Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast
“A Leader's Complete Guide to Building Trust at Every Level“
December 9, 2024
Dr. Rob McKenna
Intro: What if the single-most powerful tool for driving your team’s success wasn't a strategy or a skill, but the strength of the trust they have in you? In today's episode we're diving into the critical aspect of leadership that can make or break an organization's success, and that's trust. Tune in as Dr. Rob McKenna provides practical strategies on trust building, explore real-life examples, and learn how you can become a leader who not only inspires but also sustains a high level of trust within your team.
Welcome: Welcome to the Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast, your home for open, honest, and insightful conversations to help develop your leadership, your team, and build a flourishing workplace culture.
Al Lopus: Hello, I'm Al Lopus, the co-founder of the Best Christian Workplaces and author Road to Flourishing. And my heart is for helping Christian leaders like you create an engaged, flourishing workplace. In this season on the Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast, we'll explore the most-important element of flourishing cultures, and that's inspirational leadership.
I’m delighted to welcome Dr. Rob McKenna to the podcast today. Rob’s the CEO of WiLD Leaders.
And throughout our conversation, you'll hear Rob talk about understanding the chemistry of trust in leadership, strategies to balance grace and truth in organizational culture, insights into building resilience through adversity, and practical tools for building trust in remote and hybrid teams.
I think you're going to love this interview with Dr. Rob McKenna. But before we dive in, this podcast is proudly sponsored by Best Christian Workplaces’ Employment Engagement Survey. Don't wait. Now is the perfect time to gather vital insights into your employees to assess the health of your workplace culture. Are you ready to transform your culture? Well, visit workplaces.org to learn more to start the journey of health and becoming a flourishing workplace today. In fact, Dr. McKenna highlights that assessment is inherently developmental. Simply measuring and understanding the cultural dynamics within your organization begins the transformative process.
And hello to our new listeners. Thanks for joining us as we honor your investment of time by creating valuable episodes like this.
So, let me tell you a little bit more about Rob McKenna. Rob's been named as one of the top 30 most-influential industrial-organizational psychologists and was featured in Forbes magazine. He's the CEO of WiLD Leaders, which focuses on whole intentional leader development. Rob's also presented several TEDx talks on whole-leadership topics. His leaders include leaders in industry, government, and health care. Rob's also served the academic community as a departmental chair and professor of industrial-organizational psychology. He's written extensively on developing leaders. And his most-recent book is Composed: The Heart and Science of Leading Under Pressure. It's a rigorous and practical guide to maintaining our composure and presence when it matters most. Rob also serves on the board of the Best Christian Workplaces.
So, here’s my conversation with Dr. Rob McKenna.
Hi, Rob. Boy, it’s great to have you back on the podcast. I’m looking forward to our conversation today.
Rob McKenna: Al, I always love having these conversations with you.
Al: Well, Rob, let’s just get right into it, and we're going to talk a lot about trust today. Let's start with the definition. So as we talk about trust, how important is it, and how do you grow in trust? And what's the research telling us about trust in the work that you're doing at WiLD Leaders?
Rob: Well, I love it that you asked, Al, and you know me well enough to know that I think that words matter. And I used to be so annoying back when I was mentoring doctoral students and they wanted to study something, I would tell them, there’s something they heard from me, and it was always, “define the construct” is the thing that I would say, which is a very research-y way to say “words matter,” and we have to understand what we're talking about.
And it's so interesting when it comes to trust, and giving you a little bit of framing before I give you that definition is that it’s impossible to measure something well if we don't know what we're measuring. You just can't do that. And we talk about trust as if it is a feeling. And it's true that it is, but it is more than a feeling. It is a thing that we can measure. And, like, I think about loneliness. Loneliness is a feeling, but we don't solve it by talking about how lonely we are all day. So we have to think about, what does it mean to be lonely, what's missing, what has to be put in place?
