Latest / Leadership From The Heart | Transformational Leadership Insights / The Trust Gap: Why Your Team Isn’t Moving (And How to Fix It)
Transcript
- Romie Montpeirous: Welcome everyone to another episode of Leadership from the Heart. And today we're going to be talking about trust. I'm also writing solo and happy to be here. Trust in leadership or trust period is one of my favorite things to talk about. it's not because, ⁓ know, I love talking about trust, just like I love talking about conflict avoidance or conflict resolution. It's just something that I don't think people pay enough attention to. And I think a lot of human behavior, is due to either a of trust or a lack thereof. ⁓ I'm a huge fan of human behavior and psychology, and it's because I like to identify how and why move, the way that they move. So jumping right into trust is one of those that is thrown around quite a bit, as I've said, it's just something that people constantly talk about in leadership. but very few people actually stop and define what it looks like in real life. And more importantly, think is what it feels like to be on the receiving of trust, right? To know that there's a group or there are people that you and what do you do with that trust, right? Trust is not. binary. It isn't that you have it or you don't have it. I believe that trust lives on a spectrum. And of course there are, you know, can definitely not have trust in someone and therefore you move very differently around them. But ⁓ the most part, especially at work, your ⁓ it on this spectrum. And depending on where you sit on that spectrum of as a leader, ⁓ your will either move fast or hesitate. They will speak up or they will stay quiet. They will take full ownership. or they will wait to be told. And so today I want to break down, you know, ⁓ looks like when trust is on the spectrum and not to, you know, play word games with spectrum. Obviously it's just that it's on a scale. And so ⁓ want to take a look at what trust actually looks like at different levels. Why leaders confused being liked with being trusted. What erodes trust, even when you mean well, and that's a big one. And the three behaviors that consistently build it because if you can get trust, right, you don't just build a better team. I think that you're building a team that actually wants to show up and perform at a very high level. And so let's take a look at what trust looks like at the 25, the 50, the 75 and the 100%. And this is grounded in research from the psychological safety, Amy Edmondson, the trust equation, credibility plus reliability plus intimacy divided by self-orientation, Organizational behavior studies on engagement and performance. So we did a little bit of research because... Again, I believe that trust does live on a scale. It's not yes or no. 25 % trust is when your team is in the compliance zone. And what it looks like is that people actually just do what they're told, nothing more. Minimal communication, they have a lot of fear of being wrong and trust is low. Meetings are quiet. What it feels like is I'll just stay in my lane. I don't speak unless spoken to. And the impact on leadership is that you're managing task and you're not leading people. And so at that level of 25%, the innovation that you can think of, it's dead. You don't have any innovation. You literally just have people just doing the work without thinking. Now let's graduate to 50%. This is where people have what I call cautious engagement. And what it looks like is people contribute but carefully. ideas are shared, but they're filtered. There's a lot of dependence on the leader's approval. And what it feels like is I'll say something, but I'll watch for your reaction. And that's what most people are doing, right? If we take a look at our generation and the generations above us, right? So I'm a millennial. If we look at X and we look at baby boomers, everybody's kind of looking around for everybody else's reaction to see if it's safe or not. And so in this cautious 50 % zone, that's exactly what's happening. I'm going to say something, but I'm also watching your reaction to see if I need to retreat and head back to that 25 % where I don't say anything unless I'm asked, or if it's safe for me to head to the 75%, sorry. And the leadership impact here is that progress happens, but it happens really slow. And unfortunately at this point, you're still the bottleneck as the leader. 75 % trust is ownership zone. And so what it looks like is that people are taking the initiative, problems are brought with solutions. There's healthy disengagement, which I love. I love healthy disengagement. I love debating ideas and paths and processes. And I think that if you're my terms, right, my opinion, a good leader, you welcome it, right? You're not afraid of it because there's nothing that you're trying to gain from it except for finding the best solution possible right now. What it feels like is I trust that you'll hear me out and I can take a risk here. And I can take a risk because I know that you know my intent that you will give me air cover if I need it. However, that does not mean that there is a lack of accountability here. There has to be accountability, right? But if the intent is coming from the right place, we have to call that out, right? We have to say things like, hey, your heart and your mind, it's in the right place. Just maybe not looking at the full scope of things or whatever it is. The leadership impact here is that your team becomes self-sufficient and momentum starts to build. Now we're gonna jump to the 100%. This is autonomy plus alignment, % trust, I got you, right? What it looks like is people operate with clarity and confidence. They have ⁓ candor, which is another thing that I really appreciate. They have accountability without fear. They have high performance plus a strong culture. And what it feels like is we're in this together. I am safe and I am challenged at the same time. And what a beautiful little bowl to be in of safety and being challenged. The leadership impact is that you're now able to scale. Your team performs without needing you involved in everything. And that is such a beautiful place to be. Most leaders think that they have trust, but what they actually have is sitting between the 40 and 60 percent and they can't figure out why things feel harder than they actually should. Yeah. And so I encourage you to take a look at yourself. I always encourage you to take a look at yourself because I actually believe that leadership starts with you. Now jumping into trust versus likability, because we need to talk about because early in my career, I thought being liked meant that they trusted me and that was the case. And when you confuse it to you'll find is that you run in circles. going to run wherever they tell you to go because trying to be light. And what happens is that they trust you less because people know that they're erratical. People know that they feel one way today and another way tomorrow. And it depends on who you're talking to. But the more that you just run in circles trying to make everyone happy, the less people trust you. most, the biggest you could do to be trusted is to be authentic. Authentically you. whoever that is. And some people will like it and some people won't. And that's just something you have to be able to look at and deal with. This is a psychological trap. This is rooted in the need for approval. This is the social wiring part of you. And it's normal. I want you to know that it is normal to want to be liked. 