CHAPTER FOUR COMMUNICATION AND THE HIGH-TRUST ORGANIZATION Pamela Shockley-Zalabak , Sherwyn Morreale he global financial crisis, which began in 2008, generated fear that circled the globe and resulted in what many have called an unprecedented trust crash. While it is impossible to understand all aspects of the financial crisis, most agree that trust and distrust are affecting actions of diverse stakeholders: corpora- tions, governments, customers, the public, individual investors, regulators, and global alliances, to name only a few. In an age of globalization, scandals in all types of organizations, fast-paced change, and new pressures for innovation in processes, forms, and relationships place increasing importance on the somewhat elusive notion of organizational trust. Trust is considered pivotal for networks, alliances, uses of information technologies, workplace diversity, customer loyalty, decentralized decision making, and the list goes on. Yet, few people fully under- stand what it takes for an organization to be considered trustworthy. Trust influences a wide range of employee and stakeholder behaviors and is directly linked to overall organizational performance. However, the evidence is clear: few leaders and communication professionals regularly focus directly on trust. This chapter argues that organizational trust is a fundamental leadership responsibility and a growing area of responsibility for communication profes- sionals. We go so far as to claim that trust is the main thing for organizational excellence. We outline our work from 2000 to the present with regard to building the high-trust organization. We describe organizational trust, identify its impact on excellence, present our five-driver model for trust, and apply the model to 41 T