The Influence of Leadership Soft Skills on Perceived Trustworthiness in Higher Education: A Conceptual Framework

1.   Introduction

1.1. Background of the research and Rationale of the Study

Leadership for the present organizational and learning context has moved from heavily authority-centric to competence- and relationship-based. The globalization, digitalization, and complexity of new institutions demand technical proficiency and cognitive and relational ability for collaboration building, evocation of commitment, and retention of credibility. These behavioral and relational strengths are generally articulated as leadership soft skills and include communication, cooperation, initiative, emotional intelligence, critical thinking, and flexibility. Compared with hard skills, which are technical and task-bound, soft skills have immediate bearings on the manner in which leaders build and maintain relationships with followers (Robles, 2012; Ariratana et al., 2015). Similarly, trustworthiness has become the key construct of leadership effectiveness. Competence, benevolence, and integrity are three of the most significant aspects of trustworthiness (Mayer et al., 1995). Competence, caring, and ethics on the part of leaders give rise to confidence, improve employee motivation, and increase organizational performance (Caldwell & Hayes, 2007).

On the other hand, a lack of trust breeds disengagement, conflict, and organizational decay. As higher education places strong values on collegiate governance and academic freedom, trustworthiness has specific salience for retaining the cooperation of faculty and organizational legitimacy.Despite its long-acknowledged centrality, scholarship thus far has systematically failed to bridge leadership soft skills and trustworthy leadership. The transformational, servant, and moral leadership literature repeatedly includes trust as a necessary outcome (Yasir et al., 2016; Jaramillo et al., 2015), with very few studies detailing the exact microlevel soft skills that build integrity, benevolence, and capability beliefs. The soft-skill literature also concentrates on their application for employability and organizational performance (Abraham et al., 2021; Zainal & Yong, 2020) but nearly always omits their application for building trustworthy leadership. This omission leaves a principal research lacuna.

This study’s rationale resides in closing this gap with a conceptual model of leadership soft skills as antecedents of perceived trustworthiness. Through the explicit connection of ten soft skills—collaboration, communication, initiative, leadership ability, personal development, personal effectiveness, planning and organizing, presentation skills, critical thinking, and technology—to trustworthiness, the model has two leadership scholarship contributions. Its first contribution resides in unifying two existing lines of scholarship—soft skills and trust—under one model. Its second contribution resides in delineating practical vehicles of leaders building trust and with promise for leadership education, specifically higher education, wherein governance rests on credibility and collegiate trust. As such, the current paper has merit, as it positions trustworthiness not as an intangible asset but as the end-point of discernible, behavioral leadership behavior. In doing so, not only can knowledge development at the theoretical level occur, but it also facilitates support for future empirical validation if and only if leadership development efforts prioritize those competencies best adapted for building higher interorganizational resilience and trustworthiness.

1.2 Research problems

Twenty-first-century leadership has also witnessed paradigm shifts. Classical views focused on technical proficiency, authority, and command of the decision environment. Globalization, digitalization, and the complex environment of organizations have, however, made “soft skills” of interpersonal, emotional, and cognitive skills dominant so that leaders can operate effectively with varied constituencies. In universities, organizations, NGOs and other organizations, leaders are graded not only on their ability to make decisions but also on their ability to communicate, cooperate, and win their followers' confidence (Abraham et al., 2021; Robles, 2012). Trustworthiness is also a powerful antecedent of leadership effectiveness. The belief that leaders possess integrity, benevolence, and competence has direct effects on their motivation, cooperation with organizational change, and commitment (Caldwell & Hayes, 2007; Mayer et al., 1995). A lack of resistance creates resistance, disengagement, and performance downturns. On the other hand, trustworthy leaders enjoy psychological safety, cooperation, and long-term organizational performance (Breevaart & Zacher, 2019; Siyal, 2023). Despite their central position, extremely few works directly connect leadership soft skills and perceived trustworthiness. Works on leadership styles such as servant, transformational, or ethical leadership—appeal for trust invariably as an end state. They often abstain from detailed processes of how soft skills engender perceived trustworthiness. This relinquishes the opportunity to ascertain the behavioral antecedents of trust as well as design leadership development interventions with an explicit focus on developing these capacities. Organizational complexity currently makes exploration of this relationship indispensable and necessary. Leaders are constantly facing challenges for which technical knowledge will not suffice, e.g., digital transformation, leading to diverse teams across cultures, or managing institutional crises. In higher education, for example, college and dean leaders have to reconcile collegiate trust and administrative effectiveness, for which organizational capability and social talent are of equal necessity. Corporate managers are left with innovation on one side and transparency and employee loyalty on the other side. In either situation, trustworthiness, as the foundation of sustainable leadership, comes into focus.

Knowing how soft skills produce perceived trustworthiness has practical and theoretical significance. Theoretically, it closes the divide between two lines of literature—trust and soft skills—considered separately. Practically, it provides one blueprint for leadership education, charting professional development initiatives that stress communication, cooperation, and ethics as much as technical judgment does. While there are indeed results such as leadership behavior-end-result correlations of trust, no systematic conceptual model exists between perceived trustworthiness and certain soft skills. At present, the preference for research is as follows:

-        Overall leadership styles should be compared without emphasizing specific competencies in particular (e.g., transformational vs. servant leadership).

-        Instead of examining micro skills as sources for integrity, benevolence, or ability perceptions, trust is treated as a result of ethical or transformational leadership.

-        Do not issue context-specific prescriptions, particularly for higher education, for leadership involves balancing academic values with managerially oriented tasks.This paper fills those gaps by developing and arguing for a conceptual framework in which leadership soft skills are the independent factors determining trustworthiness.

1.3   Research objectives

The main objective of this study is to develop and propose a conceptual framework that positions ten leadership soft skills as antecedents of perceived trustworthiness defined through ability, benevolence, and integrity by integrating leadership and trust theories and formulating hypotheses to explain the mechanisms linking these skills to trust in higher education leadership.

1.4   Research limitations

Despite this work having plausible results on leadership soft skills' perceived trustworthiness moderation, there are few shortcomings, which also need amendment. First, the study is still conceptual and entails no data collection at the empirical level. Even as much as the model and the hypothesis are guided by the literature and previous works, the absence of primary data limits the generalizability of the results or the measure of the actual robustness of the purported associations. Second, the scope of the study has been constrained precisely to organizational and higher education leadership settings. These findings are consistent with the emphasis on organizational administration and the higher education leadership role of trust, but the model might not fully reflect the dynamics of trustworthy leadership in other situations, such as political leadership, military command, or community leadership, where situation and culture influence effects might have differing impacts.

Third, the paper cites sources of secondary literature, and while systematic attempts have been made at utilizing peer review and credible sources, analysis will always rely on the availability and quality of the literature conducted. Publication bias and Western perspectives from leadership scholars, as likely limiting factors of the cross-cultural transferability of the model for application with non-Western groups, are areas of concern. Finally, the very construct of trust itself, as an abstraction of belief by adherents, itself can differ with culture, the organizational environment, and experience. The ability–benevolence–integrity model also assumes wide transferability of the model, but such factors might not enjoy equal salience in other societies/institutions. Such constraints imply that further empirical research that tests and fine-tunes the model with varying organizational and cultural contexts will allow for wider generalizability and practical use.

2     Literature Review

2.1 Theoretical Foundations of Trust in Leadership

Trust and leadership theory provide the foundation for understanding why model leaders create a favorable organizational climate to enable employee engagement and high performance. Underlying that question is the concept of trust, which has been widely studied in various styles of leadership, such as servant, transformational, and ethical forms of leadership. Trust is primarily faith in the dependability of leaders and in theirintegrity and has an overwhelming in-grained impact on the overall organizational climate. Research has revealed that building trust is connected to servant leadership. Jaramillo et al. stressed that trust building is central to effectively leading interdependence in a supervisory-to-follower context (Jaramillo et al., 2015). This is evidenced by Joseph and Winston, who discovered that an organization's belief in servant leadership is positively connected with high levels of trust in leaders over nonservant leaders (Joseph & Winston, 2005). Sendjaya and Pekerti's proposed mutual relationship underscores that servant leadership constructs but maintains and constructs trust with consistent leader practices that foster confidence (Sendjaya & Pekerti, 2010). More particularly, studies investigating the traits and impacts of various forms of leadership have shown that transformational leaders constructively build trust through employee involvement in change, as exemplified by Yasir et al. These studies have shown that transformational leaders build trust through the value of work effort and sources of inspiration amidst changes (Yasir et al., 2016).

