Leadership Horizons

Building Trust Through Action, Beyond The Fundamentals

• Lois Burton • Episode 18

Share episode

Trust forms the bedrock of exceptional leadership, but building deep, enduring trust requires more than basic reliability. In this revealing exploration of advanced trust-building practices, we dive into the sophisticated behaviors that truly separate transformational leaders from merely effective ones.

At the heart of this advanced curriculum lies "courageous advocacy" - the willingness to stand up for your people even when personally costly. This powerful practice works both ways, requiring leaders to defend team members when appropriate while also supporting organizational decisions when necessary. 

Alongside this, "intelligent transparency" helps leaders navigate the delicate balance between empowering information sharing and overwhelming disclosure.

We explore the counterintuitive power of "graceful failure recovery," where leaders who handle mistakes well often emerge with stronger trust than before. The seemingly contradictory concept of "predictable unpredictability" reveals how successful leaders maintain rock-solid character while demonstrating the flexibility to adapt strategies when circumstances demand it.

The conversation deepens with insights into "strategic vulnerability" - sharing challenges in ways that model resilience rather than weakness - and "future-focused trust building" to create confidence for challenges teams haven't yet encountered. These practices create cultures where excellence becomes sustainable and organizations thrive through transformation.

Trust isn't built through intention alone but through consistent, refined action. Which of these advanced practices represents your biggest growth opportunity? What specific situation this week could benefit from applying these principles? 

Remember, the trust you build today creates the foundation for the transformation you'll lead tomorrow.

Leadership Horizons - Helping You Lead Beyond Boundaries

Speaker 1:

Welcome back to Leadership Horizons, where we explore leadership as its most transformative. I'm Lois Burton, an Executive Coach and Leadership Development Specialist, and I'm very glad to welcome you today. Before we start today, I want to celebrate and say thank you. Today marks four months since I started podcasting, and it's been an amazing journey so far, which I'm very much looking forward to continuing. So I'm doing a little happy dance to celebrate. You can't see this, and it's probably a good thing, as I'm not the best dancer in the world.

Speaker 1:

I am really enjoying this process and I want to say a huge thank you to all of you who have downloaded the podcast and taken the time and trouble to send me feedback. This means so much and I truly appreciate it, as it's only by hearing from you that I know whether what I'm talking about resonates and is valuable for you. I also want to thank Dr Lloyd Gregory, who was my first guest and whose episode has been our second most popular in the series so far. The next stage, which I'm working on over the summer, is to include more guests and I'll keep you posted on who will be coming on. I also want to thank Richard, my husband and business partner, who does all the hard work of editing and ensuring the podcast goes out on time. I just get to do the fun bit of talking, and without Richard, this podcast would never have seen the light of day. So thank you very much, everyone, and I can't wait to discover what we can do together in the next few months.

Speaker 1:

So for today's episode, I am continuing the theme of how leaders build trust. I've had a lot of feedback on the episode we did a couple of weeks ago on building trust, where we explored some of the fundamental ways that leaders go about this, from aligning words and actions to creating psychological safety. The response has been incredible, with many of you reaching out to share your own trust building journeys and asking for more practical insights. So today we're going deeper. We're exploring what I call the advanced curriculum of trust building, the more sophisticated behaviors that separate good leaders from truly transformational ones. These aren't just add-ons to what we discussed last time. They're the practices that create the kind of trust that endures through crisis, change and complexity, something which I know so many of you are experiencing right now. Let me start with something I've observed throughout my coaching career the leaders who build the deepest, most resilient trust are those who understand that trust isn't just about what they do. It's about who they become in their relationship with others.

Speaker 1:

So today, the first thing I want to explore is what I call courageous advocacy your willingness to stand up for your people even when it's difficult or costly for you. I coached a senior director who discovered that one of her high-performing team members was being unfairly criticized by the executive team for a project failure that wasn't actually his fault. The easy path would have been to stay silent. After all, correcting the executive team would probably create some uncomfortable dynamics for her. Instead, she chose courage. In the next executive meeting, she presented the facts clearly and took responsibility for the communication breakdown that had led to the misunderstanding. Not only did this clear her team members' reputation, but it sent a powerful message to her entire team I will protect you when you're right, even if it costs me something. That single act of advocacy created such deep trust. Her team knew she wouldn't sacrifice them for her own comfort or advancement.

