Ever wondered how to piece back together the fragile puzzle of trust once it's fallen apart? That's what we conquer on today's Management Material, as I share the transformative journey of a leadership development client navigating the treacherous waters of office politics and slander.
You'll be privy to our intense discussions on accountability and the power of transparent communication, all vital in stitching the seams of broken professional relationships.
It's like reconstructing a bridge while crossing it, and you'll gain invaluable insights on how to hold the hammer.
Fears of vulnerability often handcuff leaders, but we're snapping those chains. Listen as I recount the story of a client who embraced their boss's challenge to improve communication, only to unearth leadership potential they never knew they had.
You'll get a front-row seat to an honest look at the role ego plays in our professional engagements, setting the stage for a revealing tale about a confrontation with my own boss that's coming up in a future episode.
It's not just about talking the talk; it's about walking the walk with your head held high and your communication lines wide open.
Book a complimentary management coaching conversation at https://calendly.com/catherine-vanderlaan/free-60-minute-leadership-consultation
Email me at catherine@managementmaterialcoaching.com to ask a question or get in touch.
Join our Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/managementmaterialcoaching
Find out more about Management and Leadership Coaching at https://managementmaterialcoaching.com/
Episode Transcript
if you need to re-establish trust whether you
broke it or somebody else brokeit for you the way to
re-establish the trust is bysubmitting to accountability, to
open up free-flowing andconsistent communication and
then follow through consistently.
Okay, it is to stay humble.
It is to stay humble.
It is to submit to anotherperson and to say I am willing
(00:29):
to walk through this with youand to give you control.
Now, that is a difficult thingto do.
Welcome to Management Material.
My name is Katherine Vanderlaan.
I started my career at thebottom as an assistant and
(00:49):
worked my way up to become theboss's boss in eight years.
And, man, I love management.
Welcome back to ManagementMaterial.
Welcome back to ManagementMaterial.
Today we are talking about howto reestablish trust, whether
(01:10):
you broke it or someone elsebroke it for you.
So this is a topic that I wasdiscussing with a client of mine
.
We were talking about hisoffice politics.
He is trying to figure out whypeople or he was trying to
figure out why people didn'ttrust him in the office.
Now he is an individualcontributor, would love to be a
(01:31):
manager someday.
Actually, he's kind of goingback and forth on that one,
whether he wants to be a manageror not.
It's a lot of work, but he wastrying to figure out why people
were treating him very poorly,why people were asking for more
documentation, why people weretreating him very poorly, why
people were asking for moredocumentation, why people were
treating him as if he wasn'tdoing the work that he said he
(01:51):
was doing, as if he wasn'tsomebody to trust.
I mean, you can tell whenpeople don't trust you.
You absolutely can tell.
Right, as we're going throughthis, we decided that it didn't
fully matter what happenedwhether he broke the trust or
somebody else did it for him andI'll just give you a little
(02:11):
spoiler here Somebody else brokethe trust for him.
He didn't actually do anythingwrong.
Somebody was slandering him inthe office.
That happens.
It's happened to me.
It's happened to a lot ofdifferent people.
Some people can get prettymanipulative and will slander
other people in order to bringthem down to make themselves
look better.
If you're doing that, stop it.
It's really not good.
(02:32):
Maybe go change companies andreestablish your reputation.
If that's something that youhave been doing, that is not
being a leader.
Bringing other people down sothat you can look better is not
something that is going to giveyou a leadership position for
very long anyway.
It's not going to make yourcompany into a company or your
(02:54):
team into a team that peoplewant to be on Anyway.
So this guy was dealing withthis, dealing with this lack of
trust on his team.
People were treating him as ifhe wasn't trustworthy anymore
and we needed to establish a wayfor him to reestablish trust in
his team.
So we talked about what hecould do and decided that he
(03:20):
should go to all of the peoplethat clearly did not trust him,
submit to accountability forthem, even though he didn't
think he needed it, so he had toeat a little hum pie, submit to
that accountability, open upthis free, flowing and
consistent communication andthen follow through.
