Trust on Purpose
Are you intentional about building, maintaining or repairing trust with the people in your life? Most of us aren’t, and sometimes important relationships suffer as a result. So much of what is right or amiss in those relationships ties back to trust, whether we realize it or not. We are dedicated to helping you become intentional about cultivating strong trust with everyone important in your life: the people and teams you lead and work with, and your family, friends and community, as well. In the Trust on Purpose podcast, we dive into everything that makes up trust, what supports and damages it. We unpack situations we commonly see with leaders, teams, organizations, and others we work with to show how trust can be strengthened, sustained, and repaired when broken. Listen in for conversations between two pros who care deeply about you being an intentional and masterful trust-builder in your life so you and your relationships flourish. We share pragmatic and actionable takeaways you can use immediately and deepen with practice. If you have questions or situations related to trust that you’d like us to talk about in a future episode, please email charles@insightcoaching.com or ila@bigchangeinc.com.
We'd like to thank the team that continues to support us in producing, editing and sharing our work. Jonah Smith for the heartfelt intro music that you hear at the beginning of each podcast. We LOVE it. Hillary Rideout for writing descriptions, designing covers and helping us share our work on social media. Chad Penner for the superpower editing work that he does to take our recordings from bumpy and glitchy to the smooth and easy to listen to episodes you are all enjoying. From our hearts, we are so thankful for this team and the support they provide us.
Trust on Purpose
Questioning your worth as a leader?
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How often do you blame yourself for not doing enough to support the people who work for and with you? If you do, it turns out you aren’t alone.
In this episode, we look at what happens to leaders when they carry the belief they aren’t doing enough—for the teams they lead and the teams they are on. We consider examples of people we’ve coached who lived with some version of this story, and the suffering it produces, including breakdowns in trust, frustration, exhaustion, and despair.
You will also hear about leaders who found their way out of the “I’m not doing enough” story, and how coaching can support such a journey. Spoiler alert: the antidote to not enough is NOT doing more. Rather, it involves honest, clear-eyed self-reflection, some vulnerability, and the courage to ask for help.
Our hope is that this episode will inspire leaders caught in this belief to recognize that an unqualified “enough” has no upper limit, and instead to discover what their team members really need to do their jobs well.
We want to thank the team that continues to support us in producing, editing and sharing our work. Jonah Smith for the heartfelt intro music you hear at the beginning of each podcast. We LOVE it. Hillary Rideout for writing descriptions, designing covers and helping us share our work on social media. Chad Penner for his superpower editing work to take our recordings from bumpy and glitchy to smooth and easy to listen to episodes for you to enjoy. From our hearts, we are so thankful for this team and the support they provide us.
I'm Charles Feltman.
Speaker 2:And my name is Ila Edgar and we're here for another episode of Trust on Purpose. And my name is Ila Edgar and we're here for another episode of Trust on Purpose, and today we have an interesting topic. Of course, charles and I were talking about this, the conversation before the conversation and he and I have both bumped into situations like this in our years of experience coaching and working with teams.
Speaker 2:It really came to light in the last couple of weeks for me with a couple of teams that I'm working with, and there were very clear statements from leaders that I'm not doing enough for my team when and I'm thinking of one in particular there is absolutely low trust. She shared that actually people are yelling and having loud arguments in the workplace, people are shutting down Fine, if that's what you want, that's what I'll do. So no dialogue, the collaboration is very low, and so she can see that her team is hurting and not functioning well, and her statement to me was I'm just, it's just, I'm not doing enough. Statement to me was I'm just, it's just, I'm not doing enough.
Speaker 2:Similarly, another leader in a sales organization where her team is not delivering on their accountability, so they're not meeting their numbers, they're not meeting the standards of output. And as I listened to her, my heart was just breaking because you could see how she was doing everything possible and it still wasn't working. And so it was this energy again of I'm not doing enough. So, as I lay out that scenario, charles, what comes to mind for you?
