ABSTRACT

The Edelman 2017 and 2018 Trust Barometers indicate that a crisis of trust has been developing across 20/28 countries across the world. In a UK higher education and business context, it is increasingly clear that trust in formal UK authority figures, including politicians, managers, policy makers, media agencies and business leaders across various industries, has been declining for some years. A considerable literature on managerialism and new public management, combined with critical commentary on scandals, injustices and inequalities relating to elite pay, gender, sexual abuse, ethnic and cultural problems, reveals increasing cynicism amongst both educated sub-groups and members of the wider public regarding poor performance by top hierarchical figures across many sectors. Consequently, numerous related problems have occurred regarding unrest, stress and ill health in the workforce of organizations. In these situations, there is an increasing need to develop students’ innovative leadership skills and capacities to handle difficult situations for enhanced employability. Students themselves need to recognize their own potential roles as resilient leaders now, most notably regarding awareness of the need for and methods of building trust as future leaders of workplaces and in shared team situations. This chapter provides a proposed theoretical model, integrating a balance of ‘hard-soft’ skills for the development of trust and student leadership for graduate employability. Finally, in recognizing its limitations in putting forward a theoretical model, it provides practical recommendations for the implementation of these developments and proposals for future empirical research.