(03:41):
So it's kind of the same thingthat I do with my kids.
Actually, I'm not going to giveyou names or anything, but I
have kids and one of them is inthe middle of elementary school.
She does stuff, sometimes inthe home, like any child that
would cause me to not trust herRight.
So almost every child willsteal things from their parents.
(04:03):
Almost every child is going tolie about not doing something
wrong so that they can try toget away with it.
But they have developing brainsand we as adults tend to be a
little bit smarter.
We can catch them in theirlives.
Whether we call them out on itall the time or not is a
different question, but I had towalk her through this.
Here's how you establish trust.
(04:25):
You submit to accountability,you open up that free flowing
and consistent communication andover time, as I see you follow
through, that trust will bereestablished.
That is generally how toreestablish trust.
That's the point of today'spodcast episode.
Let me tell you how it worked.
(04:46):
So this gentleman that I'mcoaching in leadership
development and his career, hedid this with his team.
He went to his boss and he saidhey, I'm hearing this.
This is how I feel like I'mbeing treated.
Can you please let me know whatis going on?
What is causing this?
Treated?
Can you please let me know whatis going on?
(05:08):
What is causing this?
So he asked a question in avery humble way, in order to
understand what was going on.
Now, if you've been listeningto this podcast at all, you hear
me say very often ask tounderstand, ask questions to
understand, not to make a point,right.
So he asked a question tounderstand what was going on and
his boss said that she had beenhearing some rumors going
(05:29):
through the team about X, y andZ, that he wasn't treating
people well, that he wasn'tdoing his job.
He was demanding higher qualitywork from other people than he
was delivering himself.
So he said okay, well, what canwe do about that?
I don't agree with the feedback.
I don't know, and I don'treally want to know, where it's
(05:50):
coming from, but I don't agreewith it.
But I'm willing to work on it.
If you think that that'ssomething that I need to work on
, I'm willing to work on it.
He submitted to that and saidI'd like to show you that this
is not happening, not that itnever happened, just that it
isn't happening.
So he opened up free flowingcommunication, said I'm happy to
(06:13):
do check-ins more often.
I'm happy to get feedbackreports from different team
members.
I'm happy to open channels ofcommunication.
How would you like to do this?
So put the ball back in hisboss's court Now.
His boss then came up and saidokay, great, I would like to
(06:34):
talk every other day, everyother business day.
So Monday, wednesday, friday,I'm going to touch base with
different team members who allreport to me and ask them.
Now, I don't know about you,but if that was told to me and
it was told to my client, I'd bekind of nervous.
(06:55):
I mean, what if there's a blindspot?
What if there's something I'mnot seeing?
What if there's something Ireally, really need to improve?
What if there's something he'sreally not doing?
Any person's initial response isto get pretty defensive in this
conversation.
These conversations areemotional, they're personal and
you feel it right in the pit ofyour stomach, right?
(07:15):
You don't fully, fully want towork on this.
You don't believe it.
You don't think that there'sanything wrong.
But in order to reestablishtrust, to establish yourself as
a leader, to really make adifference on the team, you need
to submit to thataccountability and submit to
(07:36):
that authority.
He worked through thoseemotions.
I promise you Talked about it.
He was a little peeved.
I'll just say about this thatshe really was trusting the
rumor mill instead of him andthat it makes sense.
It makes sense from both sides.
He followed through.
He talked to her Monday,wednesday, friday, had that
(08:05):
consistent communication open.
They worked on Slack a lot oftimes.
He did everything that sheasked and she saw consistency in
his follow through.
She saw that his work qualitywas high.
She saw that real time peoplewere not complaining and, in
fact, were very satisfied withhis work, and that he didn't
take it personally when he verywell could have.
(08:26):
All of that showed leadership.
It showed humility.