This is exemplified by Dirks and Ferrin’s results of a meta-analysis showing that leader trust is a robust predictor of team performance and hence points to the practical relevance of trust in organizational and team performance (Dirks & Ferrin, 2002). Ethical leadership, along with transformational and servant leadership, is equally necessitated in trust building. In Lu’s article, ethical leadership is positively anchored with organizational citizenship behaviors, moderated by cognitive and affective trust, and portrays the functioning of trust in the context of ethics (Lu, 2014). These papers demonstrate that trust serves as a variable to be granted to secure desired organizational performance. Additionally, the impact of both leader personality and organizational climate contributes equally to the trust equation. According to Sitompul and Munthe, leadership traits and organizations’ trust depend on one another and result in an implication that only when there is a favorable organizational climate will the leader trust team members more (Sitompul & Munthe, 2021). Similarly, Hasel and Grover demonstrated a shortage of trust with extreme negative impacts to avert adequate communication and general leader influence (Hasel & Grover, 2017). Character theories of leadership discuss character integrity and consistency of action to result in trust building. This finding is similar to that of Budiargo and Setiawan’s article, which suggests that trust is a robust indicator of effective servant leadership (Budiargo & Setiawan, 2023). Additionally, leaders’ communication, which is watched by Kosonen and Ikonen, reflects that effective discursive practices play a humongous role in encouraging team members to trust each other in places such as in the context of a modern liberal arts institution (Kosonen & Ikonen, 2019).

2.2 Trustworthiness

Interpersonal trustworthiness is the core of interpersonal relationships and is composed of three basic dimensions: ability, benevolence, and integrity. The literature on this construct emphasizes that these dimensions contribute to trustworthiness judgments influenced by both cognitive and social factors (Mayer et al., 1995; Colquitt et al., 2007). Mayer and colleagues (1995) conceptualized trustworthiness as the perception that a trustee possesses the ability to perform tasks, the benevolence to act with goodwill, and the integrity to adhere to acceptable principles. Empirical research also shows that the benevolence and integrity dimensions may have affective components, whereas ability is more cognitively based, reflecting the complex nature of trust judgments in interpersonal contexts (Zhang, 2021).

2.2.1. Ability

Trustworthiness typically starts with an impression of a person's commitment to following through on promises or commitments. The socialcommunication context and prior behavioral records construct this impression. As an example, Bellucci et al.'s research shows that in the longer term, people make trustworthiness judgments of other people on the grounds of actual performance in repeated interactions and then adjust strategies for subsequent interactions on the basis of these judgments (Bellucci et al., 2019). Additionally, support is found to show that trustworthiness is connected to perceived competence in some instances. Generalized trust is typically reserved for relevant proficiency or skill and is elaborated in Glaeser et al.'s book, which shows that social acquaintance aids in trust and trustworthiness (Glaeser et al., 2000). Insight into these mechanisms aids an evaluation of the impact of perceived ability on general trust assessments. Interpersonal trustworthiness follows three interlinked dimensions—ability, benevolence, and integrity—and is an ingredient of working associations. Various factors influencing decisions and impressions of trustworthiness are detailed in the literature because of social influences and cognitive processes.

2.2.2. Benevolence

Benevolence is part of one's perceived goodwill, measuring one's readiness to do the other a favor. Emotionally grounded motives such as embarrassment and elation underlie cooperation in trust games and the desire to be trustworthy and to trust, wrote Espín et al. (Espín et al., 2016). This is consistent with the work of Thielmann and Hilbig, which highlights that altruistic motives such as unconditional benevolence and positive reciprocity are central to building trustworthiness (Thielmann & Hilbig, 2015). A better understanding of trust is one of not only observing acts but also inferring the motive for them, which enriches our view of the role played by benevolence in trust.

2.2.3. Integrity

Integrity is also consistent with honesty, a helpful predictor of constructing trustworthiness. As found from Bellucci and Park's findings, trust perceptions at first may rely significantly on an initial impression of honesty and later create subsequent social interactions (Bellucci & Park, 2023). Temporally, the trust dimension is a process of development when initial impressions are reassessed according to interactions of the current and dominating social norms led by Chang et al. (Chang et al., 2010). This means that constructing integrity is not only related to first impressions but also often involves showing honesty along the way to establish a solid foundation to construct trust relationships.

2.3 The Trust-Building Process in Leadership

Trust in leadership is a dynamic process at the center of a company's performance. Trust in humanity is the seed of a leader who is a success, and it still influences team performance and a company's results. Interpersonal trust shapes leader styles and, most importantly, agility. Excellent agile women's leadership is founded, Akkaya and Bagieńska state, on an interpersonal trust premise and not mere belief in practice failure in leadership. Schaubroeck et al. agree and, in publication, note that cognitive and affective trust moderate leader behaviors and team outcome connections. Citizen leaders generate more degrees of affective trust and subsequent performance, primarily in situations where accommodating is of most value (Akkaya & Bagieńska, 2022; Schaubroeck et al., 2011). However, transformational leadership is more likely to build trust. Breevaart and Zacher will likely agree that transformational leadership positively affects followers' trust in a certain sense compared with laissez-faire leadership, a trust violator, and therefore leader performance (Breevaart & Zacher, 2019). Yang noted that transformational leadership indirectly affects building trust in leadership in the sense of cooperation and conflict resolution, referring to intricate mechanisms of building trust in teams via transformational approaches (Yang, 2012). Additionally, trust is a key mediator of differing styles of leadership and differing organisational performance. Boakye et al. infer, for example, that organisational trust in leadership has significant impacts on resilience and organisational citizenship behavior (OCB) such that resilient members high in manager trust are found to be positively active in teams (Boakye et al., 2022). Siyal illustrates the mediating effect of inclusive leadership on work engagement and documents that trust has a psychological safety impact and promotes commitment and performance at the team level (Siyal, 2023). Additionally, trust is still most central to ethical leadership, and research has validated the impact of ethical leadership on creativity through trust and organisational climate. The creation of trust in the organization is suggested by Addai et al. (2023) to increase employees’ abilities in terms of creativity and thereby organizational performance. The creation of trust then facilitates ethical leadership to reach standards and creates an organisational climate where innovation is of greatest value. Additionally, Fulmer and Ostroff (2017) suggest a "trickle-up" process such that first-line manager trust has a positive "spillover" impact and flows into trust in senior-level managers such that trust-building trickles level by level of an organisational hierarchy. This again implies a requirement of having trust at more than one level of leadership to create a positive organisational climate to foster high performance.

2.4. Theoretical Implications

2.4.1 Transformational leadership theory

Transformational leadership theory considers a leader's ability to make and motivate followers for positive action and influence organizational change and performance. Transformational leadership theory refers to the manner in which a transformational leader reinforces followers' commitment and motivation to make them capable of participating in changes in a state of preparedness and resilience. Different studies document the primary characteristic of transformational leadership to induce a positive situation to change, in the majority of cases, due to increased commitment to an organization, positive organizational culture, and the empowerment of an individual. Research has shown that transformational leadership affects employees’ readiness to change immensely. For example, Putra occupies a position in which transformational leaders affect an organization's activities and attitudes better and facilitate people’s readiness to participate in change (Putra, 2019). In turn, Istiqomah and Burhanuddin agree with the implementation of effective organizational change to arise from transformational leadership and emphasize chiefs' ability to facilitate an environment of acceptance for transformation (Istiqomah & Burhanuddin, 2022). Wu et al. (2024) take the same stance,illustrate the evident correspondence of transformational leadership and readiness to change, and further affirm a dominant chief’s role to render a workforce flexible and active (Nordin et al., 2023). In addition, there is strong evidence that transformational leadership increases an organization's commitment, which is a state of effective management of change.

Research by Iqbal et al. illustrates the creation of positive working relationships by transformational chiefs, revealing an evident level of stafforganizational commitment, to a large degree, in difficult professions such as health (Iqbal et al., 2019). Runa takes the same viewpoint and believes that an optimal degree of transformational leadership is positively correlated with an employee's commitment to an organization (Runa, 2023). Moreover, Fantahun et al. recommend a transformational style of leading such that adopting a transformational way of operating will make a person more a part of an institution's goals and ensure commitment and not just a sense of compliance (Fantahun et al., 2023). The organizational culture and transformational styles of leaders are connected in relation to change management as well. Liu and Khong-Khai suggested that transformational leadership facilitates a positive organizational culture to achieve the least resistance to change and maximum agility (Liu & Khong-Khai, 2024). In addition, Harb and Sidani indicate the impact of transformational leadership in the public sector, where innovative and new answers to questions that are arising are necessary and performance must be enhanced (Harb & Sidani, 2019). In addition totransformational leadership and a positive organizational culture, leaders are able to establish a solid basis for successful and effective change. In addition to these direct influences on commitment and culture, transformational leadership energizes staff members, a key reason where change happens in an organization. Yang shows ways in which transformational leaders foster the psychological empowerment of people, so performance and agility are improved (Yang, 2023). This empowerment occurs because transformational leaders are able to inspire and energize followers, and the possession of and sense of responsibility toward an organization's goals is felt (Matejić et al., 2021).

