As someone who writes on trust, I am very familiar with Fukuyama, and think you are quite right in citing him as you do.

And while I also agree with you about the importance of leaders in creating a high performance, trusting organization, I would not have picked “systems and practices” as falling into the same category. Frequently I find systems and practices are the enemy of trust; rarely the friend.

In addition to leaders setting good examples, I’d suggest other characteristics like a culture of empathy combined with constructive confrontation; values systems that support things like transparency and openness; and a medium-to-long term perspective in all things. More values-oriented sorts of issues, in other words.

In some ways, these values manifest in behaviors, or if you will, “practices.” But the practices are quite a ways downstream from the motivating forces, it seems to me.

Anyway, I’m glad to see such a high level of discussion about what I consider to b e an important topic. Thanks, and congratulations again.