What is the impact when someone lies to you? When your relationship with your staff is shaken by a lie, it damages the bedrock of your connection. There can be an emotional whirlwind that leaders face when trust is breached, and it can be hard to stay calm and collected. Here we offer a roadmap to rebuild this vital foundation with care, eschewing the pitfalls of micromanagement for a path that fosters integrity and transparency.
Are you willing to use empathy to explore the complex reasons someone may lie, truly seeking to understand?
If your aim is to cultivate trust through consistent, nurturing actions and open dialogue, you should join us for this episode!
To have your questions answered on the show, submit your story here: https://allthrive.ca/share-your-story
Leadership Ripples with Leah Fink is live every week at 5:00pm MST. Please join us to get answers to your leadership questions! https://www.linkedin.com/in/leah-fink-all-thrive/
What is the impact when someone lies to you? When your relationship with your staff is shaken by a lie, it damages the bedrock of your connection. There can be an emotional whirlwind that leaders face when trust is breached, and it can be hard to stay calm and collected. Here we offer a roadmap to rebuild this vital foundation with care, eschewing the pitfalls of micromanagement for a path that fosters integrity and transparency.
Are you willing to use empathy to explore the complex reasons someone may lie, truly seeking to understand?
If your aim is to cultivate trust through consistent, nurturing actions and open dialogue, you should join us for this episode!
To have your questions answered on the show, submit your story here: https://allthrive.ca/share-your-story
Leadership Ripples with Leah Fink is live every week at 5:00pm MST. Please join us to get answers to your leadership questions! https://www.linkedin.com/in/leah-fink-all-thrive/
Speaker 1:
Every action you take as a leader has a ripple effect, starting with your team, going out to the organization and even out into people's personal lives. Here we offer you the chance to learn from real-life stories of leadership so you can gain a deeper understanding and level up your own skills From communication to culture, to power and equity, to feedback, to resolving conflict and more. Join us and make sure you're creating the ripples you want. Welcome to Leadership Ripples with Leah Fink.
Speaker 2:
Hello and welcome to Leadership Ripples with Leah Fink. Today we are going to be talking about trust and lying, and specifically what it looks like when you feel you can't trust members of your team because of that. Ayo writes in with her experience. She says I own a small company that's recently gone through a period of growth. We have around 30 employees and many of them have been with us for less than a year.
Speaker 2:
I feel like I put a lot of effort into trusting my staff, but recently I had one of my team members lie to my face. I tried to share the evidence I had against what they said, but they wouldn't even listen. I unfortunately did end up getting upset and the conversation didn't end well. I have no idea how to proceed with this staff member now. I refuse to become a micromanager, as I have no interest in having to look over her shoulder at what she's doing. Is there any way I can regain trust, or should I be replacing this employee? That is a tough situation and thank you so much for sharing it, ao.
Speaker 2:
Trust is a foundational part of all of our relationships and in the workplace it can make or break how we connect with people. We need to be able to trust the people around us to achieve outcomes. We can't do it all on our own. Now, before we dive into trust itself and what we're going to do with that, I just want to take a moment to talk about the very human reaction that you had, ayo, and you mentioned you got upset. Things didn't end well. I'm going to assume that means that maybe you became emotionally dysregulated, maybe voices were raised, maybe even more happened, and that is very natural. A lot of people are going to get upset if they got lied to. And now you're reflecting on your experience, deciding how you want to move forward. I'd invite you to actually first reflect on why this was impactful to you. What was that feeling of being lied to that really bubbled up? Because we only get angry or upset when we care about something or when we're protecting something, and you want to know were you caring about the connection that you had with this person that you thought was maybe stronger? Maybe you were wanting to protect the quality of work you did, which you didn't feel would happen if there was lies. We're going to be coming back to this piece, but just becoming aware of why this matters so much is also going to give context to why this kind of trust building is so important to us as we move forward.
Speaker 2:
Let's talk trust in the workplace. I have talked to a lot of employers and a lot of employees and I have to say I have heard quite a variety of horror stories about the environments that employees have been in. I would say probably almost everyone has at least one toxic workplace experience where they didn't feel a lot of sense of safety and they didn't feel connected. Whatever those situations were a really horrible boss maybe, or bad situation we want to recognize. Everyone comes to the table with what happened before and if you are feeling unsafe at work, do you think it's possible that you might lie to protect yourself in some way, like any other time that we are in a position where we have less power and therefore more vulnerability? Lying might be one of those strategies that we've come up with that really helps us feel maybe safer, maybe more in control of the situation. This might not be a strategy you use a lot, but maybe sometimes it does feel like your only option. And I'll give you a couple examples.
