Lencioni has the absence of it at the base of his pyramid when identifying team dysfunction. Colin Powell describes it as the essence of leadership.
In this blog on team building Gordon Tredgold reinforces the notion that team members have to actively work to build trust.
He says
“If you want to build strong teams, then you need to use the right glue to create the strongest glue we have is Trust, and Trust is created by emotional bonds.
These are the bonds which can bind us for a lifetime and can see us through the toughest of challenges.

But to make emotional bonds we need to able to be vulnerable with one another, to be able to show weaknesses, or our softer side, and this is something which takes an enormous amount of trust.”
His advice about spending time sharing personal stories being more worthwhile than some of the team building exercises we undertake is spot on.