And this is another thing I think about is that trust, like loneliness or anything else, has a structural and specific chemistry. So it's like a combination of elements that create oxygen, there are a combination of elements that create trust, which I'll share in my definition. But talking about trust without understanding its chemistry is like complaining that you can't breathe underwater without realizing you need oxygen. And so it begs this question, like, what is oxygen? And we understand the chemistry of breathing better than ever. And we're beginning to understand trust like never before. And how we breathe is everything. And just like that—you even mentioned this already. You kind of alluded to this—how we trust is everything, that it's like breathing. And so here's the definition that trust is your belief in my integrity, my ability, my reliability, my strength, and that I'm telling you the truth when any of those things are missing. And so I’ll go through that: trust is your belief in my integrity. In other words, that I’ll do what you’re asking me to do, with your best interest at heart; that I will be able to do it is my ability; that I'll do it consistently; that I'll do it well or that I'll try to do it better. So I'll learn to do it better. And the last part is so huge when it comes to trust is that there will be transparency and truth if any of those things are missing. And the reason why that definition—I know it's multifaceted, right? There's a chemistry that makes up what it means to build a trusting relationship as the center point of organizational health and flourishing, that you talk about so well. And it is multifaceted. And so that's the definition. And then there's certainly a lot of things that I can say about what's embedded in that definition.
Al: I really love your definition. So it's causing me already. I mean, we can measure integrity, we can even measure ability or competence, or we can measure reliability or strength or measure the sense of transparency. So you said trust is a number of things here. Let's go on to that.
Rob: This is what I find fascinating about that definition. If you think about trust—and we assess trust at the personal level. So there's personal factors that contribute to me being trustworthy. Then, at the team level, which is really the level of relationship. And then, there's the organizational-level factors, there’s some structural things that are really important. There is structural realities in the chemistry of trust that are necessary for us to be.
For example, it's very difficult for me to be accountable if I don't have a clear job description, you know what I mean? If I don't have clarity around some of those structural realities of my role. But some of the pieces that are so important, I think, in the definition is that trust is a relational thing. It is between us. And so that's one of the parts of that, because I mentioned that trust is your belief in these things in me. So it is a relational piece. It's like, it also requires us to know certain things about ourselves, and then by default, to know certain things about each other. And so it's really where individual development and team development begins to come out in truthful relationships about what's actually going on.
And it's also interesting that, you know, I've said this already, but you don't build trust by talking about it, but you build it by focusing on these kind of chemistry factors, if I roll with that sort of metaphor, and drivers that influence it. And I think this is what the big part, Al, of that definition to take what is kind of you could put in a dictionary and say, “So what does this really mean?” That last part about truth—and this is such a big thing that we have discovered, you know, in our work with teams and organizations—is that distrust increases when things are veiled, when they're covered, or when they're hidden, and when they're in the dark. And so the necessity for a methodology that brings people out, you know, not in a way that's, like, share everything right away, but that gives them a sense of awareness of certain levers that they could pull or certain muscles they could build. Like you already mentioned competence. Competence is a muscle that I could build. And as I understand my own competence and also where it's lacking, I get more honest with you as a team member, and then it unveils some things that are really critical.
And so we always talk about this reality when it comes to trust in beginning even the development process of a person and a team and an organization is that we start people in the shallow end, because you can't just jump right into the deep end and go, “Let’s just share it all,” right? But to start them in the shallow end as we move them toward deeper levels of understanding and awareness that builds a long and sustaining trust.
Al: You've mentioned three levels of trust: the personal, or the individual, level; the team level; and the organizational level. And I've had leaders, I've talked with leaders, and they get feedback about organizational trust, and they're hurt. “Well, they don't trust me.” So trust at the organizational level is different than on an individual level. And so there's more elements to the chemistry, I think, aren't there, Rob? How would you describe, you know, to a leader who's saying, “Well, okay, what's the difference between trust at an individual level versus an organizational level?” for a senior leader.
Rob: I was with a bunch of CEOs, Al, a few weeks ago, and one of them—you know how you have somebody in the room, and I'm talking about trust and assessing trust, and I'm mentioning some of the things I've already mentioned. I was with them for about three hours, and it's probably 20 CEOs in the room. And this one is looking at me a little cross-eyed, and I'm thinking, “I don't know” And he probably is, by the way, he has the largest budget of anybody in the room. He has just a—he's running a very large organization. And I'm thinking, “This guy is not getting it. I'm not sure he's with me.” And I think it was just the way he looks at people, because I saw him in the parking lot afterward, and he said, “Rob, yeah, it was really good to be with you today. It never occurred to me that I could measure trust.”