2.4.2 Social exchange theory

Social exchange theory (SET) opines that social action is a result of an exchange process where individuals participate in interactions anticipatorily, anticipating a reciprocally balanced return of a benefit, be it economic or social. Blau's seminal 1964 book highlights theinterdependencies of reciprocal exchanges of individuals upon which relational tie bases are established, producing varied outputs such as trust, commitment, and work satisfaction in organizational settings (Chiaburu et al., 2011). Effective leadership has been proven to be a driving factor in building quality social exchanges in an organization. Chiaburu et al. noted that actual leadership forecasts social exchanges and job satisfaction, whereby job satisfaction mediates the relationship between leadership and social exchange processes (Chiaburu et al., 2011). Similarly, Chen and Sriphon discovered that positive dispositions of leadership in the midst of crisis circumstances such as the existing situation of COVID-19 significantly contributed to the interrelationships of staff members' social exchange quality, with the implication that managers play a critical role in evoking cooperation and faith within working groups (Chen & Sriphon, 2022). This effect is equally supported by a paper by Jochims, who pointed out imperatives of social reciprocity to form potent work associations, even more so in low-scale businesses whereby staff norms conduct social exchange procedures (Jochims, 2016). Additionally, the subtleties of social exchanges played out are at more than an organizational level. Audenaert et al. set out ways through which individual-level perceptions of social exchange interrelationships function to cushion pressures of employment interrelationships and lead to a superior affective commitment of staff members (Audenaert et al., 2017). This implies that the perception of social exchange dictates the emotional response and perception of the organization. Therefore, Küçük suggested that social and economic exchanges are precursors to organizational commitment and are a reference to the processes of relationships and employee involvement (Küçük, 2020). Furthermore, social exchange-related psychological processes are essential to employees' behavioral responses in organizations. Ghosh et al. articulated the reward gratitude mechanism that appeals to the reciprocity norm, wherein employees feel obligated to reciprocate positive treatment through increased performance and involvement (Ghosh et al., 2016). This reciprocity is similar to that of the larger context of SET, wherein the expectation of reciprocity of benefits is the force driving work tradition and organizational relationships.

2.4.3 Leader–Member Exchange (LMX) Theory

Leader–Member Exchange (LMX) theory has been a central model of organisational psychology and management studies for investigating the personalities of leader–follower relationships. Since its early codification in the 1970s, LMX theory has placed in the central position the importance of social exchange in the workplace area and has proposed that the quality of exchanges has much to do with forming a variety of organisational outputs, such as performance, satisfaction, and organisational turnover intent (Ribič & Marič, 2023, Abiola, 2021). LMX's initial assumption is that such associations are of unequal but varying quality and inclined to create heterogeneous exchanges, and these in turn act to impact team and general organisational functioning (Martin et al., 2015; Martin et al., 2017). High-quality LMX is defined by the interdependencyof mutual trust, respect, and responsibility (Woolliams, 2022). High-quality LMX facilitates open communication and support and creates a cooperative and collaborative climate for team members (Lu et al., 2017). Low-quality LMX creates a distrust and disengagement atmosphere and has debilitating effects such as high organizational turnover intent and low job satisfaction among staff members (Kim & Yi, 2018; Harris et al., 2011). Individual leaders’ ability to establish effective LMX is the key to individual employee performance and the general well-being of organizational culture (Byun et al., 2017; Sindhu et al., 2017). Empirical support is found to justify the fact that the quality of trust defining LMX associations has a critical effect on employees’ perceptions and actions. Higher-quality LMXs are associated with greater organizational commitment and desire to do more than is required by definitions of their jobs and, through this, organizational citizenship behavior (Lu et al., 2017; Li, 2015).

In this context, leader behaviors constitute important determinants of members' outcomes; many studies have specified the nuances of feedback in LMX interactions and its influence on member impressions and, with this, performance (Audenaert et al., 2020). Similarly, while there is so much positive about LMX, when leaders are unable to create high-quality interactions with each member of a team to an equal extent, LMX differentiation follows. Differentiation, even though teams are occasionally prudent in the actual management of teams by leaders, leads to perceived nepotism and team conflict and negatively affects overall team cohesion and performance (Martin et al., 2015; Wang et al., 2024). Prevention and management of these negatives become necessary for leaders who desire to maximize performance and create a favorable working climate.In short, LMX theory is a strong theory of leader‒member relationships in the workplace. When qualitative elements of leader–memberrelationships are considered, high-quality, trusting relationships are clearly the core of organizational and individual performance. Successful leadership requires not only an understanding of the significance of such relationships but also active involvement in practices that build them at different levels of interplay.

2.4.4 Servant leadership theory

Servant leadership theory has evolved into a robust paradigm of leader roles to create a culture of worker engagement, organizational performance, and overall workplace well-being. With the robust assertion that efficient leadership is a byproduct of placing emphasis on the needs of the worker and empowering them with power, the underlying paradigm of servant leadership theory is the assumption of prioritizing the well-being of followers of the leader. Walumbwa et al. presumed that the servant leader style was motivated by a sense of moral responsibility to probe and serve greater stakeholder and organisational needs and, in doing so, an instrumental justice climate to increase the organized citizenship behavior (OCB) of the worker (Walumbwa et al., 2010). This underlying assumption places servant leadership as a focal vehicle by which workplace behavior is positively connected with employees' attitudes by the leader. Underlying this is Clercq et al.'s investigation of the servant leadership and work engagement interface and the discovery that the social capital of followers and leaders plays an important role in neutralizingthe negative impact of the working setting stresses on employee engagement (Clercq et al., 2014; Sam et al., 2025). Amin et al. further propagated the servant and innovative work behavior interface and discovered that the public service motivation dimension plays an important mediating role in the relationship (Amin et al., 2024).

This is a thin line at the edge of the border between employee innovation and performance motivating factors and leader style. Furthermore, servant leadership priorities are equally easy to convert into a maximization of performance of the organization in terms of high employee engagement. Various studies have shown that servant leadership is an indicator of high levels of employee engagement, which are precursors to attaining high levels of job satisfaction and commitment to goals (Chuah et al., 2023: Meas et al., 2024). For example, Bavık et al.'s findings established that employee orientation toward servant leadership is an indicator of motivation to commit to extrarole performance outside of formal remit (Bavık et al., 2017). This process is the focal point of tapping the potential of servant leadership to ensure the quality performance of the job and the overall performance of the organization. Specifically, the integration of servant leadership values into skill training programs has been posited by various scholars to nurture a workplace culture of optimism (Williams & Tucker, 2025). Such programs are focal points of aligning the organization's demands and the worker, resulting in a workplace culture of cooperation and trust. Additionally, a study by Paesen et al. further showed that servant leadership contributes to a decrease in employee deviance but an increase in ethical performance, an example of its wider potential beyond a narrow measure of performance (Paesen et al., 2019).

2.4.5 Theory of Trust Attribution

The attribution theory of trust is a useful framework with which to understand trust violation and repair processes in a wide range of situations. Most core to this theory is the hypothesis that other individuals' view of the motivation of a particular act determines trust beliefs to a large degree. In a trust violation, other individuals impose causes, which are assigned to transgressor internal dispositions (i.e., competence or integrity) or to environmental factors that control behavior. This distinction is then applicable to trust repair procedures such that denial or apology repair strategies are often moderated by such attribution. Ferrin et al.'s paper is a good example of such a paper and demonstrates the usefulness of a distinction between integrity and competence trust violations such that the same malfeasance act has varying cognitive and emotional effects on a victim and thus affects the trust repair strategy (Ferrin et al., 2007). Similarly, a more highly differentiated analysis of trust violations is hypothesized by Frawley and Harrison so that gender and agent roles can affect attribution and then subsequent trust repair (Frawley & Harrison, 2016). This hypothesis is seemingly informative because it tells us about the ways in which varying contexts may give way to varying trustworthiness beliefs such that violator and violated reparative efforts are moderated. Additionally, trust repair strategy research in an organisational setting, for example, research by Wang et al., aims to support the use of attribution theory and to propose that heterogeneous causal attribution may lead to highly varying trust recovery outcomes (Wang et al., 2021). These attribution levels are important when considering why trust repair efforts are increasingly effective and why trust repair efforts fail. The circumstances under which a recipient imputes deceitful behavior to internal rather than external causes affect the will to forgive and to reconstitute trust, as reported by Wu et al. (2024) in the context of the COVID-19 epidemic.

