April 15, 2026
Sales Performance Rises 22% When Managers Build Trust Skills
Managers with the ability to build trust across their teams significantly increase the chance of hitting sales targets, new data suggests.
Research by MindTools Kineo, launched in 2023 and continuing today, highlights how managers’ non-technical, human skills contribute to business outcomes including sales performance and employee retention. Its ongoing Building Better Managers study has examined the skills and behaviours of 2,200 managers globally, and its latest analysis of 279 managers establishes a clear association between workplace trust and commercial success.
For each one-point increase in a manager’s ability to build trust on a five-point scale, the new analysis found that sales target achievement increased by nearly a quarter (22%). And while trust showed the biggest impact on sales success, the study identified three other management capabilities playing a key role: active listening (+20%), coaching (+16%) and delegation (+14%).
Trust is a CX issue too
For organisations in customer-facing sectors, these findings carry particular relevance. Managers who build trust and communicate effectively create the conditions for engaged, high-performing teams. And it is those teams who interact directly with customers. While the sample size of this study is relatively small, it does hint at a meaningful relationship between manager trust skills, employee engagement and customer experience.
The retention case
MindTools Kineo’s study also makes the connection between reduced employee turnover and human-led manager skills. Team retention improved by 6% when managers strengthened their inclusive leadership and delegation skills. Similar uplifts were seen when managers advanced their goal-setting skills (5%) and their empathy and trust-building skills (4% each).
These interpersonal abilities – typically referred to as soft skills – are often associated with people-focused benefits such as improved engagement and team collaboration. This data, however, indicates the significant role they can play in hard commercial outcomes.
“Often, when organisations assess challenges like retention or sales performance, soft skills are overlooked,” says Dr Anna Barnett, Head of Research and Insights at MindTools Kineo. “Our research demonstrates that this is a huge mistake. Skills like trust, empathy and goal setting are integral to management – both for employee performance and retention.”
“While management capability in these areas may feel disconnected from business outcomes like sales performance, the findings identify the opposite,” Barnett adds. “When managers build trust and communicate effectively, it helps to translate goal setting into engagement that delivers real results.”
Trust under pressure
The increasing importance of managers’ ability to build trust also surfaces in Edelman’s Trust Barometer 2026. Some 42% of employees surveyed say they would rather switch departments or leave their job than report to a manager with significantly different values. As people become more insular and less open to contrarian views, the pressure on managers to cultivate psychologically safe, judgement-free team cultures grows. Edelman refers to the relevant skill set as ‘trust-brokering’ – encompassing conflict resolution, cultivating team unity and delivering on promises.
Trust is an evolving process
While learning and development has a role to play here, developing these complex human capabilities involves far more than a one-off training programme. Writing in Psychology Today, Dr Nigel R. Bairstow, researcher and academic at the University of Technology Sydney, highlights that trust is an evolving process. Our level of trust in people shifts based on their decisions and behaviours in response to new events; it grows, breaks down and gets repaired as part of the relationship journey.
“Trust-building should not be viewed as purely transactional in nature, but rather as a continuous, collaborative and relational strategy,” says Bairstow. “Every interaction – whether it involves a negotiation, a crisis response or a routine update – presents an opportunity to strengthen or weaken trust.”
This is a key challenge for employee experience leaders when designing moments that matter, and one that carries clear commercial implications. With early evidence that manager trust skills boost sales success and retention, it is not an issue that can be left to L&D teams to solve alone.
Becky Norman is the Employee Experience Editor for CXM. With 14 years in digital publishing, she champions the organisations and practitioners creating exceptional experiences for their people — and driving measurable impact on customer success as a result. Prior to this role, Becky spent eight years as editor of B2B publications HRZone and TrainingZone, covering the most pressing issues facing HR, people, and learning leaders. In 2020, she co-created Culture Pioneers – a global campaign recognising the organisations shaping workplace culture to drive both business performance and employee experience.
