The Amazon Leadership Principle “Earn Trust” is fundamental to leading high-impact Big Bets. Earning trust isn’t just about building rapport or maintaining professional relationships—it’s the key to fostering a culture where risk-taking, innovation, and transparency are possible. Trust enables leaders to create clarity and maintain velocity, two of the three critical habits of Big Bet Leadership. Without trust, teams may hesitate to act swiftly or question their leader’s decision-making, slowing progress and introducing ambiguity.

In the context of Big Bets, trust amplifies a team’s ability to execute at a high level. Leaders who are “vocally self-critical,” as the principle outlines, pave the way for candid conversations that surface risks early. This open approach reduces the likelihood of “death by a thousand cuts,” a theme emphasized in *Big Bet Leadership*, where minor unaddressed issues can lead to failure. Trust, therefore, becomes the foundation on which successful Big Bet initiatives are built, allowing leaders to confront tough realities and make difficult decisions without losing the team’s commitment.

For Amazon and any company embarking on transformative initiatives, the ability to “benchmark themselves and their teams against the best” while being transparent about their shortcomings is a form of leadership discipline that ensures alignment. In Big Bets, this alignment is crucial to maintaining clarity on the mission and driving velocity toward the desired outcomes. When a leader earns trust, they foster a high-performing team that is more willing to take on the risks necessary for innovation and change.

Leaders listen attentively, speak candidly, and treat others respectfully. They are vocally self-critical, even when doing so is awkward or embarrassing. Leaders do not believe their or their team’s body odor smells of perfume. They benchmark themselves and their teams against the best.

Amazon Leadership Principle — Earn Trust

I’ve already talked about how important it is for the customer to trust the company. Amazon devotes itself single-mindedly to earning the customer’s trust every day. But equally important is trust within the business, which means that leaders at Amazon must learn both to trust their colleagues and to earn their trust through transparency, commitment, and mutual respect. For many people, learning to do this isn’t easy.

            When I first arrived at Amazon, I felt exposed and vulnerable. I worried that I might be fired at any time because the standards and the stakes were so high. As a result, I insisted on personally handling too much of my team’s work, feeling too anxious and untrusting to delegate enough to my colleagues.

            Of course, I quickly learned that overloading myself was a recipe for disaster—I simply didn’t have the time, energy, or skill to do everything well. I also wasn’t sufficiently developing my people; I was hurting the organization by not training the leaders of the future, which is a cardinal sin at Amazon. I simply had to learn to trust.

            Flourishing companies are filled with incredibly bright people who have the authority to achieve but also the confidence that, if they fail, someone will be there to pick them up off the floor, dust them off, and give them another shot. Amazon is such a company. One reason that I really enjoyed my time there was the ability to work collaboratively without worrying about titles, organization charts, and official roles. All of those things got ditched at the door so we could devote our energies to attacking problems. This is very different than at most organizations where teams and individuals waste time playing a game of chicken, pointing fingers, and trying to seize political advantages from one another.

Six Keys to Earning Trust

True collaboration is only possible in an atmosphere of trust. And that atmosphere is always set by a leader who has earned his team members’ trust and who trusts them in return.

Unfortunately, almost everyone has had a boss at some time that simply didn’t deserve to be trusted. He may have been gifted with MENSA-level intelligence and the charisma of George Clooney, but you were always waiting for the blaming, the backtracking, and the backstabbing to begin.

Jeff understands that a lack of trust perpetuates fear. If you fail to earn the trust of your team members, fear eventually becomes their primary driver. They will fear your opinions. They will fear your decisions and evaluations. They will fear failure. They will fear you. Once fear becomes dominant, the organization can barely operate, let alone be vocally self-critical.

Fortunately, there are proven ways to earn the trust of others. Here are six I have adapted from the blog of intentional leadership guru Michael Hyatt:

• Open your kimono. Learn to take accountability and admit faults—not recklessly or in a way that lets people exploit you but rather in a way that demonstrates honesty and pursuit of improvement. Be willing to admit your own failures. If you put up a wall around yourself, your team will too.
• Take the hit. When bad things happen, resist the temptation to point the finger. As the leader of a team, you need to accept responsibility for both the good and the bad. When your team members see that you are willing to take the blame even for mistakes that are not directly your fault, they will start to let go of fear and begin to trust you.
• Build up your team members. This is the opposite of taking the hit. Whenever appropriate, make sure you praise your team members in front of their peers and superiors. Never try to take sole credit for something good that your team did.
• Ditch the leash. Allow your team members freedom to explore new ideas and to be creative. If people feel that you are micromanaging them, they will stop trusting you. Make room for failure and, more importantly, the opportunity to learn from failure.
• Accept confrontation. Fighting is not good, but neither is false agreement. When there is a difference of opinion, promote open discussion. Explore solutions with the intent to solve problems. If disagreement never occurs, it’s a warning sign that your team is afraid to tell you the truth.
• Find the value in each person. We all have weaknesses, but we also have strengths. Everyone brings something different to the table. Find what is unique in each individual and use that unique strength for the good of the team.

Trust and the Two-Pizza Team

In his 2011 shareholder letter, titled “The Power of Invention,” Jeff Bezos wrote, “Invention comes in many forms and at many scales. The most radical and transformative of inventions are often those that empower others to unleash their creativity—to pursue their dreams.”²

Jeff was talking specifically about the ability of the platform business as a tool for empowering people, but I think the same description applies to trust in the workplace. Trust is the platform to truly empower your team.

Much has been written about Amazon’s famous Two-Pizza Teams—working groups whose size is limited to six to ten individuals—the number of people that can be fed by an order of two pizzas. However, most people miss the point. What truly matters isn’t team size; it’s autonomy and accountability. The Two-Pizza Team is about trusting a small faction within an organization to operate independently and with agility.

At Amazon, Two-Pizza Teams work like little entrepreneurial hothouses. Insulated from the greater organization’s bureaucracy, the Two-Pizza Teams encourage ambitious young leaders, provide opportunity, and instill a sense of ownership.

Should every organization in the world start authorizing the creation of Two-Pizza Teams to tackle its problems and creative challenges? No, because not every organization has the underlying culture of trust needed to make autonomous teams work effectively. If you work in a company that is dominated by fear, start trying to turn that atmosphere around. Once trust begins to flourish, creativity and innovation can flourish as well.

Build On

Amazon’s Leadership Principle of “Earn Trust” is not just a guideline for interpersonal relationships; it’s a strategic imperative for leading Big Bets and achieving transformational success. Trust builds the foundation for transparency, accountability, and bold decision-making—all of which are crucial in managing risk and sustaining velocity. Leaders who earn trust empower their teams to innovate fearlessly, address risks head-on, and align efforts toward the same vision. Ultimately, earning trust is the key to unlocking the full potential of any high-stakes initiative, ensuring the organization can continue to take big bets with confidence and clarity.

John Rossman is a writer, leadership and strategy advisor, and keynote speaker. Have him inspire and teach your team.

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