Trust is a vital part of any relationship. This is true whether we’re talking about a close, intimate relationship, or a relationship in the workplace, and indeed in society as a whole.

Many decades ago, during a discussion in our family business my eldest brother told me of something he had read about trust. It suggested that trust had three separate aspects. Honesty, competence, and reliability.

Let’s leave honesty aside for the moment as I’ll focus on that for the rest of this article. We can briefly look at each of the other two aspects.

George Best was far more than competent at football. He was a genius. However he was not reliable. His managers couldn’t predict whether he’d play well or not in any particular game, and as his life grew more chaotic, they couldn’t rely on him turning up for training, occasionally even for matches.

At a much more mundane level, I once had an employee who was utterly reliable, but as technology came into the areas of her work she balked at learning the new way we had to do things, and refused to commit to learning. She became increasingly incompetent at the job she was doing, so we couldn’t trust her to do it to the standards needed. We had to move her to a different role.

We need to have confidence in the people we depend on to do what they do to a certain standard, and we need to be able to rely on them to actually do what they said they’d do. That said, flaws such as incompetence and unreliability can usually be put down to personal traits or characteristics and we can all agree that no one is perfect.

However when it comes down to honesty we see things from a much more judgemental position. If someone deliberately cheats on us or steals or is in some other way dishonest, we perceive that as of an altogether higher category of untrustworthiness than incompetence and unreliability.

Practising mindfulness helps us to notice things more clearly and calmly, with a compassionate mind. When we observe the behaviour and attitude of leaders - using this mindful attention - we start to be aware of a series of societally-destructive consequences when honesty is lacking. Precisely because of the exalted position of leadership the results of their dishonesty cascade down from the top, sometimes to an entire population.

Recent news has been full of accusations of corruption by political leaders and ex-leaders. Brazil’s Lula, Sarkozy of France, Netanyahu in Israel, South Korea’s Park Geun-hye, and Zuma in South Africa. Each of these has either been convicted, is on trial right now, or is facing investigation.

Donald Trump is under investigation regarding potentially criminal activities during his election campaign, while the Russian leader, Putin has faced multiple accusations over the years.

This does not prove the rule that power corrupts but the result of the sheer scale of these accusations over the years is that our trust in leadership generally has been eroded.

Other pillars of society which at one time were considered trustworthy have crumbled. Whether it is covering up child abuse in religious denominations, media intrusion on ordinary people’s privacy, deliberate hacking or production of fake news by national governments and media, constant attempts by big business to bribe national governments or mislead the consumer, key structures of societies have lost much of our trust in them.

Where there is little trust people become cynical, apathetic or more extremist. At an unconscious level people reason that if they can’t trust their own religion, their elected politicians, the media through which they keep abreast of events, and the businesses from which they buy life’s essentials, then they change how they perceive society as a whole, and accordingly how they live their lives.

Some bow out, believing that everyone and everything is corrupt, that there’s little left we can trust. This is despair often disguised as cynicism. As such it is a deeply unhealthy and self-harming state of mind.

Others get stressed, anxious and depressed as a direct result of having few or no societal pillars on which to rely. This too is mentally destructive.

A small number reject the entire way we have structured our society and seek a violent solution in order to bring back what they believe to have been a previous age of honesty and stability. The hatred and prejudice towards others that this brings is not only socially troubling but develops poorer mental health in the individual.

This situation presents us with two simultaneous challenges. As a society we need to raise the levels of trustworthiness in our key institutions and their leaders. This is no easy task, especially in politics where the pressure on leaders to please the public and be media-obsessed is itself corrupting. But we need to work on it mindfully and strategically. Trust should not be left to chance.

The other challenge is for all of us to build resilience in the face of the absence of societal trust. Just because some leaders and institutions seem to be untrustworthy does not mean that all are. Moreover just because some elements of society are exploitative and corrupt does not mean that all aspects of our daily lives are devoid of joy and beauty.

For both, the leaders and ourselves, a mind that sees clearly and realistically, compassionately and calmly, can help change this troubling aspect of our society. Mindfulness practices can help as a long-term and constructive way of getting us out of this situation. Practice, practice, practice.