And I bring that up in relationship to your question, because one of the things I think that is really important to grasp is that the variables and the factors ,and go back to that, the chemistry, the mix of elements that go into what it means to build whole and sustaining trust for the long haul, it does happen at three levels. And I think that's one thing that I hope that senior leaders or even first-level managers would embrace is that there are factors at different levels that affect, when the mix is right, that affect what we describe as building a stronghold of trust and some of those things.
So, for example, the definition I gave is very relational, right? It's that you understanding these things about me and me understanding them about you. And so in many ways that definition sits at the team level, if that makes sense. It's, like, it is the relational process. If I know these things about myself and you know them about me, then we will begin to build trust.
And if, for example, with reliability, we know this, right? If you don't do things consistently, my trust will be questioned in you. And so that team level is there. But what are the factors, then, that allow us to have that kind of relationship? And those are personal factors. I have to understand certain things about myself, certain drivers psychologically and also practically, that affect my capacity to be a trustworthy person and enter into that team level of, you know, you could even call the team, by the way, a marriage, right? You could.
And then, what's interesting, too, that I encourage leaders to see in terms of what it really means to build trust is that when it comes to the organizational level, it's too often that what leaders feel so often, Al, that just breaks my heart is that—and it's back to what I was saying at the beginning—that trust is treated like a gut feeling as opposed to something that I could actually solve. And so it does, it breaks my heart when a leader is feeling like people don't trust him or her, or they feel like they don't trust their organization, or this breakdown of this. And it is a feeling, but it's more than that. And so to take that from saying, like, “It's just this ambiguous thing around, like, we have trust is breaking down,” and saying, like, “Let's get to the core drivers that actually could help us increase this,” is really critical. And so at the organizational level, sure, it's important to assess, do people trust my organization? Those kinds of things are important. But there are other factors that are predictive of that.
So, for example, when we think about retention, one of the questions, one of the drivers of that is not, “Do people stay in my organization?” but “Do the right people stay?” You know what I mean? So it’s like, and not that there’s good and bad people, but sometimes people could find their sense of call and their sense of contribution better somewhere else. And so it's that one of those predictors is that.
Another one I mentioned is job descriptions, is that so many organizations we deal with, there's just not clarity around roles. And it's really difficult for people to be clear about roles if they don't have a clear job description. So there are multiple factors at the organizational level. And I think the power that that CEO was seeing in the parking lot was, “Oh my goodness, there are levers that I could pull,” you know what I mean? “that would connect with the heart and the performance of the people in my organization.”
Al: Yeah. So it's really different, Rob, is what you're saying. It's more complex at an organizational level. And you might have trust on an individual level with somebody else, but at an organizational level, there’s just so many more factors that you're saying. And so that's great to keep in mind.
Well, you know, the work that you're doing, that whole and intentional leadership development, or WiLD Leaders, you're doing research now on trust. And your background, you’re a Ph.D. in industrial-organizational psychology, and your work is very much research based. So what have you been learning through your research on trust?
Rob: Al, it's been quite a journey, quite a road, I would say. We created what's known as the WiLD Trust Index, and it's a way to receive a net trust score for organizations. And by the way, it's been amazing to see how that particular assessment, focusing on trust, partners with the BCW culture assessment. It's been really cool to experience some of those places where they meet together, and they serve each other. But it was, as we were assessing trust, it has been interesting. So we're going to be publishing in early, early next year a state of trust report, a benchmarks study. So some of these findings will come out. So what I want to share with you is very preliminary. The database is extensive. So we do have this incredible thing. So I'm excited to talk with you about some of these findings that I got to tell you, some of them affirmed or confirmed what I thought might be true, and some of them were quite surprising.
One of the things I want to describe to you is that we categorize organizations into four possible quadrants. And so imagine that you have on one axis, you have a team trust score, that's created by combining these different factors that build trust at the team level. And then you have an organizational trust score on the other axis. And so you can picture the two by two, right? The hope would be is that—and then personal trust is something that we assess separately. That is a different thing I won't get into you right now, or maybe in a moment. But the idea would be, of course, high to the right is usually good, right? So you've got high team trust and high organizational trust. And we describe the high team trust, organizational trust area as a stronghold of trust. So that's the place where you're doing—it’s you are doing the things to build whole and sustaining trust. So let's assume you have high organizational trust, but lower team trust. In other words, people kind of see that the structure, the external structure, of the organization is strong, but within teams, there may not be, there may be distrust. We call that a shell of trust. So it's like an egg, right? It's a little messy on the inside, but it's got a strong outer shell. And then, if you have a high team trust and a lower organizational trust, we describe that as islands of trust. So the idea being that there are places, you know, in more siloed moments where teams are doing pretty well and members of the team trust each other, but they have a little bit of something to work on related to that shell or that organizational level, that higher level.
