How Honest Leaders Build Trust That Lasts

How Honest Leaders Build Trust That Lasts

The most dangerous leadership moments rarely announce themselves. They show up in quiet rooms, with incomplete facts, time pressure, and someone offering an easy shortcut. In this episode, we explore telling the truth as a daily leadership discipline and why trust erodes quickly when words, actions, and values fall out of alignment.

Drawing from What You’re Made For by George Raveling and Ryan Holiday, we focus on the chapter “To Tell the Truth.” Buzz shares a leadership story from 9/11 during the Looking Glass mission, where a simple inventory error created a defining moment: document the truth or cover it up.

You’ll walk away with a simple framework: think about it ahead of time, talk about it often, and act on it when it counts.

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Key Topics

• Truth telling in leadership
• Building trust through honesty
• George Raveling insights
• 9/11 Looking Glass leadership story
• Over-talking vs. withholding

Coaching Questions

• Where am I holding back the truth?
• How do I respond to hard truth?
• What does alignment look like for me?

Transcript

Welcome And Leadership Focus

TJ 0:00

Welcome to the Leadership Buzz with Lloyd BuzzBuzzle. Buzz is an international coaching federation, ACC credentialed coach, disc practitioner, and retired Air Force officer with 37 years of leadership experience. This podcast is for leaders who want to align behavior with values and grow in self-awareness. Each episode features one book, one idea, one story, and three coaching questions to reflect on your leadership. Work hard. Tell the truth. Here's Buzz. Let's roll.

Buzz 0:39

Welcome to the Leadership Buzz. I'm Buzz Buzzell. Today we're talking about telling the truth. George Ravling, a basketball coach, writes that great leaders surround themselves with people who will tell them the truth. The reality is, people don't always do that. Often it's fear. Fear of consequences, fear of conflict, or fear of disappointing someone. Truth telling isn't always easy. It requires character, but you can rarely go wrong when your words, your actions, and your values are aligned. There's a story from George Raveling's life that captures this idea of character and legacy. In nineteen sixty three, George Ravling was a young college basketball coach working security at the march on Washington, DC, where doctor Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous I Have a Dream speech. As he walked off stage with his typewritten notes, he handed them directly to George, who was standing at the corner of the stage. Over the years, people have offered George Ravling large sums of money for that document, but he had never sold it. He said it represented something bigger than money. He said it represented history, truth, and a moment to change the country. Sometimes as much as a million dollars that he was offered. That story tells you something about his character, and that some same idea runs through his book. TJ, give us a quick overview of the book, what you're made of, and what it's about.

TJ 2:01

George Raveling and Ryan Holliday wrote What You're Made for, a book about purpose, discipline, character, and becoming the kind of leader you were made to be. In this episode, we're focusing on one chapter from the book, To Tell the Truth, and its reminder that honesty is essential to trust, healthy leadership, and strong culture. And with that, over to you, Buzz.

9/11 On The Looking Glass

Truth Under Pressure As A Leader

Buzz 2:26

On the morning of Tuesday, September 11th, 2001, I was assigned to the Looking Glass Mission at Offitt Air Force Base. We were in a large-scale nuclear exercise, and I was scheduled to fly that afternoon with my team. The Looking Glass mission was designed to ensure that the United States can maintain command and control of the nuclear forces at any circumstance. It provides for an airborne command post so that even if ground based systems were disrupted, leaders could still communicate and make those decisions. As the name of the mission says, it's the looking glass, or more affectionately known as the GLASS. The aircraft used for this is a Boeing E six Mercury, serving as a flying communication platform, connecting national leadership with submarines, bombers, and missile forces. For many years the looking glass aircraft was a airborne 24 7, ensuring continuous coverage. At its core, the mission was about maintaining clarity, communication, and control in the most critical and uncertain moments. On that day on 9 11, there was a lot of confusion that was happening that morning. In a situation where we had to go out and inventory the classified documents on board the airborne command post, the glass. Four of us went out because it was a two-person control zone that we had to go into. As we went in the aircraft, it was dark, there was no power, it was just the four of us. We were using the emergency lights and our flashlights, and we had to inventory all the classified there. When we broke open the case to start doing the inventory, we looked at the classified inventory sheet, and immediately everyone noticed that the previous day and the previous inventory had been incorrectly recorded. It was very obvious. It was very still on that morning in the aircraft. When there's no power on the aircraft, it's very quiet and very dark inside. Well, one person of the crew said, Well, should we just put their names from yesterday on the sheet and sign it off for them with their names? And my heart kind of skipped a beat for a second and I was going to speak up, but the officer next to me said, No, just go ahead and make a memo on the sheet, just follow the directions. Follow our procedures. Well, that it wasn't the thing that I remembered for the rest of my career. It was the next thing he said. He said, You can never go wrong by telling the truth. And what really bothered me was that I wasn't the one to speak up quickly with that remark. As we got off the aircraft and the day continued, I I went back and circled back to that situation and that and that time where I wasn't prepared. And I just thought, wow, I have not prepared myself for that situation, even though I'd been in the Air Force for a long time. I've told that story to almost every single one of my subordinates and every single one of my peers that I could to be able to make sure that they had heard that story so that they could reflect on it also. Because for trust and for telling the truth, you really do need to prepare yourself and think ahead of time. Telling the truth in leadership sounds simple, but in practice it's often difficult. Leaders face moments where the truth is uncomfortable, incomplete, or carries consequences. In what you're made for, George Ravling emphasized that integrity is not tested in easy moments. It's revealed when it would be easier to stay silent, soften the message, or avoid the conversation altogether. Just like that day on nine eleven on board the E six B The Glass. Truth telling requires awareness, discipline, and the willingness to put character ahead of comfort.