This finding is consistent with findings that suggest that a trust repair act's perceived sincerity is critical in overcoming trust breaches—altruism and sincerity strongly weight clients' trust in service interactions (Hoogervorst et al., 2015). Notably, Tomlinson et al.'s work offers a cognitive model of a process to explain the way in which attributions surrounding trust violations manage people's responses and the complexity of repairing trust (Tomlinson et al., 2020). They extend the prior concept that the causal attribution dimension of stableness—perceived permanence or impermanence of individuals' reason for the trust violation—affects strategies for restoring trust. This finding is consistent with the findings ofChen et al., who pointed to a mediating effect of causal attribution in successful trust repair in e-commerce contexts and concluded that consumers' perspectives of a trust violation's motivations directly affect a recovery strategy (Chen et al., 2013). Toward further implications, Dirks' research linking the effectiveness of leadership to trust processes points out that trust in leaders may determine organizational performance, a measure indicative of returning to a prior impact of trustworthiness of leaders from an observer's team viewpoint, again pinpointing attribution dynamics in trust contexts (Dirks, 2000). This recursive process underscores a sense in which a perception of a leader's intent may play a critical role in building and eroding trust within teams and open the way to an expanded view of attribution theory directions and applicability to a deeper field of organizational behavior and team studies.

2.5 Leadership Soft Skills: Definitions and Importance

Thus, leadership qualities—cognitive, affective, and interpersonal talent—increase recognition as leadership competence. Compared with hard qualities and technical and task-directed qualities, softer qualities enable leaders to establish relational ties, secure cooperation, and function with intricate organizational dynamics. Ariratana et al. (2015) note that educational administration necessitates technical knowledge and softer qualities, and Robles (2012) indicates that they are as successful as hard qualities for job success. Below, each of the ten soft skills is examined as a potential antecedent of trustworthiness.

2.5.1 Collaboration/Teamwork

Teamwork and collaboration instill leadership trust. Effective teamwork fosters psychological safety climates, with members remaining trusting their leaders as credible and supportive. Kohanová et al. (2024) reported that collaboration decreases healthcare mistakes and infuses trust into teams. Similarly, Schaubroeck et al. (2011) observe that trust is reinforced as leaders establish affective and cognitive connections with their teams. In higher education, collaboration between deans increases higher education faculty involvement and perceptions of fairness (Cho & Poister, 2014). Principals considering their subordinates as part of consensus building and collective governance are viewed as trustworthy (Diggele et al., 2020). Ethical and collaborative models of governance also improve support for trust, as organizational and personal values become tied (Javed et al., 2018). In this sense, teamwork offers fertile ground for being trustworthy, especially for education and healthcare organizations.

2.5.2 Communication

Communication probably comes closest to an immediate path to trust. Owusu et al. (2021) demonstrated that deans’ effective communication builds climates of trust and that poor communication violates credibility. Writing at the organizational level also verifies that clear and consistent communication remedies mistakes and failures on the part of managers. Successful communication reinforces leaders’ leadership in articulating expectations, goal alignment, and conflict management (Rahman et al., 2025). In times of crisis, such as the COVID-19 outbreak, a communication strategy is especially needed for the preservation of trust (Kashive et al., 2022). Lui and Ruan (2023) reported that academic and administrative communication on the part of administrators for the preservation of trust has mixed constituents. In this way, communication is relational and not transactional—its removal destroys and its very presence builds it.

2.5.3 Initiative

Initiative strategies include leaders’ participation in innovation and in solving problems. Ahmad and Ahmed (2022) suggested that theeffectiveness of leadership is mediated by higher education and trustworthiness. There are staff members who are confident in initiatives if they feel that their leaders are trustworthy (Kearney, Loughlan, Ajjpur, Fawns, and Davys, 2013). Trust makes staff members part of new initiatives, creating an innovation and reinforcing the trust cycle (Carter and Mossholder, 2015). Lau, Au, and Siu (2013) reported that supporting institutional initiatives from faculty members increases with increasing trust. In general, leaders, as initiators with integrity, build trust as innovators and organizational value guardians.

2.5.4 Leadership ability

Leadership ability also comprises vision, decision-making, and influence. Transformational leadership has always gone hand-in-hand with greatertrustworthiness (Waheeda et al., 2023; Jung, 2022). Authentic leadership, with its qualities of openness and consistency, also enhances trust (Caldwell & Hayes, 2007). The transformational leadership of nursing deans elevated faculty members' level of satisfaction and trust, as reportedby Worthy et al. (2020). Similarly, Khan et al. (2019) reported that leadership abilities—ethically guided vision, involvement, and empowerment—shape trust perceptions among higher education institutions. Good leadership ability thus

2.5.5 Personal development/coaching

Personal development involves leaders’ self-knowledge, emotional intelligence, and coaching capability. Self-investment, as exemplified by leaders in personal development, instills integrity and reinforces trust (Caldwell & Hayes, 2007). Emotional intelligence establishes trusting behavior, as leaders are empathetic and mentor their immediate subordinates (Kudesia & Reina, 2019). Lapka and Kung (2023) reported that self-control, which is learned as a result of personal development, has direct application for views of integrity. Academic leaders, as exemplars of self-development and mentorship, are viewed as trustworthy, as they reconcile others’ development

2.5.6 Personal effectiveness/mastering

Personal effectiveness entails achieving maximum performance with integrity and transparency. Rahman et al. (2025) emphasize its central position for academic leadership, as trust sustains faculty morale. Transformational leaders with personal effectiveness in terms of performance and moral behavior intertwine to form trust (Shahid & Harun, 2024). Interactive discussion also forges trust with frank discussions (Kosonen & Ikonen, 2019). Wahlstrom and Louis (2008) also advocate the extension of trust with mutual professional identities to delineate the effectiveness–trust relationship.

2.5.7 Planning and Organizing

Planning ability and organizational ability are indicators of foresight and dependability, and they are trustworthy. Jiang and Luo (2018) theorize that employee trust is fostered with clear planning. Inclusively planning genuine leaders builds trust, as they model ethical commitment (Babaoğlan, 2016). On scholarship campuses, organizational and planning clarity from deans reassures faculty members as part of change agendas (Islam et al., 2020). The inclusiveness of planning practices is seen to foster employee trust, as their model structure and equity are inseparable (Okello and Gilson, 2015).

2.5.8 Presentation skills

Presentation skills help leaders express vision and build credibility. Hromas et al. (2018) reported that communicative clarity has direct impacts on perceived academic leadership trustworthiness. Experimental tests have shown that data presentation clarity elevates the level of faculty confidence and perceived integrity (Sharif et al., 2020). Proper presentation synchronizes leader speech with behavior and creates trustworthiness (Tamilina & Tamilina, 2018).

2.5.9 Critical Thinking

Critical thinking helps leaders review, reflect, and make informed choices. Afdareza et al. (2020) viewed student achievement as contingent on critical thinking; for leaders, it is credible as a problem solver. Greater fairness and vision for leadership, as cited by Kyamanywa and Redding (2021), are both essential for establishing trust. Clear thought processes also support constructs of honesty and competence (Wakefield & Whitten, 2006). In this process, critical thinking bridges the gap between rational choice and relational trust.

2.5.10 Technology

Technology competence now constitutes leader legitimacy for digital spaces. Schreibelmayr et al. (2023) also illustrate digital space competence as gaining legitimacy for automated spaces. Inextricably, McKnight et al. (2002) also believe that technical competence presages capability and foreseeability. Thus, digital transformation education leaders are tasked with becoming technologically skilled for additional legitimacy among learners and staff members (Wakefield & Whitten, 2006). Technological competence is thus anything but incidental and essential for the credibility of this era.

2.6. Conceptual Framework & Hypotheses

2.6.1 Conceptual Framework

Working with others/collaboration, communication, initiative, leadership potential, personal development/coaching, personal effectiveness, planning and organization, presentation style, critical thinking, and technology are the independent variables (IVs) that affect the dependent variable (DV): perceived trustworthiness. Trustworthiness is conceptualized as a multidimensional construct comprising ability, benevolence, and integrity (Mayer et al., 1995). Leaders who are perceived as competent (ability), ethical (integrity), or caring (benevolence) are more likely to gain followers’ trust. The framework builds on prior leadership theories—transformational leadership, social exchange theory, servant leadership, and leader–member exchange (LMX)—which emphasize the relational basis of trust. Unlike earlier studies that treat trust as an outcome of leadership style, this framework identifies specific soft skills as antecedents that cultivate trustworthiness.

