Presence in Social Coherence

What if trust isn't a trait or a transaction -- but presence in a dynamic system?

We often think of trust as something you either have or don’t — something you build over time or break in an instant. Something that is simply felt.

It’s also been a central theme in the professional world. For a time, trust was positioned as the “new currency” of leadership. In my own work with leaders and teams, the Trust Equation — from Maister and Green's Trusted Advisor — often took center stage:

Trust = (Credibility + Reliability + Intimacy) / Self-Orientation

It offered a way to name and assess the components of trust. And for many, it was a helpful mirror and lens. But trust isn’t just a feeling. And it isn’t just an equation. It’s also a loop — a loop of consequence.

Every relationship — personal, social, or professional — operates as a feedback system. We show up, speak or act, someone responds. That response gets interpreted. A story forms. And that story shapes how we show up next time.

And around it goes.

This is the loop that either builds coherence or unravels it. The loop that deepens intimacy — or quietly reinforces distance.

When there’s dissonance in the loop — between what’s done and what’s interpreted, between the conditions and the narrative — it doesn’t disappear. It lands somewhere. It gets stored in the body. Or in the space between people. Or in the stillness between exchanges.

These aren’t necessarily big. Often, they’re small, subconscious distortions. But enough of them, and the loop becomes unreliable.

Much of this happens beneath the surface of awareness. We read into tone or posture. A pause. A shift in energy. A loss of eye contact. Then we form meaning — often unconsciously.

From that meaning, we adjust our presence. We withhold. We perform. We protect. And the other person, sensing that shift, forms a new interpretation of us, reinforcing their own state of being.

This is the ecology of social coherence — or incoherence. And because we are profoundly social creatures, this affects our state of being in all the other loops in our lives.

Everything is connected. Everything participates in a system of loops — in this case, one of coherence.

How we tend to those loops is critical. The approach is simple: presence.

Presence, when it matters, is the capacity to stay with the moment long enough to notice what’s actually happening. To be present within how we perceive — before we make meaning through interpretation. To stay in relationship with what’s real, not what we’ve already concluded.

Coherence in relationship isn’t about agreement. It’s about alignment — between what’s said and what’s felt, between intention and impact, between experience and the story we carry forward.

If we want to build trust — real trust — we have to tend the loop with presence.

For more on how the Ecology of Coherence operates, please see The Ecology Overview (below).

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The Ecology Overview.pdf

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