Abstract
Trust between leaders and followers has often been shown to be asymmetric in that whilst one partner in the relationship may trust the other, this is not necessarily reciprocated. Mutual trust by contrast reflects a pattern of trust where both leader and follower are highly trusting of each other. We investigated whether transformational leadership positively affects mutual trust through its effects on mutual respect between leaders and followers. Drawing upon the character-based perspective of trust, we suggested that mutual appraisal respect would be positively associated with mutual trust and that the follower’s ability in perspective taking would affect the strength of this relationship. We collected data from 122 leader-follower dyads in the UK and found support for these relationships. Significantly, we found the direct relationship between transformational leadership and mutual respect was insignificant with mutual appraisal respect included in our model. We suggest that the state of mutuality found in mutual appraisal respect may foster mutual trust derived from both relational as well as character-based mechanisms.