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Trust Diagnostic | Executive Trust Assessment
Propel Trust Diagnostic
Trust Diagnostic

What your leaders say and do today is constantly being evaluated.
Are they building trust, or eroding it?

Every interaction, every public statement, even silence – stakeholders form judgements about your organisation based on how your leaders show up online. Those judgements shape whether people choose to invest, partner, join, or stay. Are you measuring and managing trust online?

What is the Trust Diagnostic?

An evidence-based assessment that measures how your leaders are perceived by stakeholders online – and where that perception creates risk or opportunity.

The diagnostic measures executive trust in real time, so you know where you stand, and can decide what to do next.

01
What it's based on
Publicly visible evidence only. No surveys, no self-assessment, no inference. Information your stakeholders are already using to form perceptions.
02
What it measures
Two dimensions – signals (what stakeholders see) and behaviours (what stakeholders experience) – and the credibility risk between them.
03
What it delivers
Individual trust ratings, credibility risk indicators, leadership archetypes, cohort analysis of strengths and blind spots, and strategic recommendations to reduce risk and drive growth.

How does the Trust Diagnostic help?

Organisations today are inadvertently leaving themselves exposed. Whether it’s “BAU” messaging from leaders, communicating a major transformation, or opting to stay silent online – every choice leaves an impression.

Without measuring the impact of these choices, organisations remain unaware when they are oversignalling to the market, amplifying misalignment, or leaking trust – until there is public backlash.

The Trust Diagnostic gives organisations the clarity they need to know how they are perceived, and the best decision to make next.

The diagnostic is most valuable before the moment that tests trust.

Leadership transition
A new leader is stepping in, or an existing leader's remit is changing. The diagnostic establishes their trust baseline before stakeholder expectations crystallise, giving the comms team a data-informed starting point. Organisations have used this to support CEO positioning, talent attraction, and leadership onboarding.
Restructure or transformation
The organisation is changing shape. Understand key pain points and perceptions before the announcement, not after a fallout. Organisations have used this to align leadership presence, understand key stakeholder attitudes, and support internal confidence.
Growth agenda
Entering a new market, launching a new division, or pursuing new commercial avenues. The diagnostic reveals whether your leaders have the trust they need to carry the new narrative and open doors. Organisations have used this to support commercial positioning, introductions, and market entry.
Media, regulator, or stakeholder scrutiny
The spotlight is on you – or moving your direction. The diagnostic shows where trust is strong enough to withstand pressure and where it needs to be managed. Organisations have used this to support unplanned change, regulatory readiness, and crisis preparedness.

What happens without a baseline

Level 1 – Operational
Visible to those closest
Inconsistent behaviour, silence during change, signal–behaviour gaps. Feels manageable. Often ignored or dismissed.
Level 2 – Systemic
Patterns across the organisation
Intent and interpretation diverge, becoming more damaging at scale. Credibility erodes slowly. No longer isolated.
Level 3 – Strategic
Board is managing consequences
Any trust gaps have hardened into narrative. Correction is abrupt, costly, and public.
The diagnostic measures at Level 1, limiting the risk of surprises at Level 3.

What does the diagnostic reveal?

The Trust Diagnostic measures two things: what stakeholders see (signals), and what stakeholders experience (behaviours). When the two align, trust holds. When they don't, credibility erodes.

Individual leader trust ratings

The diagnostic produces a trust rating for each leader, broken down into signals and behaviours. The cards below show how a cohort appears side by side – each with a rating, a trust band, and a credibility risk indicator.

Signals /50 Behaviours /50 Credibility risk indicator
Scores reflect visible evidence only. They are not a performance rating. A score of 100 is not the target; the right score depends on organisational strategy, stakeholders, and context.

The risk of not being believed is far greater than the risk of not being seen.

Signalā€“behaviour alignment across the cohort

The diagnostic maps each leader's signal score against their behaviour score. Where the two sit close together, stakeholders see consistency. Where a gap opens up, credibility risk builds – even if both scores are individually reasonable.

Signals /50 Behaviours /50 Credibility risk indicator

When a leader's online presence is all signals and no behaviours, words lose impact – stakeholders become sceptical of not only online efforts, but every channel a leader uses.

Stakeholders rarely confront. They simply disengage. It’s often only in times where trust matters that any leaks are first discovered.

Two views. Look inward. Look outward.

The diagnostic can be used to assess your own leadership team or to benchmark against external peers. Both views use the same evidence-based framework.

Internal alignment
Assess executive cohorts simultaneously. See where the team has gaps, who is shouldering the load, and where blind spots may exist – so the team can complement, not cannibalise, one another.
External intelligence
Benchmark against sector peers. Analyse positioning patterns and stakeholder feedback, areas where competitors are setting the agenda, and identify first-mover opportunities.
Internal Alignment
Where each leader sits across signals and behaviours
Established Trust Growing Trust Latent Trust Inhibited Trust Alignment
Leaders above the diagonal have stronger behaviours than signals. Leaders below it are over-signalling relative to engagement.
External Intelligence
Your leadership team against sector peers
Your executives Sector peers Alignment
Hollow circles represent competitor executives in the same sector. The comparison reveals where your leaders lead, match, or trail the peer set.

Why does this matter now?

01
Trust scales and erodes faster online than anywhere else.
The online environment is the only place where anyone, anywhere, at any time can see what a leader says and does.
02
Active or not, you're being evaluated.
Silence is its own signal – it leaves interpretation in the hands of sources you don't control.
03
AI is reshaping how leaders are found and assessed.
AI search tools draw from a small number of high-authority sources. First impressions are now formed before the first meeting.
04
Small trust issues compound.
What starts as an operational gap becomes strategic when a moment of scrutiny arrives.
Next steps

This diagnostic establishes the baseline.
The value is in what happens next.

The next step is a conversation with Roger about your leadership team – who to assess, what to look for, and what the findings will enable you to do.

Roger Christie
About
Roger Christie
Founder & Principal, Propel

Roger Christie is the founder of Propel and the architect of the Trust Diagnostic. He has spent the past decade helping organisations understand how executive trust is built, measured, and protected in the digital environment.

His work spans leadership positioning, stakeholder trust strategy, and diagnostic frameworks for organisations navigating change, growth, or scrutiny. Valued clients include the ACCC, the Australian Institute of Company Directors, Australia Post, Boehringer Ingelheim, Coles, CommBank, Cuscal, IAG, Mirvac, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Suncorp, Team Global Express, UniSuper, Westpac, and more than 50 federal, state and local government agencies.

Roger works directly with Corporate Affairs, HR, and senior leadership teams to turn trust insights into strategic action.