Speaker 2:
I remember speaking with an employee and at one of their previous companies they told me about an engagement survey they were asked to do. Now they were told that the survey was anonymous and of course you know things get around the company. They had heard that management actually tracked the IP addresses of people who submitted their survey. So they were told yes, it's anonymous, share honestly. And then they heard they were being tracked. Now it would not surprise me if every single employee that knew that lied on that survey, because what is the benefit to telling the truth Now that you know that this is going to happen? You might be labeled a troublemaker or that you're rocking the boat or that you're not a team player. So why would someone put themselves forward in that way when there's already this trust broken by management?
Speaker 2:
Other examples I talked with an employee who worked somewhere with a three-strike policy, that is, you make three mistakes and you are fired. Now how likely are you in that situation to tell the truth about a mistake you made? Maybe you really think you won't be caught? You could get away with it. So of course you're not going to put your job, your livelihood on the line and want to tell that truth. You're going to potentially create that little lie that is going to protect you.
Speaker 2:
Now I want to say. I'm not saying that you and your workplace and your company are toxic not at all but I'll bet that most of your employees at some point have worked for another organization or maybe at the very least they had people in positions of authority over them who maybe didn't handle it perfectly. We've all had those bad experiences. Of course we have, and one of the hard parts of being a leader is that you get to take on the history of leadership, of that power dynamic with everyone that came before you. You get to take on kind of that role in this person's life now as that leader. So, even though your workplace might be so much healthier, so much better, that staff might not have built enough trust to overcome some of these past things that happened.
Speaker 2:
And there's this dynamic that happens in relationships and especially those with power dynamics. We know that we're a good leader, we care about our staff, we have really great intentions, and so we have this assumption that people are going to automatically trust us, that they should just know about our good intentions, that they should know about the positive outcomes that we want, and that the assumption should be trust, not that the expectation is, you might have to work to earn that trust, especially in a leadership position. If you've listened to this show before, we've talked about the neurobiology, about being in positions of power and positions with less power, and when you are in a position with less power, your amygdala activates your flight freeze response. So of course, it might not feel like you automatically are going to have trust in a leader who has this certain influence or ability to control your life in a way that you don't. Trust isn't the assumption. Trust is something that we have to work even harder to earn.
Speaker 2:
Now I also hope those thinking about that is. That might explain, first of all, some of the emotional reaction you had earlier isn't actually about you. Maybe you can let go of the part of, if you're questioning like, oh, maybe it's because they don't like me and I must be this and I must be that. How could they not trust me with the truth? How could they do this and just invite you that you can take it a little bit less personally and recognize that all of us, as leaders, are going to have to take these steps to help develop that trust instead of just assuming that it is going to be there, and so with that we can also make an assumption not disregarding the impact that this might have had on the relationship for them to lie, but making this assumption that they did it for a reason that they believed was good.
Speaker 2:
We might not agree with that, but there was something that they thought, maybe, that they needed that they could get by doing this. Maybe they were protecting for this reason, but it wasn't because they were trying to hurt you. They were trying to fulfill some need of their own. And of course, there could be situations where it's an employee who's just strategizing and manipulating and they're trying to get something. But I argue, even those strategies at their heart is about protecting someone and their interests. And even if that's the case if you look at your team as staff we're just trying to manipulate and find all these ways around you're going to have a hard time building trust with your team, creating that sense that you can all come together on this. There's going to be a lot of mistrust and you might end up feeling like you have to micromanage or control a situation, whereas when you can look at it with the assumption that these people have a reason, a positive intention in some way, some sort of goal that they might be working towards it gives you leverage to work with that, to see them as a person and to interact with them in a healthy way, and even those people that might have been in more of a I'm trying to get my own needs met at the cost of others. Maybe that manipulation place can actually shift to more trusting, more collaborative, trying to work towards that team goal.
Speaker 2:
So let's think about this from a place of just approaching with a bit more curiosity. So there are a couple things I might have done different than you, ao and of course I have time to think about this right now and one of them is I know it can feel really comfortable to want to approach this person that's lied to you in any situation with the facts, with saying this is why you're wrong and these are the facts of why that's not the truth, probably, unfortunately, will not help too much in this situation, because they might have this fear, they might have this uncertainty, maybe a little shame about the fact that they are lying. Instead, if you are able to be self-regulated in that moment, take that moment maybe to breathe, recognize that you might be caring about something, but can I stay calm and rational? I would instead say something like it sounds like you made a decision based on this untrue statement. I have information that seems to contradict that. Could you tell me more about what you understand about the untrue statement or the situation?
