The Power of WE: Building Trust from the Inside Out!

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🔍In this heartfelt and deeply insightful episode, Elaine Williams welcomes Ron Reich back for part two of their conversation on leadership, mission statements, and the ripple effect of healthy (or toxic) workplace culture. Ron shares powerful real-world stories from his decades of leadership training—including one tearful turning point with a struggling plant manager—and how true leadership starts with empathy, self-awareness, and connection.

Elaine also shares a vulnerable moment of realization about how she sometimes becomes her own worst boss—and how entrepreneurs often recreate chaotic environments out of habit. Together, they dive into what it means to truly lead, whether you’re managing a team or managing yourself.

🎧 Don’t miss this conversation packed with honesty, warmth, and wisdom.

💡 Key Takeaways:

Why many leaders unintentionally isolate themselves—and how to shift to a collaborative mindset.

• The surprising leadership gap solopreneurs face with themselves.
• How emotional self-awareness is key to effective, empathetic leadership.
• The transformative power of vulnerability in teams and in personal growth.
• Why “preparation is a form of love”—and how it builds trust in speaking and training environments.

📌 Quotes for Social Media:

1. “Leadership is not ‘I’ll fix it myself.’ It’s: ‘Who else has ideas?’” – Ron Reich
2. “Solo entrepreneurs need mission statements too—because you’re leading yourself.” – Elaine Williams
3. “Culture is how it feels to work with you, whether you’re managing others or just managing yourself.”
4. “You don’t have to carry it all alone. That’s the lie that keeps leaders stuck.”
5. “A smile and a breath can shift the entire room—and your nervous system.”
6. “Healing happens when we stop recreating chaos and start choosing compassion.”
7. “Preparation is love in action—whether you’re leading a team or taking the mic.” – Ron Reich

Ron Reich – Leadership Expert | Executive Coach | Corporate Trainer

Ron Reich is a seasoned leadership consultant and executive coach with over 28 years of experience in training design, development, and facilitation. He specializes in cultivating high-performing leaders through impactful leadership and management development, executive coaching, supervision training, and dynamic team-building experiences.

With a deep understanding of organizational behavior and communication dynamics, Ron is known for creating safe, transformative learning environments where individuals and teams thrive. His engaging facilitation style and practical, real-world insights have made him a trusted partner for companies across a wide range of industries.

A lifelong learner and voracious reader, Ron stays at the forefront of leadership trends, research, and best practices through his daily habit of reading articles, newsletters, and books. He brings that curiosity and rigor to every training session and coaching conversation

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Episode Transcript

(00:05):
Hi, Elaine Williams here withCaptivate the Mic.
This is part two of my interviewwith Ron Reich on leadership
mission statements and workplaceculture.
It was so juicy we had to breakit into two sections, so enjoy,
and if you haven't heard thefirst part, make sure you go
back and listen.
Welcome everybody to Captivatethe Mic with Elaine Williams and

(00:27):
I have the biggest treat foreverybody.
This is the first male on thepodcast because he is such an
amazing spiritual earnest,good-hearted master trainer,
communicator, friend.
Ron Reik, I'm so happy thatyou're here.

(00:48):
Let's let's.
Let's talk about this for asecond.
'cause again you're reminding meof something that I haven't
thought about.
That's what I do in many yearsnow.
I did some work for amanufacturing facility out in
Western New Jersey.
Okay.
I got to know the plant managerfairly well.
Nice guy.

(01:08):
And I did talk to a lot of thepeople on his own team and down
on the manufacturing floor andso forth.
And it was so sad'cause nobodyliked him.
Very few people liked him.
They were just like, oh, him,the, the dictator, the ta, just
all of these different things.
Okay.
I'm in his office and I, andagain, building the relationship

(01:32):
with him, we're talking and hesaid, so how did your
conversations go with people?
And I was like very few peoplelike you here.
Oh, he just put it out there.
You just put it out there andYeah we, again, I don't need to
get into all the details here.
The point he was, I was like,aunts, you need to get out there

(01:56):
and spend time with them.
You need to get to know them andtalk to them.
He was emotional, Elaine, and Istill remember this.
He was like crying.
I want to, what's going on here?
We've got the merger coming upin about five months.
I've gotta reconfigure themanufacturing floor.

(02:16):
I have electrical problems, allthese things.
I'm sitting there and I waslike, aunt, you're talking first
person singular.
Instead of we, it's, I, right?
It's, I.
Who do you think might have someideas about how you could
reconfigure the floor?

