Objective: Existing research explains how trusting manager-employee relationships can be developed or maintained; however, several assumptions have impacted its effectiveness. Namely, trust is a passive, unidirectional process that plays out uniformly across all relationships and contexts. I argue that trust is an active process that requires both parties to adapt their efforts to develop and maintain a trusting relationship. Yet, trust scholarship cannot account for this. Therefore, the overarching objective of this research is to explore how both parties, individually and relationally, support the development and maintenance of a trusting manager-employee relationship. Method: The study employs an exploratory design, gathering interview data from 26 manager-employee dyads. Thematic analysis and multiple case study analysis were carried out to identify generalized patterns across the sample and uncover latent meaning Findings: Findings show that both parties effortfully support the development and maintenance of trust. To be effective in forming trust, each party's trust-building efforts must satisfy their counterpart’s trust needs. Further, maintenance efforts become more salient when dyads experience a threat to established trust - this triggers an active maintenance process that can result in trust being maintained or strengthened. Contributions: This research contributes to theory in three important ways. First, building on literature that reframes trust as an active process, I offer empirical insights into the efforts of each party, as well as their mutual agency, to develop and maintain their trusting relationships. Second, by adopting a relational lens to unpack these core trust processes, I develop new theory outlining how dyads’ ongoing efforts should be adapted to align with the relational stage and context. Third, I illustrate that for some established trusting relationships, depending on each party's active response, the experience of a relational threat can strengthen trust. Practically, this contributes tangible strategies for organizations to develop and maintain trusting manager-employee relationship.