Hey, it's Rachel Cook, your modern mentor.

I'm the founder of Lead Above Noise, where we help leaders activate stronger results and performance from their teams by changing how the work gets done.

So things like development, wellness, and engagement.

They happen inside the work, not bolted on to the outside.

So now today's episode, I got a call last week from my client, Sarah.

She's one of my favorites, high energy, super creative.

I'm always excited to pick up the call.

She was kind of bummed though, she told me.

I was at this AI conference a few weeks ago and I came back with a ton of really cool ideas.

I couldn't wait to share with my team.

But when I got back to the office and pulled them together as I shared what I'd learned and what I'd love us to work on, I got a bunch of dead eyes staring at back at me.

To be honest, I was a little surprised because I know firsthand how infectious Sarah's energy and enthusiasm can be.

But okay, I was listening and she continued.

I'm trying to understand where the disconnect is.

Like I thought they'd all be on board, but I feel like they're moving like slugs on this and I need us to change course, but I don't know where to start.

So she asked me to run a team check in with them.

It's something I do on the regular, just a quick hit conversation to unlock what's really going on when a leader's feeling stuck.

And here's what I learned.

They said things like, well, here we go again, or we're drowning in the flood of her new ideas.

Or, yes, we're excited about AI too, but we know that as soon as we start down this path, she'll be onto something else.

So it's just easier to stand still.

While they weren't necessarily using the word explicitly, what they were telling me is they don't trust her, not because they think she's malicious or has bad intentions, but her behavior unbeknownst to her is eroding their trust and she needed to acknowledge this and build it back up, but now we had the insight and so suddenly she knew what she needed to do to win them back.

This is something I'm seeing more and more commonly in the workplace as the pace of work and change are ramped up.

As uncertainty stays high, as more people are working remotely or hybrid, our baseline for trust is just lower.

And while so often we mean well, we are doing inadvertent things to further erode trust when we need to be building it.

My other client, Megan says, there's trusting someone not to take your wallet and then there's trusting someone to lead you toward your livelihood.

So let's talk today about some of the patterns that I'm seeing play out that are eroding our trust by accident and how we can begin to repair and rebuild.

The first one is avoiding difficult conversations.

We've all done it.

We've seen a problem we didn't want to address.

A teammate is consistently under-delivering a project is clearly veering off course, and our instinct is to stay quiet.

You know, keep it smooth.

It's easier when everyone gets along right, but avoiding the hard thing doesn't make it go away.

It just shifts the burden.

When we sidestep a difficult conversation, the rest of the team pays the price they have to carry the extra work, absorb the fallout, or quietly manage around the issue, and over time, they start to wonder why the person in charge hasn't stepped in, why no one's speaking up.

They start to wonder, does the person in charge even see what's happening here?

This is a trust cracking situation.

The fix is to be direct, to believe truly that candor is kindness, to deliver it with respect, but to be clear on what needs to change or be fixed or put back on course offer support, but don't look away.

Next up is prioritizing poorly.

This is a big one.

When everything is a top priority, nothing is, and too many teams are running around like headless chickens because leaders aren't showing the discipline to make choices and say, no.

This leaves teams exhausted competing for resources and fighting where they should be collaborating.

It's hard to trust a leader who can't seem to focus.

When people don't know what's most important, they start pulling in different directions, silos, form, frustration builds, and worst of all, people stop trusting that they're rowing the boat together.

Now's the time to set and socialize clear priorities, make it known what gets attention now and what can wait.

Help your team understand not just the what but the why prioritization is a real trust builder.

Next, we've got communicating vaguely or not at all.

One of my favorite quotes is attributed to George Bernard Shaw and he said, the single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.

I mean, yikes, but also, yes, we've all had moments where we think we've been clear, we've announced a new plan or shifted a priority, and in our minds we nailed it.

But what you said doesn't matter only what was heard.

When communication is vague, sporadic, or full of jargon, people start guessing and when they guess wrong and then get corrected or criticized, they feel like you broke their trust.

We need to be over communicating and to be testing clarity, asking our teams, are you clear on what success looks like on your role and our timeline?

This isn't micromanaging.

It's managing to clarity and finally hiding behind good intentions.

This is the one where we use virtuous words to hide bad behavior.

We call it debate.

When we're allowing disrespect to thrive, we call it delegating.

When we're really just dumping the grunt work, we don't always see it when we're doing it, but misusing these labels is really trusting the trust that we build.

People see through it and they start to steer clear.

They stop believing what leaders say because words and actions are mismatched here.

We need to pay attention to how our values show up in practice and ask our teams, Hey, are there spots where the language I'm using and the action you're seeing aren't matching up?

Trust isn't built in grand gestures.

It's in the everyday moments.

When we understand that a break in trust doesn't always imply malice, it helps open our eyes to the moments where we've been cracking it by accident.

I hope something in this episode inspired a new way of thinking or doing, and if it did, please shoot me a note at rachel@leadabovenoise.com and tell me what you took away.

Join me next week for another great episode.

Until then, visit my website@leadabovenoise.com.

If your organization is looking to dial up its wellness without breaking the rhythm of the work, head over to lead Above noise.com/connect and fill out that form so we can chat.

You can follow Modern Mentor on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Find and follow me on LinkedIn.

Thanks so much for listening and have a successful week.

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