Speaker 1:Well, like you said, I've also been. I've worked with a few teams, and one in particular has come to mind where the leader there was low trust and it wasn't seeming to change over time. And the leader was saying something pretty similar like I should be doing more somehow. What do I need to do differently, what do I need to do more of? And I noticed something conspicuous was there was no question about what should I do less of. It was what do I need to do more of, or what can I do more. So, of course, the first thing that comes to my mind when somebody says I need to be doing more, I'm not doing enough, is well, what is enough? What is that? What would that look like? Enough is open-ended or not doing enough? Needing to do more? It's totally open-ended. Do more?
Speaker 2:It's totally open-ended and it's not really useful in the sense that there's no description of enough, or more, like more of the same, more of something else, add more stuff.
Speaker 1:What are you talking about here? So there's often people, I think, in those situations go in. That statement comes out of a kind of a place of despair and desperation. You know it's like, oh my God, this is not. Whatever I'm doing is not working. I need to do more, without really thinking about what that more might be, and looking for resources that they may not have looked at or looked for before that can help them. I'm going to stop there and let you talk a little bit more about your team and what you think the more was for, especially the first individual you were talking about.
Speaker 2:It's interesting to add a little bit more context that there had been quite a bit of change on this team, so someone that was a colleague had been promoted to team lead. The leader had been away for an extended leave and then was back, and they are definitely a unique environment, and I would say with loving curiosity that skepticism runs high, yeah, and Could I ask what do you in your assessment?
Speaker 1:what are they skeptical about or who are they skeptical of?
Speaker 2:Each other for sure. Some of the time that I've spent with this team, I can see how they are quite I don't want to use the word resistant, I need another word for resistant so they're there and they're listening, but I can feel the energy of a. This feels like personal work. So how does it actually impact our working relationships, which you and I know? Relationships are relationships. The more I know about myself, the better that I can be aware and lead myself. But also, I think there may be something here for someone else but not for me, and so close to even considering the possibility that there might be something here for me to pay attention to or learn or chew on that. Yes, I'm here, I'm listening and I'm present, but that's it. I'm not engaged.
Speaker 2:And then for me just that little like the little sprinkle of skepticism is yeah, no, I'm not. I'm not going to take anything from here. There's nothing for me here.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:The other interesting thing, as you were sharing your responses and this you know am I doing enough? Should I be doing more? Should I be doing less? And I think that also points to that leaders often also feel like they have to figure it out themselves.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Rather, what would happen if we actually put this on the table with the team to say I feel like I need to be doing more or doing something differently. But I really need feedback from you on what is working. What do you want me to do more of? What do you want me to do more of? What do you want me to do less of? And if there's something I'm not doing that I should start doing. What is that? But we don't. And now I can think of oh, there's a list as my hand is going. There's a list of people I could think of as leaders that it's very natural for us to fall into that. I must figure this out on my own.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:I'm the leader, I'm the one that should know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. I think that's a cultural story. In our business Western business culture, the leader should know the leader is supposed to be leading and that means you know other people follow. So I need to be walking the right path, doing the right things, and if I don't, if things are not working, no matter what I'm doing, that says that there's something wrong with me.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's. The thing that's wrong with me is not that I don't, you know, I haven't figured out how to do this right and well yet, but rather that there's something fundamentally wrong with me as a person that I can't lead this team, and so that evokes shame. It evokes which is hard as a leader, because, as we know, one of the primary responses to shame is to hide. And if you're a leader and you're feeling like you need to hide, that's hard, that's a hard one. So that's yeah, that's a big hurdle for people leaders to get over. Is that, it's, it's all me and I need to do this and I need to figure it out.
Speaker 1:And, um, that was the team that I was kind of talking about and thinking about. It was similar to that. In that, um, the leader thought he needed to figure it out for himself, and so how did he? It was like he was looking at a motor and it's like, okay, what do I need to do with this motor to make it work better? Do I need to clean this part and do I need to replace that part? And we actually had that conversation at one point that he was looking at it as like a motor and he kind of went, oh my gosh, that's not how I want to lead, which led to some different conversations for him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and so interesting. I had a long walk date yesterday with a lovely human who I don't get to have long walk dates very often with, and we were talking about why. Why are we so fearful? And so, as a leader, I can see my team is struggling. I think I'm taking it on as my responsibility or I'm not doing enough or I'm not a good leader and the fear around actually stating that that I can see things that are happening with the team.