Speaker 1:

Here's what courageous advocacy looks like in practice Defending team members' reputations when they're not in the room, fighting for the resources they need, advocating for their career advancement even if it means you might lose them, and taking the heat from above when your team faces criticism for doing what you ask them to do. There is another side to courageous advocacy, which I also want to explore, because this doesn't mean that you put the needs of your team above the needs of the organisation when it's appropriate to think about the bigger picture and sometimes courageous advocacy works the other way by standing up for the organisational decisions if your team are criticising these unfairly or without full understanding. This can also cost leaders, as they feel they could lose the trust of their team by doing this. However, if you do both and make the judgment on when either one is appropriate, your reputation as being a trustworthy leader will be enhanced at all levels.

Speaker 1:

The next element is what I call intelligent transparency the skill of sharing information in ways that inform and empower rather than overwhelm or alarm. Many leaders make one of two mistakes they either share nothing, leaving people in the dark, or they share everything, including half-formed thoughts and anxieties that aren't helpful for the team to carry. I worked for the director, who learned this lesson the hard way. During a particularly challenging period, he began sharing every concern, every worst-case scenario and every piece of uncertain information with his leadership team. His intention was transparency, so it was good intent, but the effect was paralysis. His team became so focused on potential problems that they stopped taking necessary risks and making progress. The breakthrough came when we worked together to develop what he called purposeful transparency Sharing information that serves the team's ability to perform and make good decisions, while holding appropriate boundaries around information that would distract or discourage without adding value. Intelligent transparency means asking yourself what does my team need to know to be effective, engaged and aligned, rather than what can I share to prove I'm being transparent? It's a key difference.

Speaker 1:

The third advanced practice is what I call graceful failure recovery, and it's how you handle your own failures and mistakes. Every leader indeed, of course, every person makes mistakes. The trust building opportunity isn't in being perfect. It's in how you respond when you inevitably fall short. The leaders who build the deepest trust are those who can fail gracefully and recover powerfully. I once coached an executive who made a significant strategic decision that proved costly to the organization. When the full impact became clear, she had a choice Deflect blame, minimize the consequences or own it completely. She chose ownership, but did it in a way that actually strengthened trust. She called the meeting clearly, explaining her reasoning at the time, acknowledged where her judgments had been flawed, outlined the lessons learned and presented a clear plan for moving forward. Most importantly, she demonstrated that her confidence hadn't been shattered by the mistake. She was still the leader they could count on. Her team's trust in her actually increased, and so did the organization's trust, because they saw that she could handle failure without becoming defensive, paralyzed or reckless. They knew that when future challenges arose, she would face them directly and learn from them. Graceful failure recovery involves rapid acknowledgement without excessive self-blame, clear analysis of what went wrong, visible learning, integration and maintained confidence in moving forward.

Speaker 1:

The fourth advanced element might sound contradictory Predictable unpredictability. That's hard to say. This is the ability to be consistent in your character and values, while remaining flexible and adaptive in your methods and decisions. People need to know what to expect from you as a person, your core principles and values, your fundamental approach to relationships, your basic integrity, but they also need to see that you can adapt, pivot and change course when circumstances require it. You know I have spoken a number of times about adaptive intelligence in these recordings and I can't stress enough how important this is to a leader in our current time. I worked with a leader whose team was initially confused by this balance. She was absolutely consistent in her commitment to transparency, respect and excellence, but she was willing to completely restructure processes, abandon previous plans and embrace new technologies and strategies when they proved beneficial. I spoke last week about when leaders need to change course, and this is another example of how doing this appropriately builds rather than erodes trust. Over time, her team came to trust both aspects. They knew who she was at her core and they also knew she wouldn't stubbornly stick to failing approaches just for the sake of consistency. This combination created a unique form of trust. They could rely on her character, while trusting her judgment to adapt when necessary.

