Which comes first: trust or empowerment?

A team only develops trust when each member has a clear role that matches their gifting and is empowered to carry out that role to the best of their ability. Do I feel empowered because I trust my leader? Or do I trust my leader because I feel empowered? This is likely a cycle that snowballs into a momentum within a team dynamic in one direction or the other. Trust and empowerment can build on each other as a team gains experience together. The opposite is also true in a diminishing and distrustful cycle. Distrust will feed a diminished sense of empowerment which will lead to further distrust if the cycle isn’t broken.