EV-0005
Trust in a leader predicts how people perform, stay and behave
Dirks, K. T., & Ferrin, D. L. (2002). Journal of Applied Psychology, 87(4), 611–628 · Source
What this entitles us to say
Meta-analytic evidence that trust in leadership is meaningfully related to job performance, citizenship behavior, satisfaction, commitment and intention to quit — and that it functions as a construct in its own right rather than a by-product of the leader-member relationship.
What it found
A meta-analysis of the trust-in-leadership literature, reporting relationships between trust and a wide set of workplace outcomes — performance, organizational citizenship behavior, job satisfaction, organizational commitment and turnover intentions — and offering a framework to organize a literature that had grown fragmented. The authors argued trust should be treated as distinct from leader–member exchange rather than folded into it.
Why it matters here
It is the empirical backing for the book's line that trust creates security. It also supports something structural in the framework: trust is treated as its own trait rather than a pleasant consequence of the others, and this literature says the same.
The limits
Correlational throughout; trust and outcomes are frequently rated by the same person at the same time, which inflates relationships (common-method variance) and cannot establish direction — good performance may build trust as much as trust builds performance. Specific coefficients are not quoted here because this entry is verified only to abstract level; anything numeric needs the full text first. The referent matters too: trust in a direct supervisor and trust in senior leadership behave differently and should not be spoken about interchangeably.
What we do not say
"Trust causes performance." The research is correlational and the arrow plausibly runs both ways. Nor should trust in a shift supervisor and trust in a CEO be treated as the same measurement.