Speaker 2:I'm concerned, I want to support you, but I don't necessarily know how to do that and the fear, the vulnerability, the feels like a you know standing naked in front of your team again, sorry to give you that visual, but like it's. We live in so much fear about how we're supposed to have things figured out. We should know better. I can't say that, I can't say that I can't behave that way, but really humans are, we're complicated and messy, and what happens or what becomes possible if we do put something on the table as. Could we talk about this and could I share this Because I really need your support. Could we talk about this and could I share this because I?
Speaker 1:really need your support.
Speaker 1:We're a team we're going to do this together. Yes, um, and that that's an act of vulnerability. Again, that in our business culture is a bad word. Um, like love and even, to some degree, trust in some cases, where we are conditioned to avoid vulnerability because that's weakness. So it's a weakness to say I'm not sure how what's happening is not really working and I don't know quite how to change it. I need your help.
Speaker 1:And that's a declaration that most leaders, like you said, are afraid to make, and they're afraid to make that declaration. It's kind of like the boogeyman, you know. It's like what's going to really happen. Well, yeah, I suppose there are instances or examples that they've seen where people have lost their jobs, lost their authority, because they acknowledged that they didn't know quite what they were doing. So that does happen.
Speaker 1:That is a response to that and that's really unfortunate because it takes people in the wrong direction. It gives the message that vulnerability is bad and care is bad and we don't want to do the. We don't love is bad, we don't want to build a pair bad, we don't even build a pair. But in fact, those are the things that are needed in those moments when people are skeptical, people are not wanting to step into the fire and even though the house is burning down. It's not a good situation, and yet sometimes people do break through that and I think it takes people like I know you have that heart. To bring people back to themselves, back to vulnerability, is okay and back to love is okay, and so I think we can do as coaches, we can do a lot in that respect, and as leaders the leaders that we work with I think they can do a lot too. They just need to learn to trust themselves.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I spoke with the leader this morning. We had a conversation this morning and I'm so proud of her willingness to to A admit and declare like I'm doing everything I can and it's not enough, so what else should I do? So thank you so much for trusting me to say that and also her openness to say, yeah, I think I could have a conversation with my team and here's how I think I might frame that. Here's why it matters to me and I'm like I love that you're thinking about it before you have the conversation, because you really want to come from that place of care. You really want the best for these lovely humans that are struggling to work together.
Speaker 1:So I want to just say something for our listeners who are coaches that you know you just said thank you for you know, for sharing that with me, for being that open with me. But I think what needs to be pointed out is that, as coaches, that's our job is to provide us, to open a space where people and you do this so well, but to open a space where people do feel safe to do that. And so, yes, thanking her is part of it, but I think you also need to recognize, as her coach, that you've opened the space well and held it well for her, and so, as coaches, that's a big part of our job.
Speaker 2:Thank you for sharing that. Thank you for sharing that. What I also see is more and more leaders that are willing to try a little bit Maybe and we're coming back to the what is 1% that I could try to support my team. What might be different? And I'm thinking of a leader that has he's wow, he's so committed has done weekly sessions with me for probably the last two months since the start of the year, and every week he's like here's what my successes were, here's what I tried, and he's really focused on being present and fully listening. That's it, and thank you for sharing that with me.
Speaker 2:I so appreciate that you're telling me about this, so reinforcing that vulnerability, that making it safe for people to share. This is where I am, this is what's going on for me, this is what I'm struggling with, this is what I need help with. And his only response is I'm so grateful that you're telling me. Thank you for telling me. How can I help? And it doesn't have to be. You know, in this lovely conversation with this lovely human yesterday, she said that's the difference between learning and reading about something and putting it into action, and so if we truly want something to be different, there does need to be some sort of action, and so, with this leader that I spoke with this morning, she's going to prepare and have a conversation with her team to see what's going on. How can we do this differently? I need your support, or another leader that is intentionally practicing listening and presence.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, those are. That's what it's about in coaching Finding those moments where they figure out what's going to work for them and then take action. One thing to declare something, and then the next thing, they have to actually do it.