2.6.2 Conceptual Model Description

Researchers propose two variables, including independent variables (Soft Skills): Collaboration, communication, initiative, leadership ability, personal development, personal effectiveness, planning and organizing, presentation skills, critical thinking, and technology, and dependent variables (trustworthiness), such as ability, benevolence, and integrity. This model elucidates the direct and measurable impact of soft skills on perceived trustworthiness and provides an outline of leadership development as well as organizational development.

2.7 Hypothesis development

2.7.1 The relationship between collaboration/teamwork and trustworthiness

Teamwork and collaboration are decisive factors in establishing the building trustworthiness of deans and, subsequently, schools. Leadership effectiveness, with its very basis as trust, depends so much on the collective endeavor of the team. For example, the communicative effectiveness of teamwork and participation can have direct credit for perceived higher leadership trustworthiness. As the literature suggests, collaboration effectiveness has the propensity of side-stepping healthcare omissions and leaving space for each team participant, leader, and dean to establishmutual trust (Kohanová et al., 2024). Trust in leadership is built on affective and cognitive processes and emotional relationships between the leader and the team at the center stage (Schaubroeck et al., 2011). The establishment of a climate of trust is necessary, as effective teamwork in schools commutes to increased performance and trust in leadership (Cho & Poister, 2014). In addition, the practice of building individual competencies such as open-mindedness, respect, and effective communication also resonates well with the development of a trustworthy culture in schools of learning (Merritt & Kelley, 2018). Leadership with ethicality and collaborative governance as an area of focus highlights building mutual trust as a defining characteristic. Ethical leaders stand a greater chance of inspiring confidence in the team through a vision that resonates with personal and organizational values (Javed et al., 2018; Lieff & Yammarino, 2017). According to these studies, leaders who are actively engaged in building trust through open communication and consensus development are perceived as trustworthy by peers and subordinates. This connection between active involvement in teamwork and trustworthiness formation is at the center of deans being rendered more effective (Diggele et al., 2020). There should be joint training and development activities for leaders and their teams. These efforts focus on the imperatives of trust-building activities that have the potential to prevent negativity and promote a climate that encourages teamwork (Lee et al., 2010; Chuang et al., 2021). An understanding of leader–member exchange processes can also provide meaningful guidance on how trust is perceived and formed within educational settings and further highlight the collaborative spirit that is needed in these relationships (Chuang et al., 2021).

Proposition: Hypothesis (H1): Collaboration/teamwork skills positively influence trustworthiness.

2.7.2 The relationship between communication and trustworthiness

The impact of communication skills on the trustworthiness of academic deans is a complex topic drawing evidence from various studies indicating the nexus between effective communication, leadership efficacy, and trust relationships in academic institutions. Effective communication is always cited as a fundamental competency for deans, by which they are able to build trusting relationships with faculty members, students, and other stakeholders in the academic community. The literature shows that deans who possess good communication skills easily create a climate of trust needed for effective leadership. For example, communication competence enables deans to clarify expectations, communicate information effectively, and have meaningful conversations that are crucial for building trust in their units (Owusu et al., 2021). Research evidence affirms that poor communication most of the time results in misunderstandings and managerial failure, and by extension, deans lacking this competency would not be able to be seen as trustworthy leaders. Owusu et al. identified poor communication practices as a key cause of managerial failure in Ghana's public universities (Owusu et al., 2021). In addition, interpersonal relations fostered through effective communication result in greater perceptionsof trustworthiness among academic leaders. Although Khairuddin and Mohamed's systematic review of appreciation of communication skills in several countries is enlightening, to a large extent, it explores graduates' social intelligence and does not directly address trust in academic leadership (Khairuddin & Mohamed, 2023). The relevance of this source to the statement is thus less clear. Finally, studies have shown thatacademic dean effectiveness in leading units is strongly dependent on communication skills. For example, Rahman et al. found vision and goal setting, unit managing, and communication skills to be the main determiners of dean effectiveness in unit leading (Rahman et al., 2025). The above is meant to indicate that the degree to which a dean is able to provide open and transparent lines of communication is a direct indicator of the performance of such a dean in leadership and, proportionally, how trustworthy he or she is. Kashive et al. provided a certain specificity to ongoing communication in collaboration, a recurrence of such communication forming the basis of the level of trust, even more so within the virtual setting characterized by the facts of the COVID-19 pandemic (Kashive et al., 2022). This observation aligns with that of Hasnidar et al., whose research focused on the effectiveness of communication and trust in determining employees' performance in organizations only (Hasnidar et al., 2023). In addition, deans are compelled to utilize adequate communication strategies to manage their operations appropriately. Academic deans, for example, have been shown to necessitate the balancing of academic and administrative roles, and communication competence is intrinsic in facilitating the effective engagement of faculty and leadership stakeholders (Lui & Ruan, 2023). Such dynamics are needed not only in the context of establishing trust but also in the context of enhancing organizational performance.

Proposition: Hypothesis 2 (H2): Communication skills positively influence trustworthiness.

2.7.3. The relationship between Initiative and Trustworthiness

The positive correspondence of a dean's perceived trustworthiness and leadership initiatives receives considerable scholarship support. One of the simplest explanations of said correspondence is borrowed from the quality of the involved characteristics of a great leader, where communication and support are antecedents to trust building in an academicized context. Ahmad and Ahmed reported that traits such as trustworthiness become great determiners of academic institutions' leadership effectiveness, with reference to a situation where aspects of leadership can make a considerable difference in the possibilities of quality assurance initiatives in a discipline of higher education (Ahmad & Ahmed, 2022). Research reveals that when administrators, such as deans, display trust-construction tendencies, faculty respond with better reactions to leadership initiatives. For example, proposals presented by Kearney et al. indicate that trust in administration enhances engagement and substantial discussion among faculty members, a precursor to an instance of effective implementation of new policies (Kearney et al., 2013). Because faculty members trust their administrators, they are more likely and therefore more active in responding to initiatives and thus better deliverables and perceptions of leadership effectiveness (Carter & Mossholder, 2015). The conceptualization of active trust by Lau et al. reflects the situation in which an individual's trustworthiness supports people's participation in initiating and securing their commitment to an organization (Lau et al., 2013). Such bidirectional trust can create a more secure academic institution where a dean's initiatives receive cooperation from the faculty, a situation suggesting that trust contributes to innovation and a progress climate. Finally, Bstieler's documentation demonstrates trust in a collaborative climate environment and hypothesizes that high-trust climates result in better performance and output (Bstieler, 2005). For academicleaders, a dean of outstanding trustworthiness in their behavior—i.e., honest, ethical, and compassionate—will be able to provide an environment under which innovations are welcomed and not discouraged. This finding sustains the argument that perceptions of operating leadership and institutional performance by faculty members are favorably affected by leaders of outstanding integrity and thus are perceived.

Proposition: Hypothesis (H3): The initiative positively influences trustworthiness.

2.7.4 Relationship between leadership ability and trustworthiness

The relationship between trustworthiness and leadership ability, especially among academic deans, is supported by many studies. Successful leadership positively impacts faculty and staff and, even more so, institutional trust perceptions of education institutions. Transformational leadership behaviors somehow improve trustworthiness because they initiate factors such as engagement, vision, and integrity, which are crucial in developing a trustful culture. For example, Waheeda et al. presented the effect of transformational leadership strategies in developing leadership ability in academic contexts. They noted that deans applying such strategies are in a position to increase faculty trust via motivational strategies, although the research maintains that there is personal choice among other leadership strategies, for example, transactional leadership approaches to map existing procedures (Waheeda et al., 2023). Jung's study revealed that authentic leadership by academic deans has a direct relationship with increased organizational trust and that when leaders are authenticist, trust can be improved in academic institutions (Jung, 2022). Caldwell and Hayes also maintain that some behavior of a style of leadership has a significant effect on perceptions of trustworthiness and that a leader's engagement style can build trust and develop trustworthiness but also destroy trust (Caldwell & Hayes, 2007; Sam et al., 2025). Worthy et al. presented nursing dean contexts and maintained that transformational leadership can create an academic motivational culture. This not only influences faculty behavioral styles but also determines overall faculty satisfaction and trust in society (Worthy et al., 2020). Sharma et al. presented the need to require academic deans to sustain high faculty morale through the demonstration of the right type of leadership behavior, a move that ensures trust and allegiance to a common purpose (Sharma et al., 2016; Chiv et al., 2025). These findings are complemented by those of Khan et al., who contend that faculties' trust building relies heavily on leadership competencies of an ethical and visionary nature (Khan et al., 2019). Ferguson et al. elaborate further on such a discussion by considering the impacts of perceptions of leadership competencies on trustworthiness judgments and promoting the respective roles of such processes in effective decision-making in universities (Ferguson et al., 2019).

