Trust and Control: Does it Empower or Restrict?
Our guest for episode 99 is Frédérique Six, Associate Professor of Public Governance at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and a visiting professor at the GOVTRUST Centre of Excellence at the University of Antwerp. She explores the complex relationship between trust and control within organizations, particularly those that perform public tasks such as healthcare, education, and policing. She explains two main perspectives on the relationship between trust and control. The traditional view sees them as substitutes, where more control means less trust, and vice versa. However, she advocates for a more nuanced view, where trust and control can complement each other. When controls are experienced as enabling rather than coercive, they help build trust by promoting fairness, predictability, and ethical behavior.
She also discusses her use of motivation theory, which distinguishes between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. According to this theory, employees perform better when their basic psychological needs—autonomy, competence, and relatedness—are met. Frédérique explains how these needs are influenced by control systems and how this balance affects both trust and motivation within organizations.
Frédérique highlights the multifaceted nature of trust, noting that it is context-dependent but guided by a universal sequence: a trustor assesses the trustworthiness of a trustee and decides whether to take a trusting action based on that assessment. She explains that while trust is influenced by situational factors, there are common elements across different contexts, which makes trust a universal yet complex phenomenon.
As the discussion concludes, Frédérique reflects on the challenges faced by young researchers studying trust. She believes that identifying and challenging deeply held beliefs about trust and control will be crucial for advancing trust-based governance. While this is high-risk research, she encourages young professionals to question the status quo to drive meaningful change.
Trust and Control: Substitutes?
Well, there are two main perspectives on the relationship between trust and control. And the dominant perspective is that they are substitutes, so when you can’t trust, you cannot control because trust is about doing nothing sitting on your hands as we say in Dutch, letting go of controls. So when you control, you do not trust in that perspective. Now, this perspective I see as dominant in the way we organize government, business and third sector organizations. I did a systematic literature review looking at the trust in controlling public professionals and that was clear there. The more you trust, the less control, and the more control, the less you trust. In this perspective, controls are experienced as based on distrust by those who are controlled. So people often think that control and distrust are the same thing, but they’re not. Because control in and of itself is a neutral term. It is not synonymous with distrust, and that’s a crucial point to make. I cannot repeat this often enough I find in my interactions with both practitioners and researchers. Controls can be experienced as coercive as based on distrust, but equally as enabling and making it easier to do your job and trust your colleagues, superiors, or the wider organization. And that brings me to the second perspective, which is crucial for flourishing democratic societies and organizations. In this perspective, trust and control can complement and strengthen each other.
Motivation Theory
the motivation theory I use helps and identify when people find the control system that they need to work with as supporting them versus hindering them in their work. It’s based on the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and three basic psychological needs. It shows the more people are intrinsically motivated, the better they perform, and the higher their well-being, the better they feel. Their intrinsic motivation is driven by the degree to which they experience that their work environment is supporting or thwarting their basic psychological need. I’ll go through each three of them. The first is the need for autonomy, that’s crucial. It’s not that you are independent and can do whatever you want because we’re all interdependent, but you feel more autonomous when you experience that you can influence the way that your work environment is organized, and this includes the control systems with which you have to work. Does the organization listen to you and your colleagues when you comment on where the controls help you or hinder you? Do they implement recommendations for improvement that you make?
How much control?
I actually often get asked how much control is possible, indeed. And when you want to strengthen trust or other questions phrased from the perspective of the controller. But that’s not the essence, the essence is in how the controls are experienced by those who are controlled. Are the controls experienced as coercing people to do things a certain way that they don’t agree with, or find wasteful of scarce resources? Then they’re likely to say that the controls are based on distrust and not helpful, and then they will more likely be only extrinsically motivated, and control and trust will be seen as substitutes that first perspective. If, however, the controls are seen as helpful and in line with people’s personal and professional values, then they’re more likely to be experienced as supporting their basic psychological needs and therefore more likely to lead to intrinsic motivation. So the crux is looking at it from the perspective of those who are controlled, how they perceive the controls. Because control, after all, is aimed at influencing people’s behaviour.