(02:36):
Who do you think might have someideas about how you could solve
the electrical problems?
And you could see I was so happyyou could see the light bulb
coming on for him.
He was just like.
Yeah, I don't have to do it allmyself.
And that's the kind of cultureyou wanna build, where people
will even come, Hey boss, youknow what, I think we can change

(02:58):
the floor around this machineShould be whatever it might be.
Just whatever it might be.
I love it, Ron.
And that's, a lot of people wholisten are speakers, coaches,
solopreneurs, however.
I'm always like, how's yourworkplace culture, Elaine?
Oh, my boss can be a bitch.
Who's your boss?

(03:18):
Me.
Am I being kind?
Do I, am I being an empatheticlistener to myself?
No.
But yeah, that's, that's onereason I'm so big into
community.
I'm, I'm part of this groupcalled the Dames, and we have
think tanks and women will comeand bring, I'm really bumping up
against this, and the otherwomen will pour into her and.

(03:38):
Even if I don't have as muchexperience as some of these
ladies who are seven and eightfigures, I learned so much from
just witnessing the think tank.
And I, yeah.
I just love that.
What a great story.
And Elaine, I think about thisnot a whole lot enough though.
I really do in that,'cause youjust said you, the solo the solo

(04:00):
solopreneurs, yeah.
Entrepreneurs thing.
I get the term mixed up.
Thank you.
They need a mission statement.
Yeah.
What's the truly, what's theculture you wanna have with
yourself?
What are your defined values?
Are you living them and are youmaking your decisions based on
the mission statement you havedeveloped for yourself?

(04:24):
Because if not, you're gonna,it's gonna, in all likelihood, I
can't guarantee it.
I won't still, the decisions aregonna be so scattered and so
inconsistent where it's man, youneed that.
Yeah.
In fact I'm gonna share thiswith you.
I feel very vulnerable, but.

(04:44):
My whole mission with thepodcast is to entertain,
inspire, educate, motivate andmy whole philosophy is I'm a
work in progress.
I am a master with some of thethings that I do, and I'm also
always learning and evolving.
So I'm taking this program withone of my clients.
We ended up working together.
I helped her with her keynote,and she knocked outta the park

(05:06):
and got a$7,500 speaking gig.
Because of the work we did onher talk for Berkeley.
So I'm like, yes.
Anyway, so now I'm in herprogram and I'm doing some deep
emotional healing work onlearning more things, peeling
away more layers and I'm justlaughing'cause I had the biggest
aha today and I think you mightappreciate this, Ron.

(05:29):
I grew up.
Crazy family, lots of alcoholand drugs and insanity.
And I've spent a lifetimehealing and I share my story
when I feel like it'sappropriate.
And what I realized was I stillhave attendance.
So I grew up in the chaos.
The chaos of living with, oh.
There's the crazy person hereand she might be sweet, but the

(05:50):
next night she's crazy and thenshe throws things and the other
adults can't seem to confront.
There was just a lot of crazystuff that happens.
And then, I was attracted morecrazy in my twenties and then by
the grace of God I had spiritualawakenings and was able to get
into recovery.
And it's been quite the journey.
However, I am noticing a patternthat I'm like.

(06:14):
Wow.
Like the first step isawareness.
I noticed that why am I stillfeeling so frenetic, right?
Why do I still feel anxious?
And and I was like, Elaine, ifyou are the entrepreneur, you
are running your business.
You are the one who's you arereporting to, right?

(06:35):
Like the common denominator isyou and I just noticed that oh,
I have a tendency to take on toomany things and try to do, too
many different programs orcertificate, whatever, on top
of.
Leadership things on top ofcaretaking for not one parent,
but two on top of, and I justlisted all the things that are

(06:58):
on my plate as I'm writing this,and I was like, okay.
Like I, and I'm sure I hadlittle ahas into this
previously, but for some reasonit like really landed on me that
I can't blame.
My anxiety, my anxious state ona boss anymore, right?

(07:22):
It's so much easier when youhave agents or whatever.
And so I really got presenttoday, literally a few hours ago
of wow, that it's an unconsciousthing that I do, and I'm still
getting stuff done, and I'mstill, I love the work that I

(07:42):
do, blah, blah, blah.
But.
When you're trying to do toomany things at once, it can be a
sea of mediocrity or you feellike, oh, I'm doing eight
projects and two of them aremoving forward and the rest are
being dragged along or whatever.
So anyway, just I wanted to showthat'cause it was like a brand
new Whoa.
And my friends may be like, duh.
But do you have anything to addto that?