So that low, low level is where I wanted to talk just for a moment about the research we're finding. That's what we call the jungle of trust. And jungles are necessary places in our world, but they are fairly chaotic. You know what I mean? They're dark. It’s difficult to see or to navigate. And when I look at the data, Al, the folks who are functioning within the jungle of trust, it breaks my heart. And I'll tell you that part of the reason is that I've been there. I think both you and I have been there in the past. And so it’s like to function in organizations like that, just like it is to functioning an organization that is not flourishing, this is a struggle. And here's the thing, Al. So far, and these are our initial findings, 50% of the people in our sample across industries are functioning within the jungle. They are showing up to a workplace where organizational trust and those factors driving that are low. And also, team trust is low. And that is really difficult to sustain for the long haul.
I have other ones, but if you want to sit on that for a moment, I don't know. It’s a big finding, and there are some other things that are similar to that I can share with you.
Al: Well, that's interesting, Rob, I'll just say, 50%, you know. And as our listeners are thinking about that, let me just ask the question, would your employees say that they're working in the jungle of trust, you know, where, you know—and at Best Christian Workplaces we've often historically described that as in a toxic workplace. Yeah, yeah. Because at this point, you know, less than a quarter—and it's improved. Our data shows that the number of toxic workplaces has diminished as our sample has even gotten so much bigger—and it was at a quarter, and now it's something less than that, so you're saying. But when it just comes to trust, which is just one factor in an overall organization's culture, a key one, be the first to say, 50%. Well, all right, yeah.
Rob: And I would say something else, Al, that I think is important to note is that when you look at the data, many of those people who are functioning with a jungle are right at the top right of that jungle quadrant. And so I think the possibility in it is with just a little bit of work, they could move. Does that make sense? So they're right at that edge. And so not most are functioning at the extreme end of, you know, bottom left, but they’re low.
Al: So, I love your terms, Rob, you know, so certainly the jungle. We don't want the insides of our organizations to be operating like a wild jungle, by any stretch. But islands of trust, the shell of trust, or a stronghold of trust. And oftentimes we see, as we're looking at the health of the culture of various teams within an organization, if there's certain teams because they've got great leaders within those teams, there's an island of trust, certainly. Sometimes where there's a shell of trust, that would be where, so again, that is low organizational trust, and high team trust are…
Rob: The shell is the high organizational and lower team trust.
I'll tell you some of the interesting findings that are within that when we looked at some of the drivers. So one thing that's been interesting, Al, is that there is actually more trust in senior leaders than I might have expected. That was actually very, very encouraging. And this has been across industries. There's been a higher trust in those senior leaders. And I think one of the things that we do sense that is another driver of trust is that understanding of where the organization is going, so do people have a sense of alignment and a line of sight between what it is they're doing in their jobs and clarity on where the organization is going? And there has been a tendency to be lower on that. So a less of a sense of clarity around that organizational direction, but a higher trust in the leaders. So there's something to build on in that.
I would say, also, that one of the general themes at the—this is at the team level. So if you think about the islands of trust is the team, where the team is high, the team trust is high, organizational trust might be lower, but people trust each other within the team. And this is not surprising, but people still struggle with conflict. There is a bit of an issue systemically across the organizations in our sample with communication and the ability to, what I describe, is fight well. They have to be able to enter into conflict in ways where they're going to disagree, and they're going to be able to stand composed in the middle of that. And then, certainly, I mentioned that there is a lack of clarity around what my job actually is.
I will say this, Al. This will not surprise you. It's one of the, for me, one of the most interesting pieces of the data, other than the jungles-of-trust data that there is—you know, there's a large group there—is this: people are scoring, when it comes to personal trust and this sense in which they're doing the things at the personal developmental level that make them trustworthy, if that makes sense. So there's 11 different factors that are driving that. Here's what's fascinating: people feel like they are supporting others. So there's a sense in which that score is often quite high. But here’s what’s fascinating: they don’t feel like they're being supported themselves, which, by the way, also would probably is telling us something about some older research on the percentage of people who believe that they are above average—
Al: Yeah, right.
