From reputation management to public confidence

Daniel Taylor outlines some crucial steps for boards to take when trust breaks

In my earlier article, the governance paradox of reputation, I argued that the more obsessively organisations try to manage their image, the less trustworthy they become. Reputation, I suggested, is a mirror that clouds the moment we polish it too hard.

This follow-up explores what happens when that mirror shatters. When the varnish of reputation cracks, what can boards do? How do they move beyond the defensive instinct to manage perception and instead build something deeper: public confidence?

There are moments in the life of every institution when its surface sheen fractures and we glimpse the grain beneath – sometimes beautiful, sometimes rotten. These moments, though unwelcome, are defining. They test not only what an organisation is but what it chooses to become.

Too often, boards faced with reputational crisis reach instinctively for control: the carefully worded statement, the choreography of optics. It is a reflex – understandable; human, even – but one that can compound harm. Reputation becomes the mirror we polish instead of the window we clean.

We are living through what might be called the age of grievance. Across sectors, trust in institutions has eroded – the NHS, universities, regulators, charities, councils. Each faces public questioning not just of competence, but of honesty and purpose. Yet reputational damage is rarely caused by the precipitating event alone. It is born of the perception that an organisation has chosen appearance over accountability.

To move from reputation management to public confidence requires courage: to step into the storm rather than wait for it to pass.

Act I: The failure

Imagine, for a moment, a not-unfamiliar scene. A public-purpose organisation discovers a serious error – a financial misstatement, perhaps, or a patient safety lapse or data breach. The first reaction is shock; the second, calculation. How might this look? Who needs to know? Can it be contained?

The board convenes an extraordinary meeting. Language turns careful, legalistic. The incident is categorised as ‘regrettable’. External communications are ‘managed’. An internal review is commissioned but not immediately disclosed. The prevailing hope: this too shall pass.

In literature, tragedy often begins not with the act itself but with the refusal to face its consequences. Think of Oedipus, whose blindness is both literal and chosen. In governance, the same holds true.

Act II: The cover-up

Weeks later, the story emerges through other channels: whistleblowers, journalists, social media. The institution is now accused not only of error, but of concealment. The crisis doubles in magnitude. Board members who thought they were protecting the organisation find themselves presiding over its humiliation.

Here, the logic of reputation collapses. Reputation is retrospective – an image fixed by past deeds – but confidence is prospective, built on how an organisation acts now. The public forgives fallibility more readily than defensiveness.

It is at this point that many boards call for a new communications strategy. But the problem is not communicative; it is moral. The task is not to explain better but to be better.

Act III: The reckoning

In the reckoning that follows, three questions determine whether confidence can be rebuilt:

• Did the board face the truth?
• Did it act with integrity, even when inconvenient?
• Did it learn visibly and change meaningfully?

Institutions that can answer 'yes' to these questions tend, in time, to emerge stronger. Those that equivocate remain trapped in cycles of defensiveness.

The paradox of reputation – that efforts to protect it can destroy it – is not an abstract philosophical puzzle but a daily governance reality. It is the difference between being seen to do the right thing and being right in what is done.

From defence to confidence: a six-step board framework

If reputation is about how we are perceived, confidence is about how we are trusted to act. Boards that want to move from one to the other can start with six practical commitments:

1. Replace narrative control with radical transparency - Confidence begins with disclosure. Publish the facts early, with context but without spin. The board's role is not to manage optics but to steward honesty. Delaying disclosure rarely protects anyone for long
2. Make accountability visible - Accountability must be seen to operate. Commission independent reviews with clear public terms of reference. Share the findings in full. Set out, in plain language, what will change and who will ensure it does.
3. Show empathy before defence - Where harm has occurred, public confidence grows not from explanation but from empathy. Words of genuine remorse and human understanding restore faith faster than procedural language ever will.
4. Anchor decisions in values, not risk calculations - When reputational risk dominates decision-making, ethics become negotiable. Boards should rehearse ethical scenarios and reaffirm their organisation's first principles before crisis strikes. What are we for? What do we stand by even when it costs us?
5. Rebuild through participation - Invite those affected – patients, students, residents, staff – into the reform process. Confidence grows when people see that their experience is shaping change, not merely being managed.
6. Close the loop publicly - Rebuilding trust requires visible follow-through. Report openly on progress against commitments. Treat this as a standing agenda item, not a one-time exercise. The goal is not reputational repair but relational renewal.

The deeper philosophy of trust

Trust, as the philosopher Onora O'Neill reminds us, cannot be demanded – only deserved. It rests on evidence of honesty, competence and reliability. In governance terms, this means boards must attend not only to what they do but how they are seen to decide.

There is, too, a literary lesson here. In King Lear, the tragic error is not the loss of power but the loss of truth-telling. Surrounded by flattery, Lear mistakes reputation for reality – until both are gone. The same danger lurks in institutional life. When feedback loops are dulled by hierarchy or fear, boards lose the ability to perceive themselves accurately.

To cultivate confidence, boards must build cultures where candour is rewarded, not punished; where truth, however uncomfortable, is valued more than harmony.

Beyond crisis: governance as trust architecture

Ultimately, confidence is not built by communications departments but by governance systems that make truth inevitable. Whistleblowing channels that work, assurance functions that see beneath the surface, board cultures that invite challenge; these are the building blocks of public confidence.

In this sense, trust is both a moral state and a structural outcome. It emerges when integrity is designed into the system, not left to chance.

The late political philosopher Bernard Williams wrote that truthfulness is not a luxury of stable times but a condition of them. The same might be said of governance. Boards that seek only to preserve reputation will always be one disclosure away from crisis. Those that seek to earn confidence, by contrast, build institutions resilient enough to face the truth – and trusted enough to be forgiven for it.

A final reflection

In the governance paradox of reputation, I wrote that reputation is what others say about us when they no longer believe us. This article is its practical counterpart: an argument that confidence can only be restored by facing that disbelief head-on.

When trust breaks, the task is not to speak more persuasively but to act more truthfully. Boards that grasp this – that turn from reputation management to confidence stewardship – can rebuild not just their own legitimacy but the public's faith in governance itself.

Because confidence, once earned, outlasts even the harshest headlines.