It showed that he was faithful,that he was available, that he
was teachable and he becamesomebody that she trusted more
than anyone else on the team.
So here's my point, because thatwas a long story and I hope you
saw yourself in that.
(08:47):
If you're listening to this, Ihope you see how this could work
.
Here's the point.
If you need to reestablishtrust whether you broke it or
somebody else broke it for youthe way to reestablish the trust
is by submitting toaccountability, to open up
free-flowing and consistentcommunication and then follow
(09:08):
through consistently.
Okay.
It is to stay humble.
It is to submit to anotherperson and to say I am willing
to walk through this with youand to give you control.
Now, that is a difficult thingto do.
(09:29):
That is a hit on most people'sego, but ego is not what makes a
leader.
Ego is what makes somebody aperson people don't want to
follow.
Ego is what makes you hard towork with when you can set your
ego aside and talk to the peoplearound you with humility, ego
(09:54):
aside, and talk to the peoplearound you with humility, with
care, with love.
That means that your ego is onthe back burner and probably
simmering.
Now you can talk to me.
If we're in a coachingrelationship.
You can talk to me and takethat ego and take it from the
back burner simmer to the frontburner boil.
We will talk through it, man,but you can't do that in the
workplace.
If you do that in the workplace, it will not go well.
(10:18):
Oh no, I was about to tell youa story, but I think I'll save
that for another time.
The time that I really yelledat my boss and he laughed in my
face, we'll talk about thatanother time.
But very, very often when I amcoaching somebody, doing some
leadership coaching, maybe doingsome management coaching people
will say, hey, if I do that,I'm not going to be seen as an
(10:42):
authority figure, I am not goingto be seen as a leader, I'm not
going to be seen as somebodythat people can trust and be
partnered with right in a team.
First, what I want to say iswhat makes you think that's true
?
What makes you think that'strue?
Because if you had a colleaguethat came to you and said hey, I
(11:02):
hear that this rumor is onaround about me, or I hear that
people are saying X, y and Zabout me.
I don't think that that's trueand I'm happy to show you that
it isn't.
They are direct they.
In the last podcast episode, wetalked about radical candor, how
to give feedback, and so thereit's about being direct and
(11:23):
showing that you care.
Right, if one of yourcolleagues came up to you and
said hey, something's going on,I'm hearing that people are
saying these things about me, Idon't think that they're true.
I'd love to just talk about itwith you.
And then they submitted toaccountability from you.
(11:43):
They submitted to free-flowingand consistent communication
with you and they followedthrough.
What makes you think that theybecome less of an authority
figure?
In fact, when I see somebodylike that, I think, wow, that
person cares, they're consistent, they're professional, they
deal with things directly andthey follow through.
(12:03):
I love that.
I love that that is a leader.
Man, I don't care if you're anassistant, if you're a CEO.
That is a leader, and I willfollow that person throughout
their career.
This podcast episode is reallyabout.
(12:23):
It's about how to establishthat trust.
It's about how to be somebodywho people can trust when that
trust has been broken.
And if you are looking for that, then you have to put your ego
to the side, even if it's nottrue, your ego is not helping
you, it's hurting you.
(12:44):
Put your ego to the side, opendiscussion about it, submit to
accountability, open up yourfree flowing and consistent
communication and follow through.
If you want to make sure thatthis is applicable, this is
applied to your situation andyou're having trouble with that,
please click the link below.
I give a lot of leadershipcoaching, a lot of career
(13:05):
coaching as well.
If you're in a career thatmaybe doesn't suit you, we'll
find something else.
I can help you become thatleader that shines, that leader
that people want to follow.
I can help you becomemanagement material.
Go ahead and click that link.
Schedule a free consultation.
Let's see if this is a good fitfor you and I'll see you in the
(13:29):
next episode.
Thank you, thank you.
(14:48):
If you need to reestablish trust, whether you broke it or
somebody else broke it for you,the way to reestablish the trust
is by submitting toaccountability, to open up
free-flowing and consistentcommunication and then follow
through consistently.