Rob: —which is hilarious, right? That somewhere between 66 and 88% of, 66%, 88% of us believe that we're above average. So the math doesn't actually work out. So it makes me wonder if there is a slight self-serving bias in that. So it’s like, “I'm not being supported, but I feel like I'm supporting others,” is a very interesting part of the developmental journey of a person.
Al: A key factor in trust is the sense that you feel supported, that there's a sense of compassion or concern, depending on how you want to describe it. And here, leaders, as you're listening and you're thinking, do your employees feel like you actually care about them? That's a key factor.
Well, Rob, how about an example of leaders who are effective in building trust? You know, what stands out? What are some of these attributes of leaders that actually build trust? Give us some examples.
Rob: Thank you, Al. I can't give examples without giving sort of some tough stories that are part of the examples. And one of my greatest examples of building trust is one of the organizations that we have worked with for several years now had a leadership team that I would say half of the leaders on the team were kind of those people, when it came to their own development as leaders, were those high rollers. You know what I'm talking about?
Al: Maybe a little cynical?
Rob: Yeah, a little cynical. Like, “I've seen it before,” or “I don't believe in all this stuff.” You know, it's like, “I don't believe that people don't change,” all that. And when I say when that occurs, you have CEOs oftentimes who are a little bit afraid of those people. They're, like, afraid to actually invest in them because they're, like, “I don't know. What do I do with these folks?” And this one particular leader was probably the biggest resister, who also had quite a following among the other leaders. So he carried a lot of weight with his dissatisfaction with everything development. That leader then became and has become the most bought-in leader on that team, in terms of buying into this possibility that his learning and development is directly related to the performance and the well-being of everyone in his organization.
And I say that as a case in point when it comes to trust because that switch—honestly surprising to me when I get to experience it, and it happens often because we have this default to say, like, “Oh, those people are so difficult.” We put people in those boxes. But when people began to understand how trust was related to the performance and the well-being of the people, people on their teams, and they get this wake-up call, suddenly he becomes the guy, you can't live without that guy on the team. And so that's one of the examples.
The other thing I would say is this, is that, you know this, too, that what WiLD Leaders does is when we come into an organization is we do a process of discovery because we hardly ever will work with an organization unless we can help them identify or they can identify the strategic moment they are facing. So the build out of trust, or leader development for that matter, or team development, has to be connected to a strategic necessity. So we do a process of discovery of understanding, what is the moment you're experiencing right now, that we describe as, you are seizing? You know, and sometimes organizations don't know. But if we can't unearth or discover what that is, then the development process—developing trust, developing leaders, developing teams—becomes one more training session. As opposed to what we know from the research, it has to be that development at its best has to be connected to the job that we are assigned and we are on mission to complete. And so what's fascinating is the identification of those issues, Al.
And so another example is that, as you can imagine, and you know this in your work as well, is that succession-planning examples are many. So in many organizations, their issue, their moment is a succession moment. Sometimes it's a growth moment; sometimes it's a shrinking moment; sometimes it's a change, you know, some kind of a change situation. But succession comes up often, especially when organizations get to a certain level of scale.
And I'll say we're dealing with one organization in the last couple of years with a long-time legacy leader who was followed by a team that now has, the longest tenure on that team is six months. And so the strategic moment that they're facing is an incredible leader in this business who is now not a part of the business on a day-to-day basis. And the trust issue, as we were assessing trust, of course, that was coming up is this issue of succession that everyone is feeling. There's the feeling part. And so what’s been amazing with that particular team… And by the way, some of the leaders on that team in this moment right now, as I think about it, have been on the team for three weeks. I’m talking about the most-senior leaders, right? So, you're talking about a very young, from a tenure perspective team. What's been amazing is to see them identifying the levers that they can pull that will allow them to build trust. With an organization that's kind of, they’re in a moment of wait and see, right? They’re like, “We have a new team. Every employee is saying, like, ‘I don't know what's next.’” And so that's been a really powerful thing to be a part of.
Al: Wow. Yeah. Great examples. And then, you know, the kind of leader, Rob, you know, that exhibits trust, builds trust, you have a way of describing that kind of leader.
