Leveraging Leadership

Listener Question: How to Restore Trust When Your CEO Overcommits Publicly

• Emily Sander • Season 1 • Episode 206

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A listener asks how to handle a CEO who overpromises big ideas in public, causing staff to lose trust when they don’t happen. Emily suggests privately discussing the real impact with the CEO, sharing clear examples like lost productivity after public announcements, and separating brainstorming from commitments. She also recommends giving the CEO practical talk tracks and focusing on themes like follow-through to help restore trust.


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Who Am I?

If we haven’t yet before - Hi👋 I’m Emily, Chief of Staff turned Executive Leadership Coach. After a thrilling ride up the corporate ladder, I’m focusing on what I love - working with people to realize their professional and personal goals. Through my videos here on this channel, books, podcast guest spots, and newsletter, I share new ideas and practical and tactical tools to help you be more productive and build the career and life you want. 

 

Time Stamps:

00:58 Understanding the CEO's Awareness
02:07 Communicating the Impact
05:02 Creating a Safe Space for Ideas
05:39 Distinguishing Conversations
06:54 Equipping with Talk Tracks
07:46 Frameworks for Discussion
10:48 Encouraging Follow Through

emily-sander_2_07-29-2025_084243:

All right, listener question from anonymous says, my CEO can sometimes be too ambitious with his ideas and publicly expresses them. This has led to staff losing faith in him when they don't happen or just don't believe him at all. I have to come in after and clean it up. Some advice on how to approach this with the CEO? Yes. Good and important question.'cause at the root of this question is a trust factor, which as I recall, is kind of important to relationships. Yes, I read that somewhere. Okay. Couple things here. First of all, if I were talking with you, I, I would ask, is he aware of this? Like, does he like, oh, I know, I'm so sorry I did it again. Or is he like, what are you talking about? I'm, I'm fine. So figuring out where he is on this journey and what he would say about himself if he's not aware or if he's a little bit aware in theory, but not quite aware of the, like severity and like what happens on the ground, the unintended consequences and ramifications of what his actions. transpire to, then I would let him know that, and not in a judgemental, demoralizing way. I would just state factually what, what happens. So when you say, I have to clean it up, like maybe some relevant and helpful examples from some of those cleanup efforts you could share with him. If you aren't quite sure if he's aware of this or you're not quite sure, like, Hey, what does this look like to him? what does he think he's doing because he, he thinks he's doing something good. No one gets up there and goes, let me get in front of the, the entire team or entire company and say something that's gonna mess everything up. That's not people's motivation the vast majority of the time. So. If you don't know already, I would ask what he's trying to accomplish when he shares these, these ambitious ideas and publicly expresses them so he's not only thinking about. These ambitious goals, but he's saying them in a public forum. It sounds like it's one thing to kind of say'em in private or in a one-on-one conversation, but it's another thing if he's getting up in front of the all hands, meeting and saying, here we go on this thing, and everyone's like, what is this thing? I thought we were doing that thing. So figuring out where he is with that. I would ask the question, though. I would ask the question, even if you've had. Maybe some sporadic conversations before on this topic. I think it's worth revisiting unless it's like, Emily, we've had this conversation 12 times for the last 12 days. Then you might need to like harken back to like, Hey, we've had some conversations around this. I need to have a straightforward conversation with you that's a little bit more pointed into the nose. Okay. So let's just say that it's like, okay, he is kind of maybe aware, not quite sure. Ask him, ask him the question. Uh. Then whatever he says back, I would listen carefully and use the words that he uses. Meaning, let's say that he says, well, I get up there and talk about these ideas because I want people to be motivated and excited about where they work. I want them to be motivated about what they're doing and excited about the place they work. Okay, great. Like that's a fantastic trait in a CEO. Pairing those words with maybe the what actually happens when you do that could sound something like when you share every idea, people start to discount them and it actually demotivates people and it's uninspiring. So you kind of fold in what, what is actually happening. So, and then maybe an example from, from, um, if you have a recent example, for instance, when you made announcement X at the all hands meeting, people stop what they were doing and they waited for the quote unquote new project to start. And we lost a week of productivity. So if that's a fact on the ground, you can collect that, you can show that, you can demonstrate that. Then I would bring that up. That's, that's not, again, it's not like throwing it in your face. How dare you're doing a crappy job. How dare you're trying to motivate our staff. It's nothing like that. It's just, Hey, I hear that you're trying to do this, which is awesome. In reality, what's happening is this, like you're trying to do this and this and this other thing is happening and here's a specific example. Oh. Oh, I didn't know that. Okay. No one told me that. Now that I see that. Then I can do something with it. So if you're at that level or stage of the conversation, then I would make sure you ask the question and then you share with him the reality on the ground or part of the reality, or at least your reality or experience on the ground. So that's, I think the first couple things you can do. Okay. Next thing to think about is sometimes people need. A idea box or a brainstorming session where it's like, let's just brainstorm. Let's just have ideas. And it's like, okay, we're not committing to anything. No one do anything about this. Let's just talk about it. I wanna talk about it. Some people are talkers. They get very excited. Creating a distinction between, Hey, here's a one-on-one setting, or a small group setting, or even a larger group setting, but it's clearly labeled as we're just brainstorming. We're talking about ideas. We're throwing stuff against the wall, we're shooting the stuff, like whatever. There's no bad ideas, no one do anything, and it's very. Clear that this, this space and this time is dedicated toward brainstorming versus here is an official all hands meeting. Here is an official leadership meeting where a brainstorm could easily get confused with a directive. I, oh, I guess we're doing that now. I guess that's what he's decided type of thing. Oh, he's committing us to that right now. Those two things are separate and I think it's important to have both kinds of conversations and both kinds