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Current Events Article on Trust:
Armstrong’s Critics Largely Unmoved by Interview
In the article Armstrong’s Critics Largely Unmoved by Interview, which was published on January 18, 2013 in The New York Times, the author Ian Austen (2013) described the reactions of Lance Armstrong’s critics – particularly those from the antidoping and cycling communities – to his interview with Oprah Winfrey. More specifically, Austen (2013) reported that Armstrong’s critics did not lend much credibility to Armstrong’s statements with Winfrey. They claimed that they would consider Armstrong’s statements valid only if he stated them in a sworn testimony (Austen, 2013).
This article shows that the people’s trust in Armstrong has been broken because of his doping activities and because he has lied about such activities in the past. The public’s and Armstrong’s colleagues’ trust in him was deterrence-based so much so that the violations he committed were enough to destroy the relationships he had with them.
More particularly, Armstrong broke the five dimensions of trust, namely integrity, competence, consistency, loyalty, and openness. He failed to show integrity in that he was dishonest, untruthful, and insincere about his doping activities. His doping activities also gave him an unfair advantage over his competitors. In addition, he failed in the dimension of competence in that his doping activities gave people and the sports organization a false sense of his abilities. Similarly, his doping activities showed that he was disloyal to his colleagues in that he coerced them into doping, too. He used his position as a team leader to take advantage of his teammates. Moreover, he was inconsistent in his statements over his doping activities and the emotions he conveyed during his interview were inconsistent with the message he was imparting. Finally, Armstrong failed to demonstrate openness as he has refused to self-disclose for a long time, and even now, he’s still not divulging everything that he knows.
With trust being earned and not merely given and with this trust having been destroyed, it would certainly take a long time for Armstrong to rebuild the public’s and his colleagues’ trust in him again.
References
Austen, I. (2013, January 18). Armstrong’s critics largely unmoved by interview. The New York
Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/19/sports/cycling/those-wronged-by-lance-armstrong-see-little-right-in-interview.html.
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