Speaker 1:And you know sometimes it works the first time out, sometimes it needs some refining. Trying around, you know, playing around with, but that's the hard part, that's the part where we assume the messy part, the part where Brene Brown talks about it as are you in the arena. Is it in the arena? Is that the word she uses?
Speaker 2:Yes, yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, arena, is that the word she uses? Yes, yes, are you in the arena or not? Because that's what I think. Maybe, when somebody, when a leader says I'm not doing enough, I need to do more, I think what they're really maybe expressing but not doing is getting into the arena. But not doing is getting into the arena as a human being, as a fully human being, who is capable of vulnerability themselves is capable of loving other human beings.
Speaker 2:And, building on that analogy that Brene Brown uses, that there's a whole bunch of people sitting in the spectator seats that are throwing popcorn at you and hurling judgments and all sorts of stuff about what you should and shouldn't do, because, boy, it's so easy to hurl those out.
Speaker 2:And we also need to look for the people that are there to support us, because there are people that are there to support us. They often this is an interesting concept that I think we also lose sight of is we all have lots of people that want to support us, whether it's personally, professionally, both but they often don't know what we need them to do both, but they often don't know what we need them to do. And so, asking for Charles, I'm struggling with this, or, you know, I've bumped into something. I would sure love if I could have 15 minutes of your time to just thought, partner with me on this, and so being clear about what support we need. And then I think the other piece in this arena analogy that I love that Brene Brown says is if you are not also in the arena getting your ass kicked, then I am not interested in your opinions or your feedback Period.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, because otherwise what have you got to contribute? Nothing.
Speaker 2:Just a bunch of empty thoughts. Yeah, and judgments and opinions that you haven't tested and tried yourself, because it's scary getting into the arena.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. There was a line I listened to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there was a line I listened to. So for our listeners, ila sent me a link to a podcast conversation, a Coaches Rising podcast conversation between Amy Elizabeth Fox and Jennifer Garvey Berger Garvey, yeah.
Speaker 2:Jennifer Garvey Berger.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just one of those amazing conversations. I love it, but there's a great. One of the many lines that I wrote down as I was listening to it was that they're talking about love in the workplace, that you don't have to call it love. But one of the things that one of them said was that I support your well-being for the sake of your well-being, yes, yes, not for the sake of what I can get out of it or what someone else might get out of it or what's going to do for the team or whatever. Straight up, it's about your well-being and that's what I'm supporting and that's what I think so many people crave and are looking for and, at the same time, are terrified of.
Speaker 1:And when a leader can do that, they can act in that way that lets people know that their well-being is in the leader's heart and mind, and not for any particular goal, but simply for their well-being. It's like an alchemical change that happens and I have seen that happen in teams where a leader suddenly sort of wakes up and starts doing that, starts leading from that place, and everything else begins to change along with that. So I think that's really listening to your story, thinking about the leader that I was thinking about. It's when people, leaders, begin to do that, to really lead from a place of. I'm in this for your well-being. I support that fully. Of course, I'm also in it for my own well-being and they don't conflict. That's the thing. There's enough of well-being to go around.
Speaker 2:Yes, there's no scarcity. Yeah, being to go around yes, there's no scarcity. And you and I, yeah. So we'll share the link to this podcast between Amy and Jennifer. But I think one of the other things and I can't remember if it was in their podcast or in more literature and research that I'm reading around love in the workplace, but we've also grown up to believe that love is scarce and that you're lucky to find it, and this scarcity mentality is like no, actually there's an abundance of love if we choose that. And love can look very different when we're in romantic love or familial love or collegial love right, but it is really this I care about you as a human being.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah go ahead.