Proposition: Hypothesis (H4): Leadership ability positively influences trustworthiness.

2.7.5. Relationship between Personal Development/Coaching and Trustworthiness

The effect of personal development on the trustworthiness of leaders, that is, of deans, is a research record of a multifaceted interrelationship including leadership character, social behaviors, and work cultures. Personal development is the self-development of aspects of a person's life, such as emotional intelligence, social competence, and self-control, and such aspects are determinants of trustworthiness observed in the context of a leader. First, trustworthiness is largely determined by social perceptions and behaviors. Leaders who practice introspection and continuous personal development are observed to foster such a leader's behaviors to broaden credibility and trustworthiness. Caldwell & Hayes (2007) notedthat efficient practices of leadership, such as relationship building and instrumentality, are important determining factors in the construction oftrustworthiness perceptions. Considering the context of a certain dean, an example of a university leader, acquiring a reputation of trustworthiness is a master key to cultivating the cooperation and academic honesty of faculty and students. In addition, mindfulness and emotional intelligence effects, typically developed through personal development, may support trustworthiness in a leader. Kudesia & Reina (2019) noted that interactions with trustworthy persons trigger mindfulness and that a leader's personal development is an exercise in cultivating a culture of trustworthiness. This consciousness of mindfulness pressures a dean to better manage any type of multifaceted interrelationship scheme and add value to the organization's work culture in a positive manner. Once again highlighting that relationship dimension, research has focused onpersonal values such as self-control as a primary trait of broadcasting trustworthiness. Lapka el al. (2023) contend that an emotional sense of self-control is a determining factor of a sense of trustworthiness broadcasting and attainment in the interactions of people. Deans who rate personal development highly are most likely to exhibit strong levels of self-control and hence increase the degree to which the members of the academic community perceive them to be trustworthy. Additionally, psychological definitions of trustworthiness are that multiple displays of integrity and benevolence, usually developed through personal development, are the foundation of followers’ trust in leaders. According to Rule et al. (2013), trust decisions are variable through personal experiences and the social context in which the decisions are to be made. This means that people who recognize the need for personal development can generate a climate for developing trust, which has a concrete impact on perceptions of competence in leadership.

Proposition: Hypothesis (H5): Personal development/coaching positively influences trustworthiness.

2.7.6. Relationship between Personal Effectiveness and Trustworthiness

The relationship between the personal effectiveness and trustworthiness of deans in academic settings continues to remain a prominent research area, especially with respect to the leadership dynamics of the practice of higher education. Personal effectiveness, the competency of an individual for maximum output with skills of emotional intelligence, communication, and decisiveness, relates to trustworthiness—a central attribute of leadership positions. Trustworthiness generally arises from the perception of a leader's ability, openness, and honesty and is significant for his/her organizational contribution and performance. Empirical studies show that personal effectiveness is positively associated with greaterperceptions of the trustworthiness of academic leadership. For example, Rahman et al. discuss the effectiveness of academic leadership and the need for integrity and trust and propose that these are the essence of a desirable climate for staff in academic settings (Rahman et al., 2025). Effective leadership, in which there is a high portfolio of personal effectiveness—i.e., soft skills such as emotional intelligence and moral behavior—promotes more trust and commitment among team members, an area discussed in the research of Shahid and Harun, who studied the interaction between leadership competencies, empowerment, and trustworthiness (Shahid & Harun, 2024). Furthermore, Boies and Fiset demonstrated that leaders conveying coherent support and development to employees are rated as trustworthy. This interaction of effective leadership practices and trust requires personal effectiveness in establishing a credible higher education leadership culture (Boies & Fiset, 2018; Sam et al., 2025). Furthermore, Kosonen and Ikonen explain that discursive leadership forms based on communicative engagement can establish trust in academic settings and translate the effectiveness of leaders to their perceived trustworthiness by staff and faculty (Kosonen & Ikonen, 2019; Chiv et al., 2025). In the case of transformational leadership, Brazill & Ruff noted that these types of styles not only enhance the perceptions of students that teachers work effectively but also increase their trust in academic managers. University staff who implement transformational leadership are more trusting of managers and more dedicated to learning goals (Brazill & Ruff, 2022). This is supported by research carried out by Wahlstrom and Louis, who affirmed that trust problems in learning may decline when an open management culture and shared professional identity prevail, again showing the personal effectiveness and trustworthiness relationship (Wahlstrom & Louis, 2008). Models of leadership to assist in developing ethical and transformational personalities will always nurture more trust invested in deans and other leaders. These findings indicate a cycle pattern; the more leaders develop personal competence in ethics and emotional intelligence, the more a solid base of trust within academics will emerge, creating a more effective learning environment.

Proposition: Hypothesis (H6): Personal effectiveness positively influences trustworthiness.

2.7.7. The relationship between planning and organizing trustworthiness

Organizing and planning skills are central competences defining a dean's trustworthiness in colleges and universities. Effective administrators, particularly deans of colleges and universities, must pursue efficient planning and communication procedures to earn the trust of staff membersand faculty members. Research on trust has pinpointed that numerous dimensions of trust building are closely associated with effective practices of leadership. First, clear communication centrality to trust building is a primary characteristic. Jiang and Luo noted that the clear communication of organizations, a feature of efficient planning, is an accelerative engine of the trust of staff members (Jiang & Luo, 2018; Sam et al., 2025). Wang and Hsieh corroborate these findings by showing that administrators' effective communication skills lead to trust and high staff memberengagement (Wang & Hsieh, 2013). Actions in effect of a dean adopting clear and efficient communication methods are thus an explanation of expectations of transparency and enhance his/her trustworthiness. Second, the theme of authentic leadership is a primary characteristic of these dimensions. Studies have proposed that authentic administrators who show ethical manifestations of administrative practices create an atmosphere rich in trust (Babaoğlan, 2016). In schools, the sense of morality and ethical commitment of a dean are valuable not only for building personal credibility but also for reinforcing institutional ethics and building a trustworthy culture (Tabak et al., 2013). Ethical manifestations of administration, such as integrity and honesty, are connected to the levels of trust of educators and staff members. Given that the dean is responsible for institutional governance roles of various natures, planning and organizing resources ethically can define trust levels to a tremendous degree in each of the departments for which he/she is responsible. Furthermore, planning effects are materialized in the sense of trust when deans attempt to reform and remove institutional obstacles. A lack of planning or ambiguity can erode trust, but proper management, which skillfully steers people to try and deal with ambiguities, helps build resilience and trust (Islam et al., 2020). These include, for example, an institution where it is undergoing transformative change or a crisis, the deans who show organizational planning and provide transparency and communicate appropriately, thereby restoring trust in their leadership skills. Second, the need to develop a friendly and inclusive climate cannot be downplayed. According to the research of Okello and Gilson, friendly supervisory behaviors such as recognition and appreciation are sources of employee trust-building (Okello & Gilson, 2015). This implies that such planning and organizing skillfully for inclusive practices make deans trusted leaders.

Proposition: Hypothesis (H7): Planning and organizing skills positively influence trustworthiness.

2.7.8. The relationship between presentational skills and trustworthiness

Presentational skills are a significant factor in trust-building among stakeholders/faculty and deans. Presenting a clearly enunciated vision, decision-making, and creating an open dialog climate by a dean has an immediate connection to a sense of trustworthiness. Scholarly sources examining academic dean competences to lead effectively conclude in an examination of academic dean competences to lead effectively that effective communication, of which a dean's presenting skill is a constituent, is key to a dean leading effectively (Hromas et al., 2018, Owusu et al., 2021). Both of these studies demonstrate that clear communication sets out transparency and opens the door to relationship building, which is central to academic life. Additionally, building trust is powerfully motivated by interpersonal competences, such as empathic communication capability. The habitual repeated practice of effective communication practices not only plants trust but also correlates long-term relational practices with other people (Hromas et al., 2018). Clear-communicating active-minded deans can clarify expectations and create confidence building. This dynamic is well illustrated, demonstrating that a relationship built on effective communication of an interpersonal kind has a resultant feature of trust and cooperation building in academic contexts (Jin et al., 2022). Additionally, building a sense of integrity is a significant determiner of a sense of trustworthiness perceived by a leader, including an academic dean. The consistency of a dean's speech and action is found in studies to be a powerful source of a reputation of integrity (Hromas et al., 2018). Commenting clearly, taking fault, and explaining decisions are practices that build a trust climate (Tamilina & Tamilina, 2018). When they are presented effectively to communicate these values, they powerfully increase their credibility and the trust that faculty members place in them. In addition, the information provided effectively addresseschallenging or problematic aspects and has the potential to influence instructors of higher education and other stakeholders. Empirical studies have shown that open communication is positively correlated with trust building (Sharif et al., 2020). As the dean is observed and experienced in demonstrating astute and candid communication by the instructors, the dean is able to project competence but, most importantly, relational trustworthiness. This is particularly important in an education context where a defined purpose and shared goals through cooperation are central to group performance.

