Building Trust in the First 24 Hours of a Crisis

Trust is the speed at which people will follow you into the unknown.

When a crisis arrives, clocks stop being polite suggestions and begin to dictate survival. In those first frantic hours, every action, every word, every pause radiates meaning. People don’t just want instructions; they want to know who is worthy of following. That is why building trust fast and building the right kind of trust is the single most important job a leader has in the first 24 hours.

In this post, I draw on Stephen M.R. Covey’s Speed of Trust framework and on the field-tested principles in The Crisis Leader to show you how trust forms, how it breaks, and what practical steps you can take immediately to create the trust you need to mobilize people, protect lives, and begin recovery.

Why the first 24 hours matter

Imagine a hospital where power flickers and the emergency department fills faster than the triage tents can be erected. Or a coastal town where a storm surge has breached seawalls and families are moving through the night looking for safety. In those first hours:

• Decisions are made on partial information.
• Rumours spread faster than verified facts.
• People look outward for cues, to leaders, to the person who looks calm, to the first person who acts.

If trust is absent, the leader with the best plan fails because people hesitate, hide, or ignore instructions. If trust exists, even if the plan is imperfect, people move together, improvising and compensating for gaps. In short, trust is a force multiplier. It determines whether your actions produce coordinated movement or fragmentation.

Covey argues that trust increases speed and lowers cost; distrust does the opposite. In a crisis, the price is not just financial, it’s human lives, panic, and wasted hours. That is why forming trust quickly must be a deliberate act, not a hope.

The Speed of Trust — the four cores of credibility

Covey describes trust as a measurable asset built on four cores of credibility: Integrity, Intent, Capabilities, and Results. Each core answers a vital question:

1. Integrity: Are you congruent? Do your actions match your values and words?
2. Intent: Are your motives clear and aligned with the common good? Do you have hidden agendas?
3. Capabilities: Do you and your team have the skills and systems to deliver?
4. Results: Can you produce demonstrable outcomes consistently?

In a crisis, people intuitively test you against these cores, often subconsciously, and they do it quickly. Below, I’ll show you how to act on each core in the first 24 hours so trust forms faster and holds longer.

Integrity: talk straight and act true

When panic rises, people watch for consistency. Integrity is credibility in motion: saying what you will do and doing it.

Practical ways to demonstrate integrity immediately:

• Speak plainly. Replace corporate euphemisms with direct language. “We have lost communications with the northern clinic and are redirecting supplies there now” is better than “we’re assessing transport options.” Plain speech signals honesty and reduces cognitive load for those listening.
• Admit what you don’t know. A leader who pretends certainty breeds suspicion. Say: “Here’s what we know, here’s what we don’t, and here’s how we will find out.” This pattern builds trust because it shows competence coupled with humility.
• Keep small promises. If you say you will check back in 30 minutes, do it. Small commitments are the currency of integrity in crisis; they compound rapidly.
• Be consistent in behavior. If you instruct staff to stay safe but remain the only person on the ground, it creates a noticeable mismatch. Your actions must match your words.

In Haiti and Padang, the leaders who gained traction were those who consistently did the small things well, kept briefings short and on time, returned calls, and publicly corrected their own mistakes. Integrity is not dramatic; it is steady.

Intent: show people you are on their side

Intent answers a question people feel before it’s responded to: Are you working for us, or yourself? When intentions seem opaque, suspicion fills the gap.

How to make intent visible fast:

• Frame actions around people. Use language that names the beneficiaries: “We are prioritizing the clinic because it treats children and the elderly.” Concrete beneficiaries make your purpose tangible.
• Be transparent about competing pressures. If resources are scarce and you must choose, say so openly and explain the trade-offs. People may disagree with your choice, but they will respect a leader who shows the decision logic.
• Remove any perception of advantage-seeking. In many crises, rumors of preferential treatment spread easily. Be explicit about allocation rules and the rationale.
• Model servant leadership. Step into tasks that show you are there to serve: help activate a generator, carry supplies, or sit with families in distress. Visible service signals intent more powerfully than any speech.

Intent is a relational asset. People follow those they believe are acting for the common good, not personal gain. Make that belief obvious.

Capabilities: demonstrate you can do the work

Good intent without ability is a hollow promise. The capabilities, skills, knowledge, systems, and relationships you bring are what convert trust into practical action.

How to signal capability quickly:

• Bring the right people into the room. If you have specialists available, introduce them in the first briefing. Seeing a named logistician or clinician on the team instantly raises confidence.
• Show a simple, visible plan. A one-page map of immediate actions (who, what, where, when) demonstrates you are organized and reduces anxiety.
• Use evidence of competence. Share recent similar experiences, or short examples of actions already taken: “We’ve delivered three loads of water; the next convoy leaves in 45 minutes.”
• Create redundancy. Show that systems have backups: if communications fail, here is the contingency contact. People feel safer when they see fallback plans, even if those plans are basic.

Capability is not perfection. It’s the visible demonstration that you have thought through the problem and assembled people and systems to move decisively.

Results: deliver quickly and visibly

Trust accelerates when people see outcomes. Results do not have to be monumental in the initial hours; small, visible wins matter most.

How to create early wins:

• Identify immediate high-impact actions. What can be done in two hours that changes someone’s day? Clearing a blocked road to reach a clinic, establishing a water point, or confirming a shelter location are examples.
• Make wins public. After a small success, announce it widely. Use simple communication channels (a team huddle, a text broadcast, a noticeboard) to show progress.
• Measure and show progress. Use visible counters: number of people triaged, liters of water distributed, shelters opened. These metrics translate abstract effort into tangible results.
• Use wins to unlock resources. A small result can be leveraged to get more support. Funders and partners are more likely to help when they see early effectiveness.

