In Integrity We Trust: Organizational Crisis Elevates the Importance of Integrity for Leaders

Abstract

Organizations today are increasingly exposed to crises of various magnitudes. Although research has started to highlight the positive impact of leader trust in facilitating adaptive responses to organizational crises, it has overlooked the flip side of the coin: how do organizational members assess leader trustworthiness in crises? The current research proposes that individuals experiencing organizational crisis prioritize leader integrity over ability and benevolence, and leaders who demonstrate integrity garners trust more easily. We further propose that the experience of organizational crisis leads to the primacy of integrity via a need to relieve anxiety. We tested these hypotheses in four studies using mixed methods. One field study (multiwave surveys from an organization operating through COVID-19), two classroom experiments (MBA students taking part in a complex business simulation), and one scenario-based online experiment (full-time employees from Prolific; total N = 975), together suggest a robust main effect across different types of organizational crises, and the mediating mechanism of anxiety. Connecting and advancing the research on organizational crises, leadership, and trust, our research sheds much-needed light on how organizational leaders can foster trust in times of crisis.