(08:05):
My.
Amazing master trainer one, oneof, one of the, one of the most
important things anybody can do,anybody again, solopreneur, CEO
I don't care.
Whether you're an individualcontributor, whatever you wanna
be effective.
Probably the most importantthing you can do, get to know

(08:26):
yourself extraordinarily well,and on an incredibly deep level.
Because the better you knowyourself and the more and more
layers you peel off, the moreyou will realize, okay, this is
who I am.
This is what I am, this is how Ihave behaved in the past.
It doesn't have to be this way.

(08:46):
Just real quickly, Elaine,because growing up my dad and I
were never really that close fora lot of different reasons and I
don't need to get into all ofit, right?
There was no abuse or anythinglike that.
That's not what I'm, where I'mgoing with this.
My point though, is like I wasalways just kinda I felt less
than and just God, I'm justthis.

(09:08):
That's around here, if you will.
We're at a family event.
Okay.
I'll never ever forget my cousinTom was talking to my dad and I
could overhear them.
I wasn't, listening like that.
I could just overhear them.
Tom asked my dad, my Freddy.
My dad's name was Fred Freddy.
Tell me about your dad.

(09:28):
Tell me about him.
My grandfather, obviously on mydad's side, who I never met,
Elaine.
My dad went ballistic.
He went ballistic on Tom, youwanna know about my bleeping
father And my dad was no choir,boy.
He didn't curse like thisthough.
You wanna know about him?
He was a loser, Tommy.

(09:48):
All we ever did was move.
He could never hold a job.
And he went on and I was sittingthere and I'm thinking to myself
and I'm in my thirties, okay?
I'm thinking to myself.
You know what, I have alwayssuspected that my grand, that
grandpa, who I never met was araging alcoholic, and I think

(10:11):
that's what was going on there.
He they always moved.
He couldn't hold a job, and Iget you.
That's how grandpa treated mydad, and it has come down to me.
And where I went with it, Iaccepted my dad for who he was,
what he was.
He and I got very close for thelast 20 years of his life.

(10:33):
Nice.
And it has allowed me though,equally as important with our
topic though, Elaine, I wasalways quiet.
Always because I was like, if Isay something, I'm probably just
gonna get yelled at.
Or just, no, that's not right.
You shouldn't think like that.
What's, how dare you, you learnto like a different opinion.
So I'm gonna navigate aroundthis.

(10:53):
Yeah.
I've gotten so much better atit.
I was on a client callyesterday.
I have a class coming up nextweek.
The client made a comment about,yeah, she said, I think what
I'll probably do is I'll call ameeting maybe a month after the
training and talk to everybodyabout, what they're using and so
forth.

(11:15):
And I was just like, Adrian, youknow what?
It's a good idea.
The only thing though that I'mgoing to ask you to change or
that I would highly recommendyou change sooner than a month,
two weeks.
Yeah, I was Me too.
I was like, no, don't wait in amonth.
And my point is, Elaine, the oldRon, oh, month is fine.

(11:35):
Say nothing.
Don't offer anything becausethey may all, they may not like
you or what if you know what shesaid?
Oh, okay.
That makes sense Ron.
Okay.
Okay.
Speak up.
Speak up Ron.
It's okay.
You do have something to offer.
Yeah, and I, I work with a lotof women and I think.

(11:57):
Sometimes we think that menaren't struggling with that.
So thank you for being sovulnerable.
It's like it's not just withwomen it's human.
It's team human.
Yeah, that's exactly right.
Yes.
And so sometimes when I have myguests come on, I will give them
a tweak or two about some oftheir stories and you're such a

(12:22):
master communicativefacilitator.
Someday I would like to playwith humor maybe a little bit
'cause I know you crack somejokes and I think, I always
think, maybe there's somethingelse we could play with that.
Okay.
And, but I always wanted peopleto who are listening to come
away with a couple of greatspeaking tips.

(12:44):
And so I'm going to share acouple of Ron's things and then
you can.
Add on to what I talk about.
So one of the things I loveabout Ron that has rubbed off on
me was he is like super duperprepared.
He writes his own cue cardthingies, the flip charts.

(13:04):
He goes over that when he'sleading a new program or class
or seminar, he is there an hourbefore it starts an hour.
Before it starts.
So there is no scrambling andthen there's no oh, where are
the lights?
He is there an hour because I'vebeen nervous and wanted to fix

(13:26):
my hair one more time'cause I'ma woman or because I'm nervous.
And then I'm rushing on to thecollege thing.
And then college campuses can beso confusing.
And there's nothing worse thanbeing late when you have
pressure already.
And so I know that.
Getting to a place early is canbe so grounding.

