Trust: The Catalyst for Supply Chain Excellence and Risk Mitigation

Gregory L Schlegel Founder & CEO, The Supply Chain Risk Management Consortium

Analyst Insight: At the World Economic Forum’s 2025 meeting in Davos, a few disturbing threads emerged. First,  delegates expressed a very nervous optimism about 2025. Another thread was a lack of trust. In quiet conversations, it  emerged that trust in leadership, across countries and companies appears to be at a 50-year low. This thread is impacting  supply chain performance around the globe and needs to be improved to effectively move forward in 2026 and beyond.  

In defining trust, Webster provides several elements: A firm belief in the reliability, truth or the ability of someone or something; freedom from suspicion and doubt, and acceptance of the truth without evidence or investigation. There’s more, though; business educator and writer Steven Covey maintains that when trust is prevalent, costs decrease and activities accelerate. Following are a few relevant findings from recent research papers and reports. The 2025 Edelman Trust Report. This barometer of trust has been providing the world with trust analysis for 25 years. It annually surveys more than 28 countries, and averages about 30,000 respondents, rendering statistically significant results. The report has continually produced a Trust Index, by country, then categorized the countries into Distrust, Neutral and Trusting. The disturbing outcomes identify that the percentage of the population that fear their government leaders, business leaders and journalists purposely mislead people by saying things they know are false or grossly exaggerated has appreciably increased since 2021.

The Harvard Business Review. Harvard professor Amy Edmonson popularized the concept of “psychological safety” many years ago. It refers to the belief that professionals will not be punished or humiliated for admitting a mistake or raising concerns. This latest research has revealed a surprising blind spot: middle managers, the linchpins between strategy and execution. The ongoing study, across all sectors, found that middle managers scored much lower than other disciplines. These professionals are essential for building and maintaining trust. Low psychological safety creates a ripple effect throughout the organization, quietly undermining performance.

A deep-dive study with the U.S. Department of Defense. A one-year Supply Chain Data Transparency/Trust project is underway, managed by MxD, a grant office of DOD. Through rigorous one-on-one interviews with executives within the defense industrial base, along with workshops and e-surveys, a few fascinating findings have emerged so far, relating to supply chain trust: Trustbuilding requires a balance of transparency, control and incentives; data must be accurate, timely and protected; cybersecurity and governance are foundational to transparency, and collaboration and standardization are keys to scaling trust across the supply chain. The project is capturing the sentiment associated with psychological safety and cognitive diversity within company supply chains and between their partners. Voices from the field tell us that transparency works when it protects as much as it reveals. Compliance is the floor, not the ceiling, for trustworthy data.

Resource Link: www.thescrmconsortium.com

Outlook: A deliverable from the deep-dive Department of Defense project will be a free, online Supply Chain Relationship Trust Assessment Tool. It will not only act as an operational tool, but will transform trust from a soft concept into a measurable key performance indicator. It will be a diagnostic, baseline temperature-check measurement and strategic accelerator, providing recommendations to improve trust. Trust is the hinge — without it, transparency fails and operational excellence wanes. Something we can’t afford.