Rob: So, if I were to identify the primary characteristic of a leader who is ready to build trust, it is the word editable. They have an edit ability, which I describe as a willingness to have the backspace key hit on things that may even feel like they're a part of their character. And that editing, that willingness to learn, that readiness, that developmental readiness is so critical. And oftentimes, we hear about when you put a leader-development program in place and we say, “This is so common in the learning and development space that we need leaders to be bought in,” but buy-in I don't think is enough. Let me say that stronger: buy-in is not enough. And it's not even participation. It is this reality that when we start working with these organizations, in many cases the primary opportunity and challenge is going to be within that senior leader. So it's not simply about modeling development for the rest of the team, which is important, by the way, but it is a transparent and a true authentic willingness to go in and say, “Let me tell you what I'm learning about myself that I need to change and also what I need to sort of grasp and say, ‘These are good things about the moment, the way that I’m leading,’” which I would also describe as a level of emotional maturity. This is a person who is both clear and caring. You know what I mean? Like, that's the oldest story in the leadership research, is that we need leaders, because you mentioned it already, is that consideration and compassion are huge factors. But it's half the picture, right, it’s because we also have to have leaders who are clear and convicted. And so we’re asking them to be both of those things at once.
Al: Editable, push the backspace. So, yeah. So many of us as leaders, and I know our listeners are thinking, “Okay. So, yeah. I should have pushed the backspace when somebody brought this up and responded specifically to that and say, ‘Yeah, I'm learning. Thanks for that feedback.’”
So, Rob, okay. Let's continue on here, this conversation about trust, because we both work in different settings. We work with a lot of Christian nonprofits, churches, schools, and we work with, and I know you do a lot of work with Christian leaders in marketplace settings. What are the differences between, let's say, a nonprofit Christian workplace, or maybe just a nonprofit organization, and marketplace organizations? Are there any differences when it comes to trust? And what are the challenges of building and maintaining trust in these different types of organizations?
Rob: So, this may be surprising to some. And again, I would say that the sample of organizations in our study are both clients of WiLD Leaders in organizations that we work with and a large sample of organizations that we have not worked with yet. And so when I say that, that's important because I think, also, when I think about the work of BCW and even your comments about the percentage of toxic organizations, that my assumption is that over the long haul, a lot of those organizations have engaged in assessing the toxicity or the flourishing of their culture.
And one of the things that I just want to point out about that importance of assessment and measurement is that it's one of the reasons, I think, that you see shifts in culture based on that culture assessment is because assessment is by its very nature also development. So as people begin to assess themselves based on questions about what their culture could look like, it actually begins the intervention. I would love for people to hear this, partially because I am a huge fan of everything that BCW does, but also because it’s just an important thing to understand and in terms of what WiLD Leaders is doing as well in assessing trust. And I say that for this reason is that there are differences in nuance that we're seeing between those organizations in terms of their issues related to trust. But there are not big differences in terms of so assuming that certain kinds of organizations would have higher levels of trust than we might expect. But their issues are different.
For example, you know, historically I've been around faith-based organizations with a Christian mission, which is actually really, really critical and important for the way that they function and the way that they work with organizations that they serve. But one of the things that they describe is often being grace-filled communities. And one of the challenges of a grace-filled community is that they also need to be truth-filled communities. And sometimes those organizations, because they care so deeply about people, a critical aspect of trust that they sometimes default to that over clarity, over organizational clarity. And I know you and I have talked about this over the years, how critical that is. Like, you have to have good management practices in place to build trust, to build a flourishing culture. And so I would say that that’s one thing that is slightly different.
And then, of course, on the flip side, in many businesses, you know, there is a much deeper comfort with control. And I don't mean control in a bad sense. I mean clear management structures and clarity around metrics and goals. But sometimes there's a little lower level of natural connection into, hey, we've got to see the people. And so I would say that in many cases, what we have seen across when you even compare ministries is imagine what it would look like to build an organization where things are both clear and things are caring, you know, is an incredible thing to imagine that we all would like to work in a stronghold of trust like that.
Al: That's so well put, Rob, you know, the difference—a grace-filled community versus just a less-natural connection between people in the culture. And it's all about, then, the results. And yet, yeah, as I’ve seen trust in organizations, you know, leaders develop trust where they actually have the competence to be able to bring people together, to have an outcome, to actually create an outcome. And you see, you know, we described that is when an organization is well managed, for example, that's one of our questions that's actually the highest in Christian workplaces. It's the highest correlated to engagement is when well managed, you know, and where leaders are able to bring people together to actually get results. When I hear, “we're a grace-filled community,” it just causes me to lean in and understand what that means, of course, we all as Christians, we want to be graceful, want to be generous, but still, we have a calling to have an organization that runs effectively and at the same time, on the business side, we understand that we're working with people.