100 % normal. It's the social belonging that we need. But it is avoidance of, ⁓ the avoidance of rejection. ⁓ that keeps you stuck in this place, right? It's get high off of this dopamine response of being liked. And that's why we confuse it because being liked feels really good, right? And being trusted often requires discomfort. And if you always want to feel good and never discomforted or never uncomfortable, then you can't be trusted because life knows that there are some hard things we got to talk about. And you my leader, I need you to be able to have those conversations with me. your team expects the same from you, right? As a leader, you're expected to have those difficult conversations. You're expected to not hide away from that. That's why you're the leader, right? That's why you're the leader. What this looks like in leadership is back to, you know, avoiding the tough, hard conversations. you start also over explaining your decisions so that you can gain more approval. And could be letting poor behavior slide because, you know, you just want to be liked. And the worst part is you could be saying yes when you really should be saying no. And... tough. That's tough to come back from. I call it being in debt. And so when you're in debt and you when whenever you start to finally say I want to be authentic, people only know the other of you or the versions that you've allowed them to see. And I think this is a podcast all on its own about being authentic and leadership. But, you know, when you're in debt, and you've decided to change, only you know that you've decided to change for everybody else for all of us for me. ⁓ It just looks like you're, it looks like you could be trying, but there's not enough trust yet. And so you've got to get to that hundred percent where I call the ground. You've got to get there before people actually say, this is a different person. Okay. We can get behind this person now. And so it's a lot of work to get there. And so ⁓ I trust immensely. I do best. ⁓ most of the time to do what I said I was going to do. Because I understand that once I lose trust, I'm going to have to work twice as hard to get there. And it's not twice as hard as I need more output. It's just time. It's time and it's going to take me. ⁓ see, I said most of the time and I do my best, right? So ⁓ both of those are deficient already, right? I do my best and most of the time, it's not all of the time and not a hundred percent of the time. And so ⁓ To gain your trust back, I have to be all the time 100%. So there's no room for error is what I'm trying to say. ⁓ margin for error is very low when you lose trust. If you ever think about somebody that's cheated on someone, man, ⁓ man, you could cheat once and yet the way get back to that heart is fucking It's because you're in debt and you've got to pay. You've got to pay. only the person that holds the trust on the other side gets to determine how much debt you're in. And that's a tall price sometimes. And so everything else in leadership, it requires inner work. And is where you get to start asking the question, am I actually being respected or am I liked? And what comforts I avoiding right now? and be really honest with yourself because it's only you with you. You can lie to yourself, but that only does yourself a disservice. So I know I like to be liked. I'd rather be respected. I'd rather be efficient. I'd rather be good at performance. I'd rather be good at my job. I'd rather everybody be happy. So that means that I have to have difficult conversations. I have to get us back in alignment. I have to do that because What I value more than being light is, you know, being content at work, being a high performing leader and having a high performing team. I value all of those things way more than I being light. And therefore, ⁓ I put my leadership hat on, I have to do the hard things. I have, there is no other choice in my mind because of my value system. And I had to be really honest with myself at some points and I you know, go back and forth with the whole, know, damn, do I really have to have this conversation? Because I don't want to have those conversations. I need to have those conversations so we can get back on track. Right. But don't think that because I'm the leadership mentor and coach that I don't find I don't try to find the very clever ways of not having these difficult conversations or not trying to let bad behavior slide. I always try. Right. And I know the cost of it is greater. And so is not ⁓ option for me. And what I'm trying to say is that it's not an option for you either. And I want you to take it seriously because it's expensive. have to ask yourself the question of, I need agreement to safe in my role? Or can I feel safe and secure in my role right now? Right where I am. Can I convince myself that I am actually safe? Those are only questions you can ask, right? But the moment you prioritize being liked over being clear, just understand that the trust that you've tried to build is beginning to erode. You know, because people might like you in the moment, but they don't necessarily trust you in the long run, especially if you're just the nice guy or the nice girl. We need to have some difficult, uncomfortable conversations to be able to know that I I've got you and you've got me. You know, ⁓ this episode is hitting for you, you might be leading somewhere the middle range of trust and, know. I would love for you to share this another leader who you know is trying to grow. These are the conversations that we should be having more of as leaders and kind carrying each other through this leadership role that we've decided to pick. it's not, and I'm only talking to the leaders who have chosen to climb the ladder because they want to make a positive impact, not