Results build a momentum of trust. Every successful small step makes it easier for people to take the next one with confidence.

Behaviors that build trust – Covey’s relationship behaviors in practice

Covey also outlines thirteen behaviors that sustain relationship trust: talk straight, demonstrate respect, create transparency, right wrongs, show loyalty, deliver results, get better, confront reality, clarify expectations, practice accountability, listen first, keep commitments, and extend trust. Here’s how to turn those into immediate crisis behaviors:

• Talk straight: Use plain, honest language. Avoid spin.
• Demonstrate respect: Treat everyone, the volunteer, the local shopkeeper, and the senior official, with the same decency. Respect builds rapid allegiance.
• Create transparency: Share data, constraints, and decision criteria openly.
• Right wrongs: If a mistake is made, acknowledge it, correct it, and explain the fix.
• Show loyalty: Protect your team. When criticism comes, ensure your people know you have their back.
• Deliver results: Prioritize outcomes over appearances.
• Get better: After each action, solicit simple feedback and adapt.
• Confront reality: Name the hard facts. Avoid wishful thinking.
• Clarify expectations: Who does what, by when, with what resources, spelled out.
• Practice accountability: Assign responsibility and follow up.
• Listen first: Solicit frontline input before making decisions.
• Keep commitments: Honor every promise you make.
• Extend trust: Trust capable people to act; extending trust invites reciprocal performance.

If you practice a handful of these behaviors consistently in the first 24 hours, your credibility will accelerate.

Communication patterns that accelerate trust

Communication is not just content; it is rhythm and mode. In the early phase of the crisis, adopt three patterns:

1. Frequency over perfection. Short, regular updates (every 30–60 minutes when things are highly fluid) beat infrequent, polished communiqués. People prefer to be informed often, even if details are partial.
2. Multi-channel redundancy. Use loudspeakers, SMS, local radio, briefing boards, and in-person huddles. Different people access information differently; redundancy prevents information vacuums.
3. Two-way signals. Don’t just push messages; create mechanisms for quick feedback (a single number to text in reports, a liaison point for community leaders). When people can report, trust grows because they feel seen and heard.

Remember: silence in the first 24 hours is catastrophic. It allows rumours to fill the void and trust to wither.

Leadership posture: presence, humility, and steadiness

Trust is as much felt as it is observed. Leaders who are physically present, visibly attentive, and emotionally steady create safety. Presence does not always mean grand gestures; it can be as simple as sitting in the triage tent for an hour, listening, and then summarizing what you heard and what will change.

Humility matters. Too many crises are worsened by leaders who must be right. Admit uncertainty, acknowledge others’ contributions, and show gratitude. Humble leaders invite collaboration; arrogant leaders repel it.

Steadiness, not stoicism, means you allow emotions but do not let them paralyze you. Model controlled emotion: empathy for loss, urgency for action, and calm for coordination.

Common traps that erode trust fast

• Overpromising and underdelivering. Nothing destroys trust faster than a promise that cannot be kept. When resources are uncertain, use conditional language: “If we secure the fuel tonight, we will…” not “We will.”
• Opaque decision-making. If people cannot see how choices are made, they will invent narratives.
• Blame culture. Punishing honest reporting of failure drives information underground and accelerates systemic failure.
• Favoritism. Perceived preferential treatment of certain groups or individuals erodes collective effort.

Watch for these traps and correct them immediately. Rapid course correction is itself a trust-building behavior.

Practical checklist for the first 24 hours

Here’s a compact checklist you can use or adapt for your team:

Minutes 0–60

• Gather the core team in person if possible.
• State a clear, achievable, immediate purpose (one sentence).
• Communicate: what we know, what we don’t, next check-in time.
• Assign a visible coordinator for community liaison.

Hours 1–4

• Identify one or two fast, tangible actions and execute.
• Introduce any specialists in the first briefing.
• Publish simple progress counters (e.g., shelters opened).
• Create a feedback channel for front-line reports.

Hours 4–12

• Publicly recognize small wins and contributors.
• Clarify decision authority for the next 24 hours.
• Reassess and adapt priorities based on new information.

Hours 12–24

• Share a short update that includes outcomes so far and the plan for the next 24–48 hours.
• Conduct a rapid internal AAR (after action review): what worked, what didn’t, and immediate fixes.
• Re-establish trust with front-line actors and protect them from unnecessary external interference.

Use this checklist as a living tool; the goal is to set patterns that produce trust quickly and sustain it.

Trust beyond speed: making it resilient

Fast trust is valid; resilient trust is necessary. After the immediate phase, invest in practices that preserve credibility:

• Institutionalize transparency (publish simple dashboards).
• Maintain regular, candid communications with stakeholders.
• Create channels for community representation in longer-term planning.
• Conduct honest after-action reviews and publish learnings.

Trust is not a sprint; it is a continual set of choices. The habits you form in the first 24 hours set the tone for how you will behave in the months that follow.

Final thoughts

In a crisis, trust is not an abstract virtue; it is the currency that buys coordinated action. Covey’s four cores of credibility (integrity, intent, capabilities, results) give you a practical way to think about trust. Use them deliberately in the first 24 hours: speak plainly, show that you mean well, demonstrate you can do the work, and create visible results.

Do these things fast, faithfully, and humbly, and you will create the kind of trust that turns panic into purpose, fragmentation into teamwork, and bewilderment into momentum.

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Lead with clarity. Lead with integrity. Lead with trust.

By Gisli Olafsson, Author of The Crisis Leader