Rob: Yeah. And it's a grace-filled community and a truth-filled community. And I think I would hope that our listeners, you know, across our shared ecosystems, would be hearing that loud and clear, that great management structure is so critical for everything we do. And I think that sometimes that's a wake-up call, but it's not to over pivot to that, either. It’s to work hard at moving toward that tension, moving right into it.
Al: Yeah. We could talk about that for a long time.
But, well, let's move on, though, because, you know, trust is a two-way relationship in a flourishing organization, and people need to trust their leaders in order to really bring their whole selves to work, to wholeheartedly embrace the mission of the organization. And leaders need to trust the people under them. And when we're asking trust questions, oftentimes I don't think about leaders actually trusting the people who work for them. But that's a key part; it's a two-way issue. So talk about empowering and delegation and how leaders can trust their people to do their best work. How do we do that?
Rob: You know, Al, this goes straight back to my dissertation, whatever year that came out, 1997, ‘98, I think it was. And I was fascinated by this word empowerment, which was a really big deal, and it still should be. Engagement kind of took over as the buzzword probably 20 years ago. But empowerment is so critical. And one of the things that I was fascinated by was this what I described as a paradox between empowerment and control. And it's kind of—I know this is what we just talked about—but I really wanted to understand this tension that leaders face between being both empowering and providing those control systems.
And I went to my dissertation chair back then, Al, and he was a young leader at the time. But I said, “I want to study the paradox,” and a paradox being two competing truths, both of which are true. That's the definition of a paradox. I have to hold those two things. And the reason why I got sort of interested in it was ‘cause I had already been a manager at that point, and I was seeing this tension between empowering people to do their roles, but also providing control systems. And he didn't get it. At the time he was like, “I don't get it, Rob. I don't know how we can study that. We're not going to do it.”
And then, Al, what was funny is he received a very large grant, and it was, like, a $6 million grant to study employee wellness across the state of California. And then he started hiring directors of different pieces of that grant, which is one of my early roles was being one of those directors. Al, as soon as he had those six directors reporting to him, he started to feel the reality of that tension. And he brought me back into his office and he goes, “I get it now. Let's study that.”
And I see that because what we have found, like, is this ongoing theme is that organizations scoring highest on trust have systems for both clarity and control at scale. So as they grow—and when I say systems, I mean something as simple as clear job descriptions. A clear mission for where they're going that translates into those jobs are just different pieces of that. They have solid recruiting processes for the right people who come into the organization and who stay. They're investing in the development of their people. And when I say that, I don't mean—I could say more about that—but people have a plan for their own learning and growth that's connected to their performance in the job that they find meaningful. So we have to do both. So if organizations are doing that, that piece, but also feel a sense of empowerment and accountability, that they're able to own themselves and being delegated to, then that's where trust gets created at that level of the organization. And it's such a critical thing, I think, to embrace is that both of those things are absolutely necessary, that people need to feel that sense of empowerment. But people can't feel empowered, and when trust starts to be questioned is when kind of it's not clear, and now I'm not really doing my job that well. Things are hidden because I'm not really conversing with my manager very well about the reason behind my lack of motivation to improve. And so it really fundamentally also comes back to this. We have to be continuing these conversations that integrate my own learning and development with my daily performance in the job. That's what happens at the most structural level of trust.
Al: Yeah. Systems for clarity and control, you know, both so important.
Well, you know, trust can take all of these things, the chemistry, Rob, of trust. Going back to our conversation early on, there's lots of elements in the chemistry, and you build it over time, and you know, the formula, the chemical reaction builds solidarity and a solid foundation. But then, all of a sudden, trust can be broken so quickly. So if you have a solid foundation of trust, is it really that fragile? And what can a leader do when trust is broken? Can you actually recover from a breach of trust? You know, what are some ways of regaining trust?