 Hypothesis (H8): Presentation skills positively influence trustworthiness.

2.7.9. Relationship between Critical Thinking and Trustworthiness

Critical thinking skills are a determining factor in defining the extent to which a dean is trustworthy. Evaluating, synthesizing, and analyzing critical thinking skills lead to judicious problem solving and the optimization of one's trustworthiness. The critical thinking skills of students are positively related to learning outcomes and decision-making competence, and critical thinking skills are the hallmark of leaders, such as deans, in the learning process (Afdareza et al., 2020). Critical thinking leads deans to resolve academic issues through an academic leadership situation,providing an open forum of equity to facilitate decisions to emerge in a transparent and equitable way, an essential trait of trustworthiness (Kyamanywa & Redding, 2021; Miranda et al., 2023). Moreover, personal features such as honesty, integrity, and dependability play important roles in building trust in an individual who is in a leadership position (Kyamanywa & Redding, 2021). Effective deanship is a condition of having a vision of leadership and fairness and is strengthened with critical thinking (Kyamanywa & Redding, 2021; Bassaw, 2010). The critical thinking employed by deans leads them to assess a situation more responsibly and make prudent decisions to gain the confidence of students and faculty members equally. This is further inferred from studies that critical thinking leads to the determination of assumptions and nuances in the construction of an academic relationship of interpersonal kind (Hidayah et al., 2017). Both these areas of critical thinking skills and trustworthiness could also be explained from a communication point of view; effective deans explain the reason for the decision taken and grounds upon which such decisions are taken, which maintains their authority along with their trustworthiness (Wakefield & Whitten, 2006). Trustworthiness is, nonetheless, one of the essential components of effective academic leadership, whose dean must regularly navigate intricate stakeholder interests (Bassaw, 2010). Thus, adding critical thinking skills to deanship not only complements the leadership potential of the dean but also reinforces the dean's standing as a credible academic leader.

Proposition: Hypothesis (H9): Critical thinking skills positively influence trustworthiness.

2.7.10. Relationship between Technology and Trustworthiness

The hypothesis that technological competence is a positive contributing factor to the trustworthiness of deans is proposed by several studies in the discussion of the overarching need for competence and credibility when trusting in leadership situations. Perceived competence to steer technological innovations and to speak skillfully to digital interfaces is a central driver of trustworthiness in leadership in a dean’s situation. The study of Kyamanywa and Redding may particularly illustrate the specific competences needed to lead skillfully for medical school deans, such astrustworthiness, integrity, and the management of complexity. Each of these characteristics not only enhances the performance of the leader but also facilitates followership trust; thus, the hypothesis that technology information could facilitate such competences may be proposed (Kyamanywa & Redding, 2021). Schreibelmayr et al. also demonstrated that competence was a determiner driver in inducing trust in automatized workplaces. Their empirical findings were consistent with the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), which proposes the hypothesis that perceived usefulness from a technological competence perspective is an overarching determinant in developing trust in technology (Schreibelmayr et al., 2023; Sam et al., 2025). The hypothesis is that the more competence the deans are well impacted when handling technology, the more capable, in the faculty, students', and stakeholders' perceptions, they would seem to be, and thus, more trustworthy. McKnight et al. also investigated indicators of trust in e-commerce and demonstrated that the perception of the competence of an individual was a determining driver in enabling trust relationships. According to them, organizations, such as universities, can become trustworthy by advancing into promotion to informational expert and technological competence marketing through recommendation and quality indicators (McKnight et al., 2002). The findings of this study advance the discussion surrounding the timeliness of technology awareness among prospective deans to create an aura of credibility within the changing school environment. Similarly, Wakefield and Whitten also place equal emphasis on creating credibility in terms of acquired skills and styles of working communications. The active participation of ICTs has the potential to ensure good communication practices so critical that technology is the order of the day, such as universities embracing new learning facilities (Wakefield & Whitten, 2006). Skills to use such installations continue to remain at the forefront of the credibility and trustworthiness of a dean as such

Proposition: Hypothesis (H10): Technology skills positively influence trustworthiness.

2.8. Summary of hypotheses

The ten hypotheses collectively argue that leadership soft skills function as critical antecedents of perceived trustworthiness. By signaling ability(competence in decision-making and technical tasks), benevolence (goodwill and care for followers), and integrity (ethical consistency and honesty), soft skills provide concrete behavioral pathways to trust. This conceptualization extends the existing leadership literature and establishes a foundation for empirical testing in organizational and higher education contexts.

Figure 1: The Conceptualized Framework Model

3. Research Methodology

This paper constructed a conceptual and explanatory research design, specifically for developing and examining an integrated linkage between leadership soft skills and perceived trustworthiness in organizational and higher education contexts. Instead of primary data collection, the paper integrates the dominant literature on leadership and trust, such as transformational leadership theory, social exchange theory, leader–member exchange (LMX), servant leadership theory, and attribution theory of Trust, along with findings of previous empirical studies and shows them at the level of constructing specific hypotheses that have the possibility of being tested with empirical data on an unspecified future date. The data for this paper were collected entirely from secondary sources, i.e., peer-reviewed journal article sources, books, and conference proceedings collected from sources such as Scopus, Web of Science, JSTOR, and Google Scholar. The search terms for the literature were “leadership soft skills,” “trustworthiness in leadership,” “ability, benevolence, integrity,” and “transformational or servant leadership and trust.” Inclusion criteria emphasized recent literature published during the last decade of the last decade, i.e., last 10–15 years, whereas seminal works such as Mayer et al. (1995) and Blau (1964) have not been eliminated owing to their theoretical works. The methodology process involves four key phases: charting the dominant literature; listing leadership soft skills under ten facets (collaboration, communication, initiative, leadership ability, personal development, personal effectiveness, planning and organizing, presentation, critical thinking, and technology); merging with three facets of trustworthiness (ability, benevolence, and integrity); and smashing them together in the form of a conceptual model with ten propositions (H1–H10), which combine each of the skills with trustworthiness. Although this is a conceptual paper, it swears validation at the empirical level. For such works, the quantitative survey method is a good recommendation and focuses on academic leaders, faculty members, and organizational managers. Stratified random sampling from institutions would provide representation, with at least 300–500 respondents for adequate power for structural equation modeling (SEM) or partial least squares SEM (PLS-SEM). A structured question set would borrow Likert-scale items from existing instruments on leadership soft skills (Robles, 2012; Ariratana et al., 2015) and trustworthiness (Mayer et al., 1995; Bellucci & Park, 2023). Data analysis comprises descriptive statistics, tests of validity and reliability, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and SEM for tests of hypotheses and assessments of model fitness. Mediation or moderation analysis would also be assumed for organizational culture, gender, or the digital leadership context’s role impacts on associations. Even without any primary data analyzed here, ethical principles are central for future empirical validation. Researchers need to obtain institutional ethical clearance, informed consent, and participants' confidentiality and anonymity as needed for the Declaration of Helsinki. In conclusion, this methodology places the study as an exercise for creating new theories, synthesizing current knowledge for proposing a conceptual model and simultaneously delineating the path for future empirical validation. Synthesizing the literature on soft skills and on trust theory ensures that the model has theoretical depth, practical propensity, and testability with diverseorganizational and higher education settings.

4. Findings and Discussions

4.1 Findings

The aim was to articulate and frame ten leadership soft skills as antecedents of trustworthy leadership. The literature provides an indication that collaboration, communication, initiative, leadership capability, personal development, personal effectiveness, planning and organization, presentation capability, critical thinking, and technology use are again and again portrayed as key strengths of successful leadership. Compared with technical hard skills, those soft skills detail how leaders are connected and related to each other and how motivated and maintain affiliations they are. As antecedents of trustworthy leaders, those qualities as a group help constitute the basis of credibility and belief for leaders. Explanations also confirm that those soft skills are behavioral and trainable entities that are witnessed and observed and that leaders are able to conscientiously learn, defining trustworthiness as not an innate inclination but rather an assumed acquisition.

Table 4.1: Features of leadership soft skills as antecedents of trust

The literature confirms that perceptions of competence (ability), goodwill (benevolence), and ethical consistency (integrity) are the pillars upon which trust in leadership is built. Findings from Mayer et al. (1995) and subsequent studies reaffirm that when leaders demonstrate capability, fairness, and genuine care, followers are more inclined to trust. The discussion reveals that each dimension aligns with specific soft skills—for example, communication and presentation skills with integrity; collaboration and initiative with benevolence; and planning, organizing, and technology with ability. This mapping enriches the conceptual framework by showing that trustworthiness is multidimensional and context dependent, varying according to which soft skills are most salient in a given situation.