TJ 6:14

Buzz, what challenges have you seen in truth telling?

Buzz 6:18

One of the challenges leaders face is that truth is rarely delivered in perfect conditions. There is often uncertainty, incomplete information, and pressure to respond quickly. In those moments, leaders can fall into two traps, saying too much and speculating, or saving too little and withholding. Effective leaders navigate this tension by being clear about what they know, honest about what they don't know, and consistent in how they communicate. Truth is built not by having all the answers, but by being honest in how you handle them.

TJ 6:52

Coach Buzz, what else from George Raveling's book stands out?

Buzz 6:56

He notes in the book from Kim Scott in her book Radical Candor, which we may use in a future episode. Kim Scott says when you are overly worried about how people will perceive you, you're less willing to say what needs to be said. That reluctance to be forthright can have serious consequences. And that's true as a leader throughout your day and throughout your mission. There may be a concern about how others will react, how that message will be received, or what impact it may have on relationships or outcome. However, avoiding the truth creates longer term consequences like erosion of trust, confusion, and misalignment with teams. Leaders who consistently tell the truth create clarity, stability, and culture where people know what to expect. I always thought back to that day it would have been really bad to make that mistake and actually lie on those forms and sign somebody else's name and check off those boxes. But what would be worse when somebody found out and I had taken that action with that team when I shouldn't have, and I wouldn't have been able to explain that to somebody like my mom.

TJ 8:06

Buzz, can you think of an early experience in your life that shaped your view on telling the truth?

