The Secret to Building Trust as a Leader: Insights from My Journey With 2 Executive Coaches and a Spiritual Teacher
Trust lies in your stand for your people through their heartbreaks and disappointments
A standard answer to every question in leadership is 'build trust.'
Reports not productive? Build trust in the team. Have to manage boss? Build trust. Peers indifferent to you? Build trust.
It sounds wonderful but mysterious (and out of our control). In my quest to learn human behavior change and high performance, I stumbled upon the basic principle of building trust in an unlikely place— my relationship with my coaches and my beloved teacher. What made me trust them so much that led to permanent shifts in my life? When I understood this, suddenly a weight lifted off my shoulders— there is less 'efforting' and more peace that I'm on track for my goals.
It's perhaps the only leadership lesson we all need and a key to creating a high-performing team.
This post breaks down this fundamental principle and nuances of building trust that drives change. I also have some reflections for you to enhance your journey as a trusted leader. Let's dive in!
Why we lose trust, and why it's so hard to build.
The primary cause of our battle with trust is our disposition to heartbreaks as humans.
I came across a brilliant LinkedIn post where the author named the feelings one experiences with layoffs— heartbreak. That led me to consider it's not just the layoffs that cause a sense of loss and heartbreak. The past few years have been particularly tough on us. Just as we thought we were recovering from the pandemic, the tech community faces huge portfolio losses, budget cuts, and the threat of AI taking over jobs.
Add that to the mini-heartbreaks every day at the workplace—
Co-workers or bosses take credit or push their agenda
Hearing crickets of non-recognition even when we devote ourselves to work
The team you know and the work you love get overhauled with varying leadership priorities and re-orgs
Each event leads to further crumbling of our expectations from people. From life.
It's almost a loss of identity. When the reality I perceive, understand, and find meaning in, is not the same as the world's truth, then how do I act? What do I do? How do I be? Who do I be?
Now, as a leader, you are dealing with people in this state of self-doubt, heartbreak, and resentment. They don't trust life as it is. Their guard is raised, activating their innate protection mechanisms forged from past baggage. This can take shape as:
Backdoor politics
Defensiveness to feedback
Procrastination to tough conversations
How do you then cut across these systems and move your mission forward? The answer lies in the basic principle of transformational coaching.
You build trust, not in you, but in themselves, their abilities, and their outlook on life.
What I'm suggesting here is radically different from the conventional leadership advice of 'build trust in your leadership.' That strategy has a short half-life and is entirely out of your control. It'll keep you up at night with all the 50 different ways of modifying your words to change minds, when you cannot.
It's an unwinnable game.
We can never change what others think about us, but we can facilitate change in how they think about themselves. That eventually leads to an unshakeable trust in you and your leadership.
The behavior change secret from executive coaches.
So how exactly does one facilitate change in people? I present you 3 instances of mind-opening moments from my life as exhibits.
Exhibit 1: Whenever I ask a 'How do I…' question, my coach often tells me, "I have advice. But before I tell you, let's look at your process?"
Exhibit 2: I often look up to my teacher and see how she's living her life (I am pretty sure she's enlightened, by the way) and try to apply that to my life. How would she deal with a toddler throwing tantrums? How would she deal with an overwhelming amount of work? How does she deal with praise and criticism?
While she teaches how to recognize ego and fear-based patterns, she also says, "I want you to find your answers."
Exhibit 3: I recently started working with another executive coach. He left me stumped when he said, "I've got space for you exactly as you are. You are perfect, you don't need to be any different."
These responses would send me into a questioning spiral. "Yeah, that's all fine, but how do I reach my goals? I'm dealing with a complex problem with severe constraints here. Real life, hello?" And these answers almost seem like some new-age spiritual cliches.
I want answers. I want success. And I want it NOW.
But you see, these responses put me on a path of finding skills and talents that I never knew existed in me. Their trust requires me to:
Open up my flawed, imperfect self, including my weaknesses and the depths of my darkness. I surrender the breath I unconsciously held captive. In return, I get complete acceptance and guidance.
Generate solutions and take radical responsibility for my life. I'm on the hook to flex my creative muscles and trust my ability to find solutions previously hidden from my sight.
When I fail, I'm still taken care of. Because the question is not, "What did you do wrong?". Instead, the question is, "What got in the way, and how can we change that for even more fulfillment?"
Now, you can imagine how this stretches me to drive the results I set out for. This is precisely what you can create in your leadership.
Your direct report might say, "That's all fine, but how do I make this person sign off on my proposal? How do I deal with that jerk? How do we meet this deadline? How do we push back against this mountain of requirements? Give me your thoughts on the strategy here."
Right there, my friend, is the trap of advice waiting for you to jump in. It's juicy. It's compelling. It feels good to the leader's ego to fix these problems and fix these clueless people.
Don't fall for it.
The real juice for your leadership lies in their self-doubt— that they can't figure it out for themselves, that they'll screw it up, and that their world will crumble.
Slow down in these moments and see if it's an opportunity to help them build self-trust.
If they're laid off, can you relate to their worries and help them explore how they can still trust themselves?
If their shadows of manipulation or procrastination are coming out, can you stop them and ask curiously, "Hey, what's going on? What's showing up?"
If they ask for your advice, can you nudge them, "What skills can you build by solving this on your own?"
If they're worried about failure, can you help them see that failure is a possibility but then explore what opens up because they tried?
Find a mentor, one who sees your potential despite your self-doubt.
— Kavitha Chinnayain
Can you be that mentor, that leader, for your people?
Take a stand for their possibility. Take a stand for their impeccability and their excellence. See what they cannot see for themselves. See beyond their vices, fear-based patterns, and egoic manipulations. Build your space for discomfort so large that your reports can exist exactly as they are.
I understand there is much at stake in corporate, sometimes leaving no room for mistakes. Certain situations need you to step in with your advice. But if you want to create more leaders, more often than not, your job is to build trust in themselves.
Your ability to facilitate self-trust creates a leader. Your advice creates a follower.
Note that this work is not easy if you have your own resentment, mini-heartbreaks, and fear-based patterns in the way.
It's not easy if you don't have a leader modeling trust. Leadership quickly becomes lonely without someone standing for you in the background. It's worth getting that support from the right executive coach who can lead you and take you on a journey of self-trust.
TL;DR:
Advice creates followers, not leaders.
Believe in the possibility of change they want to create.
Take a stand for your people's excellence despite their vices, patterns, and procrastination.
Work on your ability to hold discomfort. That means you do your own work around your resentment and heartbreaks. Have someone else stand for you.