies. But the real differentiator – the true CTO superpower – is the ability to build and maintain trust.

This requires the same intentional effort we put into technical excellence. Just as you would never deploy untested code to production, you shouldn't approach important relationships without a clear understanding of trust dynamics.

Here are three commitments you can make today:

1. Assess your trust accounts. Use the Trust Scorecard to evaluate your relationships across the C-Suite.

2. Identify your trust patterns. Reflect on when you've built or broken trust. What behaviors contribute to each outcome?

3. Schedule trust deposits. Block time on your calendar specifically for relationship-building activities with key stakeholders.

Remember Tom from the beginning of this article? Six months after his firing, he landed a new CTO role at a company where he's thriving. The difference? He now spends as much time on relationships as he does on technology. His calendar includes regular non-agenda time with each executive colleague. He brings solutions, not just problems. He invites feedback early and often.

"The technology challenges are actually more complex at this company," he told me recently. "But the work feels easier because we're all pulling in the same direction. I've learned that being trusted is more important than being right."

In a world of accelerating technological change, the CTOs who will thrive aren't just the ones who understand the latest technologies – they're the ones who have mastered the timeless skill of building trust.

The question isn't whether you have the technical capabilities to succeed as a CTO. The question is whether you have the relational capabilities to be trusted with that success.

What will you do today to build trust?