Speaker 1:

The penultimate element builds on our early discussion of vulnerability, but it takes it to a more refined level strategic vulnerability. This is the advanced skill of sharing personal challenges, uncertainties or growth areas in ways that strengthen rather than undermine leadership effectiveness. Basic vulnerability might involve admitting you don't know something. Strategic vulnerability involves sharing your learning process, your support systems and your growth strategies in ways that model resilience and continuous development. For example, I coached a senior executive who was struggling with work-life integration during a particularly demanding period. Rather than pretending everything was fine or oversharing personal details, she strategically shared her challenge with her team, and what she said was I'm working on sustainable practices during this intense period and I want to model that it's important to maintain boundaries even when pressure is high. You'll see me being intentional about this and I encourage you to do the same. This strategic vulnerability accomplished several things it gave her team permission to prioritize their own well-being. It demonstrated she was self-aware and working on continuous improvement, and it showed that high performance didn't require self-destruction.

Speaker 1:

The final element I want to explore today is future-focused trust building Creating trust not just for current circumstances, but for the changes and challenges that lie ahead. Most trust building focuses on present relationships and current challenges, and that's absolutely right, but the most refined leaders also build trust for future scenarios their teams haven't yet encountered. They create confidence that whatever comes next, the team can handle it together. This involves several practices regularly discussing and preparing for potential future scenarios, building team capabilities that will be needed for tomorrow's challenges and creating shared frameworks for decision-making that will serve the team even when you're not present. I worked with a leadership team that was preparing for a major organizational transformation. Rather than just building trust for the current state, they invested time in building trust for the unknown future. They practiced decision-making frameworks, developed shared values that would guide them through uncertainty and created communication protocols for handling unexpected challenges. When the transformation began, they didn't have to rebuild trust under pressure. They had already established the foundation for trusting each other through whatever might come.

Speaker 1:

So let's consolidate today's advanced trust-building practices. Firstly, courageous advocacy, standing up for your people or your organisation, even when it costs you. Intelligent transparency. Sharing information that empowers rather than overwhelms. Graceful failure recovery. Handling mistakes in ways that strengthen rather than diminish trust. Predictable unpredictability. Being consistent in character while flexible in methods. Strategic vulnerability. Sharing personal challenges in a way that model resilience and future focused trust building, creating confidence for challenges not yet encountered. Combined with the previous episode's fundamentals, these advanced elements create a trust portfolio. Episodes fundamentals these advanced elements create a trust portfolio, a comprehensive approach to building the kind of deep, resilient trust that transforms teams and organizations.

Speaker 1:

Here's what I want you to remember. Advanced trust building isn't about perfection. Remember my mantra perfection gets in the way of being really great. So it's not about perfection, it's about refinement. It's about moving beyond basic reliability to creating the kind of trust that inspires people to follow you into uncertainty, to bring you their best thinking, even when it challenges your ideas, and to maintain confidence in your leadership even when results are delayed. This level of trust doesn't happen overnight. It's built through consistent practice of both fundamental and advanced behaviors, adjusted for your unique context and refined through continuous learning. In my years of coaching senior leaders, I've seen that the leaders who master these practices don't just have followers, they also develop other leaders. They don't just achieve results, they create cultures where excellence becomes sustainable. They don't just manage change, they build organizations that thrive through transformation.

Speaker 1:

Before we close, here's your reflection question for this week Looking at these advanced practices, which one represents the biggest opportunity for expanding your trust building capability and, more importantly, what's one specific situation in the coming week where you could begin practicing this skill? Remember, trust is built through action, not intention. The most and the deepest understanding of trust building means nothing without the courage to put it into practice. Thank you so much for joining me for this deeper exploration of trust building on Leadership Horizons. I'm Lois Burton and I believe that in our complex, rapidly changing world, the leaders who will truly make a difference are those who can build trust that endures through anything.

Speaker 1:

If today's episode resonated with you, please share it with other leaders who are committed to this level of growth, and don't forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Next week, we'll be exploring when and how leaders need to ask for help, something many leaders struggle with and which can undermine their success. Until then, remember leadership isn't just about where you are. It's about where you're going and how far you can see. The trust you build today creates the foundation for the transformation you'll lead tomorrow. Keep expanding your horizons. I'll see you next week.