just in the business, but also in the people's lives that they want to lead. you're just chasing the money, this conversation isn't for you because you don't care about the trust. You only care about what you care about and okay. You know, that's, I mean, it's not okay, but that's where you are in your journey, right? And so for me, it's not okay, but I respect everybody's journey and what they're chasing. And I think that God has a plan for everybody. And if that's your plan, that's cool, right? But this conversation is for people who actually want to be good at leadership, who... want to do it right, even if doing it right is the long way. You see, inconsistency is saying one thing and doing another. It's also having different standards for different people. You can be emotionally reactive as a leader, and that's also where trust begins to erode. Here we're talking about why trust erodes. And, know, your unpredictable mood ⁓ is what they're looking for, right? When they say something and you react a certain way and it's out of character or it's, or you're unhinged, right? The mood, your mood drives their decisions. the way you come out is going to determine how much your team grows or hides. It's just pretty clear. We've talked about and we've beat down the avoidance of conversations I don't think we need to go there anymore. think we know now that we need to have these conversations and it's not accusatory. It's more of a fact finding, but at the end of the conversation, there's alignment. Another thing that erodes trust is perceived favoritism. It's the unequal treatment or the loss or the way that fairness is distributed and that is unbalanced, right? And it doesn't have to be real guys. It just has to be perceived. And my favorite question to ask people who think that, you know, we're being unfair, I'm being unfair is what parts of me are being unfair? And it's usually because they're getting corrective or there's some paperwork involved and stuff like that. And I ask them what part of this is unfair, they start to tell me, you know, whatever they want to say we've got to get them to the point where they're taking ownership for their behavior. And it's not your job to prove their perception is wrong. It's just your job to understand why they think that way, right? And then of course you can bring your facts as you should always. And you have proof that it's not just them, then it's none of their business who else is involved in these things. But feel free to say it's not just you. You know, it's none of your business that anybody else is going through it, just like it's none of their business that you're going through it, you know? And then the last thing that I think erodes trust is a lack of follow through when you miss commitments and you have no accountability around it. mean, I understand that the feeling is fleeting sometimes when you say you're going to go do something and then the day comes and you don't really want to do it. I that I do. What I don't understand is that you're not doing it anyway. because you said you were gonna do it. And so trust erodes that way, when you said you were gonna do something and you don't do it and you continue to do that, you can't be surprised people just don't believe you, right? You've said in the past and you haven't come through. So naturally, I'm not gonna believe that you're gonna do what you said you were gonna do. And that's not on me, that's kind of on you. as a leader, right? And so that's I say like there's, I know my standards are high myself and so I expect them to be high for everybody else. don't necessarily know, I don't necessarily think that people will always meet them because everybody's on their own thing. However, you know, the people that I would engage with, they're gonna do the they said they were gonna do. because the people that I mess with. That's the people that I can have a good time with. Those are my people, right? And that's just for me, part of your integrity meter. Ways that you can start to back trust is to first, in my opinion, and this is again, just my way of doing things is to call what you've been, right? Hey, I know I've been this way. I understand. I want to look at it. I want to fix it. I need time. So in this place where I'm working on it, just know that there'll be some relapses and I won't get it right all the time. However, I am asking for grace, right? And so therefore people can be prepared for when you start to call things out regularly or early. ⁓ can ⁓ when you're normalizing the feedback, when you're creating consistency in your behavior and you're setting and holding people accountable. When you are regulating before you are responding, you can't... just build external trust if you don't have internal alignment. It has to start from inside. It has to start from inside, guys. I can't say that enough. So the three drivers of trust guys is clarity, consistency and integrity. The first being clarity, right? You set the expectation upfront, you define what success looks like clearly and you say what others are avoiding. That's the first thing, right? So action today would be clarify one expectation with your team that you've been assuming they understand. So this is your action step, right? So take. one expectation with your team, talk it over with your team and go through what you think they understand and clarify that. Consistency is show up the same way every day. Respond, don't react and follow through every time. And when you miss, because we're human and you're gonna miss, say, I missed, I apologize, I will do better. If you mean that, if you mean that. So your action step today in growing your ⁓ you're going to pick one behavior. One, going to commit to repeating it every day, even if it's inconvenient, because that's how you do what you say you're going to do. And the last one is integrity. Do what you you're going to do. Admit when you're wrong, align your actions with your values. So your action step for integrity is to choose One open loop you've left hanging. One. That's it. Three action steps building a team that trusts you and more importantly, a you that trusts you. Trust isn't built in big moments. It's built in the small, repeated ones. And before you look at your team, before you at your results, ask yourself, What would my team say about me when I'm not in the room? Do they trust me do they just manage around me? Because your answer to that question is leadership trust score. And with that, I leave you with this week's episode. I thank you for tuning in. Please feel free to like, share, and leave a comment. And I'll see you next week on another episode of Leadership from the Heart.