Speaker 2:
So this first piece is just looking for connection and a shared sense of understanding of what this situation is. We're not saying you lied, so you're bad, so you need to correct it. We're just saying what do you understand about this? Now you may get something that's a bit more in depth, that maybe shares a piece of a misunderstanding or a difference in opinion, because sometimes that's what a lie is is two people who believe things to be true and that's a truth for them, but it might not quite line up in reality. So you might get that. You might get a little bit of a comment correcting the lie and apologizing if they're recognizing. Okay, I got it. I wasn't saying the right thing.
Speaker 2:
If they continue with the untrue statement, you might become a little bit more direct. So I have information that shows that what you're saying is not factual. Would you be willing to look it over with me and confirm your understanding? So again, we're asking a question that's about creating shared understanding, not antagonizing or telling them that they're bad and you can also throw in something that recognizes that. If they recognize they are caught in a lie, this might be a little harder to admit, to bring that forward. And so, even saying something like I realize you might have shared something mistakenly and it could be awkward to take that back now.
Speaker 2:
I think that if we have a conversation, we can move past this. So you're kind of giving them this space, this out, to say hey, yeah, sorry, I did that. Because it can be really hard to say to your boss to now admit to them yes, I lied to your face Right, there's that vulnerability, there's that awkwardness. So giving them that little piece of recognition that if they are willing to talk about this, if they're willing to create this shared understanding and rebuild trust, then you probably do still want to work with them. It's not going to be an easy conversation. They'll probably be fear and upset, maybe some big feelings on both sides. But if you can stay calm and focus on what you want from this, what kind of relationship might you want with the staff going forward? How might they rebuild trust with you?
Speaker 2:
Maybe if you've had a lot of calm attempts now to potentially to over a couple of days like take some time with this and you've tried to engage this employee multiple times, tried to create this understanding and they are not willing to engage, or they multiple times tried to create this understanding and they are not willing to engage, or they keep reiterating they're not willing to listen to either side, then that might be a person that you decide isn't going to be the best fit for your team. That's an opportunity that you have to say okay. For me, trust is about creating the shared understanding, a willingness to come to the table If this person can't do this. Now that I'm offering a different kind of support, a little bit more empathy and curiosity. Maybe this isn't the best fit, but you notice how there is now lots of conversation, lots of openness before we made that kind of decision.
Speaker 2:
And on top of this, there are two things I want to suggest for outside the situation that are really going to help with this. The first is for the situation that already happened. So AO, going to that staff we know things got heated. They didn't end well. As the leader, the best thing you can now do is take the first step to repair that relationship. This is what our last episode was about. You can go, listen to it and this is really, as it were, being the bigger man, but it's not saying that you're taking accountability for their behavior, which wasn't correct, to tell an untruth, but you're taking responsibility for how you showed up in that moment, which was getting upset, storming away, whatever that looked like.
Speaker 2:
And once that opportunity has come, think of how few times you've maybe had the opportunity from someone who was an authority figure to actually apologize, to say, hey, I recognize I had this impact. It probably wasn't great, and now you can talk about both. People's perspective on what happened does have some pretty bad experiences with leaders in the past. This can be such a healing moment to hear a leader say, hey, look, I didn't like how I acted here, I messed up, and what kind of trust could that potentially build for the next time that maybe they will feel a bit safer, a bit better to now engage with you in a healthier, more truthful way.
Speaker 2:
The other thing I'm going to encourage all leaders to do in all situations, not just this one, is more of a regular check-in practice around trust, and this would include having individual conversations with all of your staff and directly asking what could I do that helps you build trust in a relationship? Or what would I do that could help you build trust in relationship? Or what would I do that could help you build trust in me as a leader? We don't directly ask this right Again. We tend to assume trust and asking this question takes it beyond just our good intentions that we have as a leader, but actually recognizing that it might take a little bit of different work for different people to really engage and feel like they can fully join us on our team in the way that we're hoping.
Speaker 2:
Trust isn't incidental, it's cultivated and earned. So you want to be the leader that does that. Cultivating that gets employees to this deep level of trust, because when your employees trust you deeply, it's much easier to also trust them in return to do the good work that you can, or you can keep on assuming trust and you can get employees that might be hiding a bad experience Maybe they don't really want to engage with you, they're going to continue lying or they're just going to leave. So that's your choice. And those really are, once again, these positive or negative ripples that we might be creating as a leader, even without knowing it.
Speaker 2:
Ayo, I want to thank you so much for such a great story and question to share with us. We'll be following up with a one-on-one session to say thank you for sharing this and to make sure your questions got answered fully. And if you have a question or a story that you want to share with the show, you can find the link for that in the description and we would love to hear from you. Finally, just thank you so much for listening and learning with me, for taking this journey to be the best leader that you possibly can, and as we close, please remember to ask yourself what ripples are you going to create this week?
Speaker 1:
We hope you enjoyed the episode. Make sure to subscribe, comment and connect with Leah at meetleahca.