(13:46):
And I love that feeling of beingso prepared.
I'm like, let me add'em.
I can't wait.
Let's go.
It's so much a better feelingthan, oh God, why didn't I run
this?
So would you like to add ontothat for our listeners?
Elaine?
I think for me that is such,such a key.

(14:06):
Playing with humor.
Can you hear Ja?
Yes.
She's the Cutes dog.
She's love, I got the door shutand she's crying.
I love their dog.
I will come a New York.
The preparation piece for me isabsolutely critical and I think
one of, one of the mostimportant parts of that too,

(14:28):
though, Elaine is.
As I had said to you, what Ilove to do in that time
beforehand is just talk topeople and let them know this
event, whether it's a trainingsession, whether it's a meeting,
or whatever it might be, it'sgonna be fun.
It's, I'm human, I'm a nice guy.
I'm not here to, I am the, theexpert.

(14:51):
You shall listen and say, Hey.
Looking forward to hearing yourinsights and just, please,
whatever.
Just all of those differentthings, I think one of, one of
the big things too is for me atleast, smiling.
And now a quick message.
If you are a speaker, coach,author, or someone who wants to

(15:15):
climb the corporate ladder, andyou know you need to work on
your executive presence, yourability to speak powerfully and
succinctly with vocal varietyand vocal power and presence, I
would love to have a chat withyou and see if it's the right
fit.
Now we're back to the show.

(15:38):
Just smiling, again, a story.
This is on my mind, and I'llfill you in on the details
later.
When I got re-certified.
Probably about six, seven yearsnow, whatever, to, for the seven
habits.
Okay.
The woman at Franklin Covey, whowas gonna be doing the
certification, she was emailingthe, my colleague and I, there

(16:01):
were gonna be two of us in thissession, and it's I was a little
nervous because she was like allover this, where it's we're
starting at eight 30.
Please make sure you're here ontime.
Our time is so precioustogether.
Okay.
I was like, holy man, I, I'm alittle nervous.
I know I'm in my fifties Elaine,and I've got a boatload of

(16:23):
experience and I'm a littlenervous.
I walked into that training roomon the day of a little bit
early,'cause that's who I am.
She had her back to me.
She was sitting in her chair,writing something or just doing
whatever.
I don't remember her name.
I'm gonna call her Grace.
I'll never forget.
She turns around.

(16:43):
She did just what you weredoing.
She smiled.
Good morning.
Are you Ron, or are you Greg?
And I was like, hi Greg.
Hi, grace.
Good morning.
I'm Ron.
Ron.
It's a pleasure.
Instantly I was like, nice.
It's fine.
It's fine.
This is not a problem.
She's not a jerk.
She's just in.
She's just intense.
She wants the best for us.

(17:04):
And that's exactly what it was.
Yes.
A smile will go such a long way.
I and here's what's, the crazything is like when we are
preoccupied, when we aredistracted, when we are nervous
or our attention is onourselves, that's when we forget
to smile and we forget tobreathe.

(17:26):
And sometimes just a smile andhello is whoa.
It's, it can shift something soquickly.
Exactly.
I love it.
Okay, Ron, I, we can talkforever, but I feel like this is
a great place to wrap it up.
If people wanna know more aboutyou, where should we send them?

(17:47):
Oh probably the best place.
Elaine.
LinkedIn.
LinkedIn.
Just go to LinkedIn.
Ron Reich, R-E-I-C-H RLBTraining and Development.
You can learn more about me,message me.
I'll be glad to talk to anybody.
Yes, just anybody about anythinghe.
He's just an open book and wantsto give back and does you do

(18:10):
amazing trainings.
And he has a newsletter and anemail list.
So if you wanna come be more,'cause someday Ron and I are
gonna do a, some kind of reallyfun workshop together and I
can't wait.
We're still percolating on allof that.
Thank you so much everybody, forlistening and watching, and I
ask you, if you're getting goodvalue out of this content,

(18:32):
please share it with twofriends.
Please pass it on and pleasesubscribe, rate, and review
because that tells thealgorithms to push the podcasts
out more.
And I know there are a lot ofpodcasts.
And there are actually a lot ofpodcasts who only make it to
five or 10 episodes, and thenpeople realize, hey, this is a
lot of work.
But my mission is to help healthe world.

(18:54):
One joke, one story, one video,one episode at a time.
And so thank you for being apart of my mission, and thank
you, Ron.
It was a pleasure as always.
Thank you, Elaine.
It's always good to see you.
Bye everybody.