of communication, but maybe it's a more of a, of a distinction for him and for other people around him.'cause I've been in cases where are are you saying to do that? Like, are, do we do that now? Do we not do anything else and go do the thing you just said now? Okay. We can, but then we drop everything else. So. Just maybe being clear about that and maybe it might be holding a space for him. As chief of staff saying, Hey, let's have a brainstorm box session every week, and this is where we can talk through things. And you know what, one out of seven things that comes out of that might be worth bringing to the leadership meeting for continued discussion. And then if that has legs and we can put resources to it, then maybe we announce that at the all hands. Something like that. So maybe distinctions around what, what type of conversation it is. Another tactical and practical thing you can do is equip him with talk tracks. So maybe the way he's phrasing things or the way he's framing them up is confusing to to himself or other people around him. So it could be we're exploring the possibility of.dot do. It could be An idea that I'm having is.do do not, I'm committing us to this. Not I'm directing you to do this. An idea that I'm having an idea worth exploring. It could be, um, if we make X happen, here's the impact. I could see that having and open up a discussion like that where again, it's not like, go do this thing right now. It's, you know, I really feel like there could be some benefit in talking about this. I think that's a great discussion opener. So I think arming him with the, so I think arming him with some tactical and practical talk tracks like that might be helpful. Other frameworks to maybe discuss with him is. There's kind of like a why part of the conversation and then a what? It would take part of the conversation. So like, why we're doing this?'cause it would have a huge impact. Imagine what would happen in our industry. Imagine what would happen for our customers. Okay. That's the why, which is hugely important, right? And then it's what would it take to get us there on the ground? In reality, what would it take? And it might be. Making that distinction in his mind like, Hey, there's a huge part of this that is the why discussion and is the big ideas and motivating, inspiring like we, and we need that. Like a company needs that for sure. And a founder usually has that in spades. And there's also equally important is how do we do that? What would it take? And sometimes there's resource constraints and sometimes there's sequencing and sometimes there's, oh my gosh. That is, that is the best idea that trumps everything else. We should drop everything else and go do that. Like all hands on deck, let's go do that. And that's the thing. So, but those discussions have to happen, right? So the why and what will it take are two different parts of the discussion. Maybe that's a framework you can help build into his his thought process. another thing you could do, this would be really interesting. This would be, this might be a tall order, but I think it's worth, I think it's worth mentioning here if you can get'em around to, okay, yes, I've overcommitted, or I've said things and, um, not done them over and over again. And people just think that I'm ahead of my skis. I'm, I'm out in front of my skis all the time. if you can get him to say publicly something like. We don't have A, B and C lined up yet. Therefore, we can't move forward with this. We're not quite there yet. And people are like, huh? Like what? Okay. So now he has two sides going on here. It's not always big ideas over committing all that stuff. Okay, hold on. He's kind of. That's like a logical answer, and maybe he's like, let's say this for later. I still want this on the radar, but right now we're just not in position to do that yet. That might help other people come around oh, okay, maybe something is different. Maybe something is changing. Maybe his chief of staff is working with him and coaching him and all these things, so that might be an interesting public display of, Hey, I'm, I'm now being more. I don't wanna say open-minded, but more well-rounded maybe in my thought process. I think that might be a good thing to demonstrate for folks. This might be a, Hey Emily, that's a great idea. That might not happen for the next few months. I got a long ways to go, and that's fine. Maybe that's just something to work toward, or maybe that's something. To keep an eye out for, for an example, like a good example where it's like, okay, not this one, not that one. That one's kind of messy. Oh, this is a perfect one. This is perfect timing. This is a clean example. People will get it. It's he. He can get on board with it. This one lines up, well, let's use this one right now for that example. And then finally I would just, I would just repeat that. A private conversation, just candid one-on-one when you're both in a good space about it. Say, I really want to rally people behind your vision. I think what we're doing is so important and you are a visionary and you are leading the way. And here's what I see getting in the way of that. And here's how I can see breaking through that. and it might be giving him like one. Theme, like over and over, like pick, uh, pick, pick, follow through as the theme. Like follow through as the thing you need to actually have your, your vision go forward. Have people get behind you or have people not lose faith in you. Follow through is the theme. Pick whatever word you want, whatever sentiment you want there. This is just an example, but. If he gets through his brain, I need to follow through. People need to see me follow through with what I say. Boom, boom, boom. Over and over and over again. And then slow drip, slow drip, slow drip, follow through, follow through, follow through. We didn't quite follow through there. Oh my gosh. That was a great example of follow through. Look at the look at. Look at. Look at the result. Look at how people are responding. That's great. That's what happens when you follow through, follow through, follow through, follow through whatever theme it is. That could be, that could be. What you talk with him about and keep coming back to if this is a habit. That he's built up for a long time. It might take him a little bit to get out of that worth the discussion and maybe you need him to be doing, you know, adding more things to his tool belt right now. So having this discussion around follow through is really important. And I would set up small wins for him. I would set up successes and momentum he can build on. I would give him positive examples. I would give him examples of hairs, how he didn't quite meet the mark again. But here's what went well about that. I would give him ongoing feedback about the follow through piece. But if you have this ongoing conversation, I think it can be really, really fruitful. So great question. Thank you for submitting that. If anyone listening has an additional question they'd like to send in, feel free to email me directly at Emily at next level coach, find me on LinkedIn or drop a question in the comments and I'll catch you next time on leveraging leadership.