Speaker 1:I was just going to say so. I remember reading Jim Collins' Good to Great book and in it there's a little place where he's talking to the wife of one of the Good to Great leaders who was saying how her husband her description of it is he loved the team that he led, the team that he worked with. He loved those people and that was one of the first times that I'd heard or read in a book someplace or heard someone talk about love at that level and it just that's that love of who we are together as a team and what we do together as a team.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I was going to say, you know, I really think again. This leader, I see how, or she sees how her team is struggling and she doesn't want that for them, right? She doesn't want people to feel, you know, oh, I don't want to come into work today because I have to deal with that person, or the energy of resignation, the emotion of resignation, or defeat, or you know a multitude of other emotions we could bring. But she can see they're struggling and she doesn't want that for them. But what do they want for each other?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so I wonder what will help her first come to a place within herself that sort of level of acceptance that, okay, I don't know, and I'm going to have to find out. If I really want to activate this care towards the other people, I need to do something. What is it going to be? How can I connect with myself first so that I can connect with them? I'm going to stop this for a moment. Somebody is pounding on something and I can hear it.
Speaker 2:So I'm going to pause. I'm recording again, okay, good, yay, chad. Sorry, we caused you a bump. So when we feel, as leaders, that we're not doing enough, how can we look at this differently? So what can our leaders actually do?
Speaker 1:and what would be some things that you would suggest. So I think, first of all, that thinking itself needs to. Let's set that aside. I'm not doing enough is not a useful response to the situation. It may be that you need to do something differently. You aren't sure you need to do something differently, pretty darn sure you need to do something differently, but not enough is not going to get you to what's the different thing that's going to make the difference. So set not enough aside and start looking at what's possible to do differently. And also, as we talked about earlier, setting aside the whole idea that it's on me and start looking at what's possible to do differently. And also, as we talked about earlier, setting aside the whole idea that it's on me. I got to do it, I'm the leader, I should know, which, of course, sets us up for the inability to learn, because if I should know, but I don't, what am I going to do? It's already too late. So, setting that aside, that story of I should know aside, and saying what don't?
Speaker 1:I know what do I need to do. I know what do I need to do. What's something that I can try differently. How can I get some different thoughts on this? Where can I go? Where can I go for support If it's possible to open this up for my entire team?
Speaker 2:have an open conversation, have an open conversation, yeah, and I want to highlight something you said there. So, looking for support, maybe a trusted colleague, someone where you know, as we mentioned earlier. You know, hey, charles, I'm bumping into something I would really love Just your perspective. Can I you know? Can I share this confidentially with you? Yes, would you give me some of your insights, right? Yes, and then I think, if it's possible and if the leader is willing and the team is willing, there's a couple of different things or ways that we could approach.
Speaker 2:This is having the team come together and having an open conversation together, or maybe it makes sense to have some one-on-ones first and giving people time in private in a smaller, more intimate conversation, and then prefacing. I'd also like to have this conversation with a larger team, but I wanted to give you space here first, you know, for us to talk about this together, and so I feel like that gives a little bit of you know, Amy Edmondson and Tom Garrity are like floating around in my brain now. So thank you, thanks to both of you. Where, how do we make space, psychologically safe, space for people to share, and that may be one-on-one first, followed by here's some things we'd like to talk about as a team and giving options for both and definitely time to think about. Well, actually, let's play it the other way. If you come to me and you're my leader and you say, hila, what could I do better or differently, I'd be like I have no idea. I have no idea, or, you know, am I effective as a leader? Sure, yeah, of course, of course.
Speaker 2:What feedback do you have? Yeah, what feedback do you have for me? Uh, I don't know. You're doing a good job, yeah, yeah, yeah, and so I think, a structuring so people have time to think about it, and then asking questions and inviting conversation in a way that feels, um, that it's supportive of our well-being, our collective well-being.
Speaker 1:There's another thing, too, that I think that brings up fear or skepticism. Skepticism is something we talked about at the beginning. There's okay if we actually open it up, people are going to criticize me because we all play the blame game. And so, starting out with moving from, if it shows up that blame, moving from that is to where are we going? What do we want? So the questions rather than being what's broken, what needs fixing is what do we want?
