Gallup has a question in their engagement survey that always sparks debate:
“Do you have a best friend at work?”
It’s a controversial one. It often gets dismissed out of hand.
And yet, it continues to surface something important.
The phrase best friend can feel loaded.
I have Woo® as one of my talents. I have lots of friends, I don’t have many traditional “best friends.”
If I had to name one in the ‘traditional’ sense, it would be Ellie, my school friend from the age of 12. We shared the experience of being private school girls dropped into the comprehensive system.
We bonded over shared experience, a love of horses, and navigating change together.
Most of all, I trusted her. Still do — more than 40 years later.
We laughed and cried together. I felt safe sharing anything with her, without judgment.
And that’s the point.
When Gallup asked people what having a best friend at work really means, the answers revealed something simple and profound:
Trust is the common denominator of meaningful workplace relationships.
Trust feels harder to come by these days.
Low trust in teams.
Unclear expectations.
Communication breakdowns.
Add social media (don’t even get me started on what’s real and what’s not — my very gullible Positivity once believed the gorilla really did rescue the baby and the whale carried a seal on its nose to save it from a killer whale 🙄).
Politics… I’m not going there.
We all think, feel, and behave differently — and the same is true of how we build trust.
Some people value emotional connection.
Others trust through shared ideas and intellectual partnership.
Others through teamwork, follow-through, and dependability toward a shared goal.
This is where Responsibility® comes in.
Responsibility is one of the most commonly seen Gallup talents across the 36+ million people who’ve taken the assessment.
People with strong Responsibility are seen as reliable, dependable, and trustworthy. They do what they say they’ll do. They take commitments seriously. They carry things, sometimes quietly so others don’t have to and sometimes as a result of their inner people pleaser.
But here’s the part we don’t always name.
People high in Responsibility hate being let down by others.
When someone drops the ball, misses a commitment, or goes quiet after saying “I’ll do that,” it doesn’t just feel inconvenient, it feels like a breach of trust.
This is where the distinction between above the line and below the line behaviour really matters.
Above the line looks like:
- Ownership
- Accountability
- Responsibility
- Naming what’s yours to carry — and what isn’t
Below the line is where trust quietly erodes:
- Blame
- Excuses
- Avoidance
- Denial
Let’s name this one as I am guilty of it too but most of the time, people don’t let others down intentionally.
Life happens, capacity shifts, priorities collide and it might get lost in an email, text, invite or voicemail.
But the impact still matters.
Another withdrawal from the trust emotional bank account.
This links closely to David Maister’s Trust Equation, where reliability is one of the core components of trust.
Trust is built or broken through follow-through.
When reliability slips:
- Confidence wobbles
- People stop leaning in as fully
Especially for those high in Responsibility, the response isn’t usually confrontation, it’s quiet recalibration.
“I’ll just do it myself next time.”
“I won’t rely on them again.”
And that’s how collaboration slowly thins, communication drops off and fractures appear in relationships.
This is why clarity, ownership, and honest conversations matter so much in strong teams and communities.
When we stay above the line, owning impact, naming constraints early, and repairing quickly trust deepens and deposits are made in the emotional bank account.
Questions that build clarity and protect trust
Before committing
- What does “done” actually look like here?
- What am I responsible for — and what am I not responsible for?
- What assumptions might we be making about timelines, quality, or ownership?
- What would success look like from your perspective?
Around capacity and constraints
- What else is already on my plate that could impact this?
- Where might I need support or flexibility?
- What’s most important if everything can’t be done?
- What would you want me to say early if things start to slip?
During the work
- How do we want to check in — and how often?
- What’s the best way to raise concerns or course-correct?
- How will we handle missed deadlines or changes in priority?
When things don’t go to plan
- What’s the impact of what just happened?
- What do I own in this — and what do I need to name or repair?
- What would rebuild trust quickly here?
- What do we want to do differently next time?
Because a best friend at work isn’t about popularity or proximity.
It’s about trust.
It’s about reliability.
It’s about knowing someone has your back — and being worthy of that trust in return.