Table 4.2: Features of trustworthiness analysis through its three dimensions

There are indications that there are strong theoretical correspondences: transformational and servant leadership with integrity and benevolence; LMX and social exchange with reciprocity and interaction quality; and attribution theory with leader intention and behavior inferred from followers when their measure of trust is derived. There are also indications from the analysis that adding these theories provides more accurate details of the means and reasons why and how and when and under which conditions soft skills establish trustworthiness. For example, effective communication suppresses negative motive attribution, servant leadership behaviors are benevolent, and transformational leadership demonstrates ability and vision. Adding strengthens the conceptual model on many fronts, complementing theoretical accounts.

Table 4.3: Features of integrated leadership and trust theories

The results are given as ten hypotheses (H1–H10), each of which has literature for only one of the specific soft skills and trusting views with a positive correlation. For example, collaboration and teamwork are associated with psychological safety and trusting learning environments; clear communication destroys ambiguity; personal growth and emotional intelligence permit integrity; and computer proficiency offers credibility for digital-age organizations. The rationale focusing on the fact that these hypotheses convert the model into testable propositions leaves doors for empirical tests. Furthermore, they flag practical effects: leadership development interventions can incorporate these very detailed skills, thus directly adding organizational views of trustworthiness.

Table 4.4: Hypotheses that Postulate the Relationships between Soft Skills and Trustworthiness

4.2 Discussions

The results confirm that ten soft skills—collaboration, communication, initiative, leadership capability, personal development, personal effectiveness, planning and organization, presentation skills, critical thinking, and use of technology without exception—are mentioned in the literature as without which leadership effectiveness is not attainable. In contrast with technical competence-related hard skills, relational and behavioral qualities govern how followers view their leaders as soft skills. Case studies have shown that collaboration creates psychological safety for group members (Schaubroeck et al., 2011) and that good communication reinforces credibility during times of crisis (Kashive et al., 2022; Sam et al., 2025). Theoretically, this corresponds with transformational leadership theory, which encompasses vision and inspirational communication, and with servant leadership theory, which encompasses empathy and collaboration. The conclusion drawn is that being trusted is hardwired as opposed to being learned and derived from behavioral intentionality. Therefore, reforming leadership entails infusing courses of training and performance appraisals with soft skills so that relational competence has equal esteem with technical competence.

Second, the assignment involved examining trustworthiness on its three central facets: ability, benevolence, and integrity. The findings confirm that leaders are scored on these three facets, as theorized by Mayer et al. (1995). Ability concerns technical knowledge and administrative skills, benevolence concerns goodwill and concern for followers, and integrity concerns moral consistency. Examples of such cases include deans who are able and benevolent with mentorship, who build strong trust, and leaders who breach integrity quickly lose credibility (Bellucci & Park, 2023). All three facets map onto particular soft skills, planning and use of technology for ability, collaboration and personal growth for benevolence, and communication and presentation for integrity. This three-dimensional personality has reform implications for assessment processes that generally require the consideration of competence, care, and ethics rather than task performance. The results validate that none of them, but all of them as a whole picture of the development of trust, as there was not any single theory interpreting the whole development of trust. Transformational leadership theory stands on vision, inspiration, and intellectual stimulation and directly corresponds with the soft skills of communication, presentation, initiative, and critical thinking. Servant leadership theory focuses on the humility and well-being of followers and considers collaboration and personal character development. Leader–Member Exchange (LMX) theory focuses on leader–member relationship quality and strongly relies on communication and fairness. Social exchange theory (SET) considers trust to be mutual and corresponds with collaborative and benevolent behaviors. Attribution theory describes members’ intention estimates of leaders and how communicativeness and integrity are strengths of these estimates. Case studies support these findings: facultyperson–dean trust rests on first-class LMX relationships for members (Byun et al., 2017), and communicative clarity bridges and builds confidence beyond crisis moments (Wu et al., 2024). Uniting these theories indicates that soft skills are behavioral channels and translate theoretical entities into behavioral leadership forms. Reform implications are for leadership development education by adding united, theory-compatible methods with a relational and performance emphasis on developing trust.

Ten hypotheses (H1–H10) thus followed, with each connecting one of the soft skills with perceived trustworthiness. These findings are from the literature: communication increases tertiary education trust (Owusu et al., 2021), initiative enhances innovation with a given level of trust (Ahmad & Ahmed, 2022), and digital competence captures dependability for this organizational era of organizations (Schreibelmayr et al., 2023). These hypotheses build on transformational and servant leadership theories and are further substantiated with empirical instruments such as structural equation modeling (SEM), which allows for empirical tests of intricate interconnections. The bone of contention is that these hypotheses are not abstract constructs since they are transferable for practical use. Organizations can utilize them as assessment instruments for determining leader readiness and credibility, whereas researchers are able to utilize them as instruments for building empirical studies to verify and refine the conceptual model. There is a reform implication that leadership development must become evidence-informed and intentionally enhance every one of the soft skills so that leaders emanate ability, benevolence, and integrity as practiced. Moreover, these results for each of the four goals confirm the thesis that leadership soft skills are key antecedents of trustworthiness. Trust stems not from ideal traits but from direct, specific behaviors that are perceived by subordinates as messages of competence, benevolence, and integrity. Through unifying numerous leadership theories and basing them on the application of soft skills, this model reinforces both scholarly knowledge and leadership practices. For organizations and higher education institutions, the reform message is plain: reform must attend equally to building relational competence, ethical consistency, and technological flexibility as technical proficiency does, so leaders are simultaneously effective and trusted.

5. Conclusions and recommendations

5.1. Conclusions

This paper aimed to craft a conceptual model for examining leadership soft skills and the perceived credibility of higher education and organizational leaders. Conclusions: Leadership performance for the coming century rests not only on technical knowledge but also on behavioral, cognitive, and interpersonal skills for perceived credibility. Ten leadership soft skills—initiative, communication, collaboration, leadership capability, personal effectiveness, personal growth, planning and organization, presentation flair, critical thinking, and technology—interpretable as antecedents of trust are trainable, observable, and measurable and are required for forging perceived credibility. Moreover, the analysis confirmed that there are numerous aspects of trustworthiness, including ability/competence, benevolence/care and goodwill, and integrity/ethical consistency. Those leaders who are able to project all three visages are likely to capture their adherents' confidence and loyalty. Through a synthesis of transformational, servant, LMX, social exchange, and attribution theories, the paper illustrates that soft skills are behavioral channels through which leaders build trust. A total of 10 hypotheses (H1–H10) are advanced for operationalizing these connections and allow for future empirical work with a testable model.

In total, the work contributes conceptually by bridging the gap between the body of literature on soft skills and trust, practically by adding leadership training and assessment roadmaps, and methodologically by supplying testable constructs for validation with future quantitative investigations. The work also offers empirical support for the conclusion that being trustworthy is not inborn but acquired as an outcome of intentionality-directed behaviors consistent with ability, benevolence, and integrity dimensions.

5.2. Recommendations for Further Research

While this work developed an integrated conceptual model bridging leadership soft skills and perceived trustworthiness, there is also a need for other studies to expand, validate, and further fine-tune the model. First, there must be empirical tests of the ten constructed propositions (H1–H10) through quantitative procedures such as structural equation modeling (SEM) or partial least squares SEM (PLS-SEM). These would allow for the estimation of the size of associations between specific soft skills and the three aspects of trustworthiness—ability, benevolence, and integrity. Second, longitudinal investigations of the development of leaders’ soft skills and perceived trustworthiness, particularly times of organizational change or organizational crisis, must be conducted over time. These findings illuminate the dynamic nature of the development of trust. Third, comparative cross-cultural analyses are needed to study how values and accepted social conventions determine leadership soft skills and perceptions of being trustworthy. A manifestation of integrity or benevolence for one culture might not have the same impact on another. Fourth, there are future scholars with the promise of studying mediator and moderator variables such as organizational culture, gender, digital leadership, or emotional intelligence with the promise of expanding or reducing the correlation of soft skills and trust. Finally, mixed-method study designs comprising questionnaires with qualitative processes, e.g., interviews or case studies, would provide more knowledge of practicing leaders with realistic organizational settings.

Author Contributions: All the authors contributed to this research.

Funding: Not applicable.

Conflict of interest: The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Informed consent statement/ethics approval: Not applicable.

Declaration of Generative AI and AI-assisted Technologies: This study did not use any generative AI tools or technologies in the preparation of this manuscript.