Employee survey about trust in leadership

Creating effective trust in leadership surveys is tough, but if you want real insights, you need actionable questions fast. You can generate your own conversational Employee Trust In Leadership survey with AI right here, powered by Specific's expert tools, and start collecting feedback in seconds.

Why measuring trust in leadership matters

If you’re not asking employees how they feel about their leaders, you’re missing out on crucial feedback that can directly impact company performance and retention. Right now, only 21% of U.S. employees strongly agree that they trust their leadership, which is a notable drop from recent years. [1] That doesn’t just reflect a lack of confidence; it means most companies are operating blind to a key driver of engagement and loyalty.

The importance of Employee recognition surveys can’t be overstated, especially for trust in leadership. Here’s why:

• High-trust companies outperform their competitors by up to 400% in market value. [2]

• These organizations experience 50% lower turnover compared to low-trust environments. [2]

• When trust drops, so does motivation—just 30% of employees in low-trust workplaces feel motivated, while 80% are motivated in high-trust ones. [2]

If you’re not running Employee trust surveys, you’re most likely operating in the dark. The risks? Missed retention opportunities, lowered engagement, and stagnating business outcomes.

Want to dive deeper into crafting impactful questions? Check out our advice on the best survey questions for Employee Trust In Leadership.

How an AI survey generator transforms Employee feedback

Let’s be real: manual survey creation is tedious, time-consuming, and it’s easy to make mistakes that skew your results. An AI survey generator changes the game entirely. Instead of guessing which questions to ask or worrying about wording, you let AI do the heavy lifting—using proven frameworks and context to create research-grade questions in seconds.

Consider the differences:

Why use AI for Employee surveys?

With Specific, you get the best-in-class conversational surveys. The AI helps you create a survey that actually feels like a conversation—not a chore. It makes the experience smooth and engaging for both you and your respondents, which leads to higher completion rates and better feedback quality. Want to learn step-by-step? Here's our guide on how to effortlessly create an Employee Trust In Leadership survey.

Designing questions that drive insight

The difference between a survey that works and one that falls flat usually comes down to the way you ask your questions. As topical experts, we know that even a single word can bias a response or make feedback useless.

For example:

• Bad question: "Do you think leadership is doing a good job?" (leading, vague, invites yes/no answer)

• Good question: "Can you describe a recent situation where you felt leadership either built or lost your trust? What happened?" (open-ended, specific, invites real stories)

Specific’s AI survey builder avoids vague or biased questions and crafts prompts that reliably uncover actionable insights. It learns from best practices, uses context about your workplace, and flexibly adjusts to your needs.

One quick tip: Aim for open-ended questions when you want deeper context (“Tell us about a time you…”). Avoid double-barreled questions—never ask about more than one thing at a time.

Need a list of actionable questions? Our best Employee Trust In Leadership survey questions guide is a great place to start.

Automatic follow-up questions based on previous reply

Static surveys rarely get the real story. That’s why Specific’s conversational AI can instantly ask smart follow-ups based on each person’s reply, in real time—just like a skilled interviewer. Let’s face it: context is everything, especially when understanding trust in leadership. Without follow-ups, Employee responses can be vague or even misunderstood, meaning missed insights or wasted time corresponding over email.

For example:

• Employee: “I feel communication isn’t great from leadership.”

• AI follow-up: “Can you share a recent instance where you felt leadership’s communication was lacking? How did it impact your work?”

Or:

• Employee: “Sometimes feedback from managers seems inconsistent.”

• AI follow-up: “What kind of feedback would you find most useful from your managers?”

Without these smart probes, you’re left with half answers and frustrating ambiguity (see how automatic AI follow-up questions work).

Trying it yourself is the best way to see why these follow-ups make a real difference. The survey becomes a conversation: a conversational survey, not just a static form.

Survey delivery: Share via link or embed in your product

How surveys reach employees matters just as much as the questions you ask. With Specific, you have two flexible delivery methods, tailored for Employee Trust In Leadership surveys:

• Sharable landing page surveys—Ideal for company-wide trust or leadership feedback, internal polling, or employee engagement initiatives. Simply send the survey link via email or chat and collect responses from anyone, anywhere.

• In-product surveys—Great for capturing Employee sentiment as they use internal tools or HR platforms. Use this method to catch feedback in relevant moments, reducing friction and ensuring high response rates.

For trust in leadership topics, sharable landing page surveys often make the most sense—everyone gets the same experience, and there’s no barrier to entry. But if you want to trigger surveys contextually, in-product delivery is unbeatable.

Effortless AI survey analysis

Analyzing free-text survey responses by hand is brutal. Specific’s AI survey analysis makes sense of all the data for you, summarizing every response, finding the big themes, and surfacing actionable insights instantly—no spreadsheets or manual work required. Automatic topic detection, instant summaries, and even the ability to chat with AI about your Employee Trust In Leadership survey results are all built in. Want to see how it works in practice? Read our guide on how to analyze Employee Trust In Leadership survey responses with AI.

Create your Trust In Leadership survey now

It’s never been easier to generate a quality Employee Trust In Leadership survey—just click, create with AI, and start getting actionable feedback in seconds.