Speaker 2:And as soon as you say that, like, I just immediately sat up and thought about what's our shared care? Yeah, right, so as a team in this organization, we are together for a purpose, and so how will we bring that purpose to life in a way that we all care about? Because we're all working towards the same goal, although sometimes teams lose sight of the goal or have little fragments. Little fragments, right. And so how do we reconnect to what we all care about and the purpose of why our team is actually even together in the first place.
Speaker 1:And again, that's something that is sometimes challenging for people in teams, because there's vulnerability there. If I speak, what I actually care about, are these people going to listen and honor that, or are they going to make fun of it and make fun of me for for saying that. So, in some ways, that is the leader's job to create a container, a sufficient safety so that people can do that, which can mean saying sometimes okay, we're going to have this conversation.
Speaker 1:So what are the guidelines around our conversation Before we have this conversation in which, you know, we're probably going to need to be somewhat vulnerable with each other?
Speaker 2:What will allow us to do that and feel okay, feel safe enough to do that. I feel like and I'm thinking of one particular team, and it's an exercise that I start with every team facilitation, every group that works together. What is our accountable, us? So how can we be accountable to self, to each other? What do we need from self, what do we need from each other in order for this to be productive, efficient, open, ability for us to learn and grow and be curious together. And I think again thinking of this one particular team, that they did a really good job of capturing things on a flip chart which I wrote at the front of the room. Harder to put those into action.
Speaker 1:Ooh. So listening to you say that, I immediately am curious. What is it about those things that are difficult for those people? What gets in the way of putting them in action? What are the stories, what are the narratives that they?
Speaker 2:have.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And this particular team was a lovely group of scientists and vulnerability was really hard, Really really hard.
Speaker 1:I can just imagine.
Speaker 2:And I, like I'm, where's my little? I've lost my heart. Oh my gosh, where's my little heart? That's on my desk all the time. I was just going to give it a squish and send it to these lovely humans, but I can completely understand why that would be so difficult for them. Their entire lives they've been rewarded for having the right answer. And having it before somebody else, not being vulnerable.
Speaker 1:Even if it means cutting that other person off and making you know, tripping that other person up so that I have the right answer. Yeah, yeah, the right answer?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, yeah, rather than you know, having experienced and practiced being courageous. Actually, I don't know the answer. I have some ideas, but I'm not sure what the right one is. That could be terrifying for some of them to say out loud, yes absolutely so.
Speaker 1:I think one of the things then we can leave our listeners with here whether you're a coach or a leader yourself is being willing to go first as a leader in vulnerability and asking for help, maybe from the team, maybe from someone else inside, maybe from a colleague.
Speaker 2:Maybe both.
Speaker 1:Whoever it is asking for help, and again, getting rid of the story of I'm not doing enough and that I should be able to do it all myself. Yeah, that is such a— no shitting, no shitting.
Speaker 2:No shitting. No shitting on ourselves, no shitting on others.
Speaker 1:That's up to me. I should be able to do this. All myself is such a limiting belief.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and it's. You know, I'm uh, I just put my hand on my heart, it's just, it's so I I'm not immune to that feeling right, where sometimes I feel like I should have done better job or I, you know, I should have done something differently with that client, or you know how that facilitation went, could have gone better. So I'm holding my hand to my heart and remembering this is a practice that, oh, okay, I hear you. Thank you for that message, and is it actually true? Or is that my itty bitty, shitty committee going wild, which mine often is, but being able to catch that and notice that inner dialogue and go, oh, hang on. Actually, I want to be kind and gentle with myself first and maybe I can put that stick down.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Yeah, that's a good place, maybe, to end.
Speaker 2:Thank you for this lovely conversation.
Speaker 1:You too.
Speaker 2:Bringing love and humanity and care for others to the forefront. I think I want to spend more time in that space. Yes, I know I do. Thank you, charles, and thank you to our lovely listeners. And I'm adding here Hillary can we make sure that we do a post on Jen and Amy's podcast? I would love to profile that and we can put a teaser that Amy is joining us as a podcast guest in a few weeks.
Speaker 1:Yes, and I would like to have a version of that as well that I can share Okay.
Speaker 2:This is Charles. I'm stopping this recording.
Speaker 1:Bye Hillary.