Okay, it is to stay humble.
It is to submit to anotherperson and to say I am willing
(15:13):
to walk through this with youand to give you control.
Now, that is a difficult thingto do, thank you.
(16:51):
Here's how you establish trust.
You submit to accountability,you open up that free-flowing
and consistent communication andover time, as I see you follow
through, that trust will bere-established.
That is generally how tore-establish trust.
That's the point of today'spodcast episode.
(17:12):
Let me tell you how it worked.
So this gentleman that I'mcoaching in leadership
development and his career hedid this with his team.
He went to his boss and he saidhey, I'm hearing this.
This is how I feel like I'mbeing treated.
Can you please let me know whatis going on?
What is causing this?
So he asked a question in avery humble way in order to
(17:35):
understand what was going on.
Now, if you've been listeningto this podcast at all, you hear
me say very often ask tounderstand, ask questions to
understand, not to make a point,right.
So he asked a question tounderstand what was going on and
his boss said that she had beenhearing some rumors going
(17:56):
through the team about X, y andZ, that he wasn't treating
people well that he wasn't inhis job.
He was demanding higher qualitywork from other people than he
was delivering himself.
So he said okay, well, what canwe do about that?
I don't agree with thatfeedback.
I don't know, and I don'treally want to know, where it's
(18:17):
coming from, but I don't agreewith it.
But I'm willing to work on it.
If you think that that'ssomething that I need to work on
, I'm willing to work on it.
He submitted to that and saidI'd like to show you that this
is not happening Not that itnever happened, just that it
isn't happening.
So he opened up free flowingcommunication, said I'm happy to
(18:40):
do chickens every more often.
I'm happy to get feedbackreports from different team
members.
I'm happy to open channels ofcommunication.
How would you like to do this?
So put the ball back in hisboss's court Now.
His boss then came up and saidokay, great, I would like to
(19:01):
talk every other day, everyother business day.
So Monday, wednesday, friday,I'm going to touch base with
different team members who allreport to me and ask them for
feedback on your performance.
Now, I don't know about you, butif that was told to me and it
was told to my client, I'd bekind of nervous.
(19:22):
I mean, what if there's a blindspot?
What if there's something I'mnot seeing?
What if there's something Ireally, really need to improve?
What if there's something he'sreally not doing?
Any person's initial response isto get pretty defensive in this
conversation.
These conversations areemotional, they're personal and
you feel it right in the pit ofyour stomach, right?
(19:42):
You don't fully, fully want towork on this, you don't believe
it, you don't think that there'sanything wrong.
But in order to reestablishtrust, to establish yourself,
(20:32):
that is a hit on most people'sego.
But ego is not what makes aleader.
Ego is what makes somebody aperson people don't want to
follow.
Ego is what makes you hard towork with.
When you can set your ego asideand talk to the people around
you with humility, with care,with love, that means that your
(20:57):
ego is on the back burner andprobably simmering.
Now you can talk to me.
If we're in a coachingrelationship, you can talk to me
and take that ego and take itfrom the back burner simmer to
the front burner boil.
We will talk through it.
But you can't do that in theworkplace.
If you do that in the workplace, it will not go well.
(21:20):
Oh no, I was about to tell youa story, but I think I'll save
that for another time.
The time that I really yelledat my boss and he laughed in my
face We'll talk about thatanother time.
But very, very often when I amcoaching somebody doing some
leadership coaching, maybe doingsome management coaching people
will say hey, if I do that, I'mnot going to be seen as an
(21:44):
authority figure, I am not goingto be seen as a leader, I'm not
going to be seen as somebodythat people can trust and be
partnered with right in a team.
First, what I want to say iswhat makes you think that's true
?
What makes you think that'strue?
What makes you think that'strue?
Because if you had a colleaguethat came to you and said, thank
you.
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