Lead With Influence
Lead with Influence is about influencing positive change — in yourself, your relationships, and your leadership. Hosted by executive coach Matt Norman, each episode distills insights from decades of experience helping people communicate with impact, lead with humility, and build trust across differences. These short, thoughtful reflections will help you grow in self-awareness, develop emotional intelligence, and show up more powerfully in your work and life.
Lead With Influence
Preparing Communication for Edge Cases: The Ultimate Test of Trust
In this episode, we break down why the rare, high-pressure moments in our relationships—our “edge cases”—reveal more about us than all the easy conversations combined. Borrowing a concept from product development, we explore how couples, colleagues, and teams often skip the hard preparation because it feels uncomfortable or unnecessary. The result: small conflicts escalate fast.
We unpack the optimism bias that keeps us assuming everything will work itself out, the illusion that agreement equals real communication, and why we avoid testing emotional boundaries until they break. Most importantly, we argue that edge cases aren’t just points of failure. They’re moments of truth. They expose character with high fidelity, strengthen trust, and offer a roadmap for deeper connection—if we’re willing to prepare for them.