Building A Culture Of Honesty

Buzz 8:12

When I was a young boy, about ten years old, my brother had some friends over to the house. During that visit over the weekend when the other boys were there, I found five dollar bill in the hutch aboard a saucer that was at the top of the hutch. It was obviously left there by my mom for some reason. I took that five dollars and didn't mention it to anybody. My mom immediately found that later in the evening or the next day, and she was pretty upset. Before she could start calling other families and other moms and trying to find out who had taken it, I finally went to her and said, Hey, I'm the one that took the money. Well, she sat me down that day and explained that, hey, I never asked you or questioned you because I trusted you. You've now lost that trust with me. That hurt more than anything. Now I suffered some consequences from her because of that and took some discipline, but she said to me, Hey, if you took that, you must have needed that five dollar bill, so you can have it. Well, I don't know where that five dollar bill is today, but I know I never spent that five dollar bill and wish I had it right now. But it was an important, important lesson in telling the truth. I wish I had spoken up sooner, and I reflect back on that in my mom's words all the time. Ultimately, telling the truth is about alignment between values, words, and actions. Leaders who commit to truth telling demonstrate respect for the people they lead and reinforce a culture of accountability and trust. As George Ravling highlights, leadership is not just about influence or performance, it's about character. In the moments that matter most, leaders are remembered not for what they know, but for how honestly they communicated and how consistently they lived out their values. Truth telling and honesty starts at home with small things. That fosters the ethical climate in your organization when you bring that into work. If you think of your job and organization as a river, and the way that river is flowing, you want that river flowing in the direction of truth telling and being honest. And when somebody gets out and stands in that river, they feel that force against them and to be able to go with the flow. So when somebody just mentions something like, hey, let's just sign their names, somebody is more likely and more liable to be able to speak up and say, No, you can never go wrong by telling the truth. I'll offer what Dr. Jeffrey Zink, who taught at the Air Force Academy and flew aboard a B-52 while he was in the Air Force, he talks about being thinking about it, being deliberate, thinking through honesty and truth telling. Two, talking about it. You always say it goes unsaid. It doesn't. We need to remind ourselves every day. Then three, acting on it. So when you face your 9-11 moment and something comes up where you have to decide on how to act, then you will act the correct way and go with the flow of that river, because that's what you've built in your org your organization. I'd like to share a bit more from the George Raveling book, What You're Made For, and the Tell the Truth chapter. And it reads, So let honesty be your North Star in every interaction, every disver and every moment, let us ask ourselves, Am I being true? Am I aligning my words and my actions with my deepest values and beliefs? Am I using my voice and my influence to champion honesty, authenticity, and integrity? Because that's really what it comes down to is are you aligned with your values? And are your values aligned with your organizations and units' values themselves? Because when those aren't aligned, because that's when you're gonna have issues. That's when friction is gonna happen and it's gonna bother you and it's gonna bother people inside the organization, and you won't provide that authenticity within yourself, and you're gonna find yourself uncomfortable leading day-to-day. So I just ask you to take a look at that and take a look at your values and see if you're aligned with your organization's values.

TJ 12:20

What do you feel makes truth telling difficult for people? Is it the situation?

Coaching Questions And Next Steps

Buzz 12:25

What makes truth telling difficult in leadership is not just the situation, it's the internal tension leaders feel in the moment and in their organization. The pressure to protect, to avoid that conflict, or to wait until things are clearer can cause leaders to hesitate. But leaders require a willingness to step into that tension and communicate with clarity and consistency. People are not looking for perfection, they are just looking for honesty. When leaders acknowledge uncertainty while still being direct and grounded, it creates stability and reinforces trust in the way that silence or avoidance never can. Those situations are are gonna arise just like on nine eleven for me. And so to be prepared for those ahead of time is to me the key thing that I wanted to be prepared for for the rest of my career. So I made a point about talking about telling the truth and integrity on a daily basis and to bring those back to our core values as in the Air Force with integrity, service before self, and excellence in all we do. So every time we had to do discipline or every time we had to decide about what we could do with a person, we had to trace it back to those values. Because if you're tracing things back to values and keeping things honest, truth telling becomes eas much easier than being able to not fear all those things that we talked about today. I'm sure you as a worker want to hear back from your boss on how things are going and how you're doing. So absolutely everybody on your team probably really wants to know what you're thinking in an honest way. And that does take courage and some work. So sometimes those things are less dramatic than others, and sometimes those things are very dramatic, like on nine eleven for me. Telling the truth isn't always comfortable, and it's rarely convenient. But leadership isn't about convenience, it's about responsibility. And over time, people won't remember every decision you made, but they will remember whether they could trust you. We were made to tell the truth. One, describe a specific situation in your leadership where telling the truth felt difficult. What was at stake in that moment and what made the situation challenging? What was a barrier for you? Two, just think about a time when you held back or filtered what you communicated with your team. What did that look like in your behavior, or what were you concerned might happen, and how did that feel for you in the moment? And then finally, when you think about honesty and truth-telling in leadership, how does that show up for you on a daily basis or in a crisis? What choices do you make under pressure, and what impact do those choices have on the people around you that you lead? Hey, if these questions resonate or you'd like to talk more, I'm available to go further with you on them. Please reach out to me. This is the kind of work I do with leaders and teams.

TJ 15:33

This week we explored what you're made for by George Ravling and Ryan Holliday, focusing on the chapter about telling the truth. The message is simple but powerful. Leadership requires the courage to be honest.

Buzz 15:47

Thanks for listening to the Leadership Buzz. If you found this episode helpful, please subscribe so you don't miss future conversations. And if you have a moment, leave a rating or review that helps other leaders discover the show. If these kinds of leadership questions resonate with you and you'd like to explore them more deeply, feel free to reach out to me. Coaching conversations often start exactly this way. Until next time, work hard, tell the truth.