The No. 1 question everyone is asking about you is not “Do I like you?” but “Can I trust you?” A lack of trust is the biggest expense you have. Everything of value is built on trust. In fact, trust is the root cause and the leading indicator. Everything else is lagging.

The only reason you follow a leader or not is trust. The only reason we buy from a salesperson or not, unless it’s a commodity, is trust. The only way to enable learning is to increase trust in the learning environment. The only way to amplify a marketing message is to increase trust. Trust is always the core issue.

What is trust? Trust is bigger than you might think, and it affects everything. Trust is the root cause of success. Everything of value is built on it.

Every time trust increases in an organization, output and retention go up. Costs, problems and skepticism go down.

The greatest advantage you can create is something we call the “trust edge.” Where do you have a lack of trust? What is it costing you?

Last year, the No. 1 reason people wanted to work for an organization was trust in the leadership. People love to be around and buy from people they trust. Last year, nine out of 10 Americans said they would not refer products or services they didn’t trust.

It’s the same with engagement. We don’t get more engagement with engagement. The only way to increase engagement in teams or organizations is through increased trust. Do you want to connect with your people? Think about being transparent in a healthy way. Appropriate transparency leads to more trust for leaders. In fact, we want to buy from financial service professionals and advisors we trust. Last year, 13 million Americans invested $100,000 or more based purely on trust. Do you want people to place their investments with you? Do you want them to buy insurance from you? You’ve got to deal with the issue of trust.

The lack of trust is the biggest expense we have, and it’s worth asking, “What is a lack of trust costing my team? What is a lack of trust costing me?” Because wherever you see a lack of trust, you can think, Oh, that’s costing referrals. That’s costing stress. That’s costing attrition. Wherever you find a cost at the end of the day, you’ll find it affects the bottom line. A cost of attrition, a cost of time, a cost of stress all affect the bottom line. Trust is the root cause of success, whether it’s at home with your family, with your clients and prospects, or with your friends.

If trust is so important, how do we build it? There are eight traits that I call the “pillars of trust”:

1. Clarity. People trust the clear, and they mistrust or distrust the ambiguous and overly complex. If you’re not clear about that financial product, if you make it too complex, then they’re not going to want to buy it from you again because they don’t understand it.
2. Compassion. We trust those who care beyond themselves. The most trusted person in the world to most people is Mom because she tends to have sacrificial intent. If I believe you actually have intent for me, I might put my money with you.
3. Character. People trust those who do what’s right over what’s easy.
4. Competency. We trust those who stay fresh and relevant and capable. I might trust you because of your compassion or your character to take my kids to the ballgame. That does not mean I will trust you with brain surgery or a root canal. You’ve got to be competent.
5. Commitment. We trust those who stay committed even in the face of adversity. If you can think of anybody who’s left a legacy, you’ll find somebody who was trusted by people and who stayed committed to something. How do you rebuild trust once you’ve lost it?
6. Connection. We trust those who are willing to connect and collaborate, who are willing to think of and embrace others.
7. Contribution. We trust those who deliver results.
8. Consistency. We trust sameness. Consistency is king of the pillars. Whatever you do consistently, I’ll trust.

You can solve every organizational and leadership issue against these eight pillars. That doesn’t mean that it is easy. But if you want to solve the challenge or grow your business, you need to think of it in terms of these eight.

What about engagement? You don’t get engagement with engagement. You have to increase trust by increasing one of these pillars. Clear communication is trusted; unclear communication isn’t. High character is; low character isn’t. Consistency is; inconsistency isn’t. When you can solve it against these eight, you have a chance at growing your relationships and your business.

Let’s go deeper with a few ideas you can use to strengthen the clarity pillar. Many of us have come through this time of crisis and recovery, this pandemic, and one thing that is certain, we will have uncertainty again. Your opportunity to build trust the fastest is during a crisis or a recovery.

VUCA is an acronym that stands for volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. When we have times of VUCA, when we have volatility and uncertainty, we ask ourselves two questions: What can I control? What should I do first?

There are three overlooked, underused questions that actually drive strategic clarity and that actually give hope. They take an idea to an action. The first question is: “How?” Once I know what I want to do, then how? How am I going to do it? How am I going to act on it? How am I going to get there? The second question is way more powerful: “How?” And the third question is the most powerful question of all: “How?”

You’ve got to ask how until you do something differently. How, how, how? What does this mean for you? Don’t tell me you’re going to call people. Don’t tell me you’re going to set meetings. Until you ask how, until you do something specific today or tomorrow, I do not trust you.

This is critical. It might seem simple. It’s not. People trust the clear. They mistrust or distrust the ambiguous or the overly complex. I would look at those eight pillars of trust and think, Hey, what are some that we are doing well? Celebrate those. And then I would think, What pillar, if I strengthen that pillar just a little bit, would lead to more trust with my clients, with my prospects or with some audience I serve? And under that pillar, I would ask “How, how, how?” until I could do something differently today or tomorrow.

I believe you can solve every organizational and leadership issue against these eight pillars. It does not mean that it’s easy. Trust takes work. On the farm, we say, “Healthy things grow, and sick things die.” It’s the same with relationships. Healthy relationships grow. Sick ones become divided or divorced. Healthy companies grow. Sick ones die. You’ve got to put these trust pillars into your life and your business so that you can be healthy. The second thing we say on the farm is “You’ve got to do the work.” It doesn’t happen all by itself. You’ve got to do the work, and that’s the challenge with trust. It takes work, but it is work that’s worth it because everything of value is built on one thing ― trust.

David Horsager is the CEO of Trust Edge Leadership Institute, bestselling author of “The Trust Edge,” inventor of the Enterprise Trust Index and director of one of the nation’s foremost trust studies: The Trust Outlook. His work has been featured in prominent publications such as Fast Company, Forbes and the Wall Street Journal. Horsager has advised leaders and delivered life-changing presentations on six continents, with audiences ranging from FedEx, Toyota and global governments to the New York Yankees and the Department of Homeland Security.