Rob: Yeah. So couple of things that we're discovering. One is that when it comes to people's—let me get into the data for just a moment. And this, again, these are early preliminary kind of results that we're seeing—is that imagine answering your question about certain trust factors, that chemistry, one of those elements. And where it's all dialed in would be all green. It's like, I'm scoring, like, a 4 or 5 on a five-point scale, you know what I mean? It's like it's really good. And then, of course, a 1 or 2 is like, that's going to be red. That's going to be—so we got some things to work on on this particular driver. Most—you can imagine—most of the scores fall in a large category of yellow. And the reason why I bring that up—and when you look at the raw scores, and you look at the overall database, most of the scores are in the yellow, which affirms something that we have been seeing is that trust is less often built and broken, and more often built and questioned. That yellow space is questions of trust, not broken trust. And I think it's a little bit compelling, a little fatalistic to say, I know we hear this all the time, right? this like, trust is so easily broken and so hard to rebuild. Yes and no. But the reality is, when we get honest and have a whole conversation around what trust is really about—and I mean people get honest, then what we realize is that we question our trust in each other often. You know what I mean?
Like, if people ask me, do I trust my team members, I would say, this is the way I describe it, I would say, “Big T? Yeah, I do. I trust it on the big-T level.” On the small-T level, what I would say is, “With what?” Do you know what I mean? Because there are certain things that I don't trust them with, necessarily. And they wouldn't trust me with. And so that level of understanding of where the competency is, like we talked about earlier on, is so critical. And so I think it's really helpful to think of it that way because it also normalizes that it's not the end of the world if people experience a moment where they're like, “I'm not sure you're going to get done what I think you're going to get done,” because that requires a conversation. And too often what happens is we haven't built the method and the infrastructure to have just normal, transparent conversations that are full of truth as well as grace. And so the more that we see teams being able to do that, the more that it's kind of honestly on the table. And what truth is being worked out, when it comes to relationships, I'm not talking about, like, “big-T” truth, right? I'm talking about in relationships. Truth gets worked out. Like, what is really happening here? And we are built to trust. I go back to the Garden, right? Like, we were created to trust. And there were certain factors that broke that down, and suddenly we started to hide. And so the more that we can unveil and get those things out in the open with our team members, with our leaders, that things begin to change.
And so my hope is that people will be able to increase that capacity at the level of skill that they're at to increase those kinds of honest conversations about where things are going well and where they may need to improve.
Al: Yeah. That caused me to think about focus groups that I've done in the past, particularly in organizations where trust has been broken. And we like to ask appreciative-inquiry types of questions: well, describe an environment where there's high levels of trust between leaders and their employees, and what does that look like? So they’ll describe that and move in that direction. And then, I do ask the question oftentimes, describe a moment where trust has been broken. And it's really fascinating to listen to focus groups in the same organization. And they'll go back to an event. And then I give that feedback to the leaders of, well, remember this event when you did this? And for our listeners, you might know what I'm talking about. You may have seen that event as a leader or as an employee. And to, then, have the leader just go back and admit that is a trust-building activity in itself, wouldn't you say, Rob?
Rob: I would say that. It brings up a thing you were asking the question about, you know, what can a leader do in those moments where it's been broken? And I think one of the most powerful drivers from a leadership perspective, from that perspective of what can I do? if you were asking and showing up in that way, and the tendency in so many leaders is to either move toward their defaults—when I say default it’s, like, what is most natural for them. You and I have talked about leading under pressure before, and I wrote a book on composure—or it's that tendency, or it's the tendency to over pivot. And I think the idea would be, can you imagine how much trust is built with a leader who is steadfast? And I don't mean steadfast as in stuck, but I mean steadfast, there's still growing and changing and willing to edit and to learn, as you were referencing. They're willing to see those mistakes, but at the same time, they're not blowing with whatever, they're not moving with whatever wind is blowing by. And so there's a sense of—and that's what emotional maturity is really about, is that sense of a steadfastness in a leader. And when you're with a person like this, they have this incredible calming effect. And sometimes with trust we have this tendency to over default.
And here's what's fascinating, Al, is that, you know, we use that leading-under-pressure inventory. It’s one of our assessments. And it gives a person a chance to rate themselves or discover in this moment, are they more of a peacekeeper or a truth speaker? And the challenge with peace keepers, those who are really connected to others, is it's difficult and it's extreme to trust a person like that, because what I'll tell people is you can't keep everyone happy without lying to somebody. And if you're lying to somebody, it's a no brainer. It's not trustworthy. But the same is true for the truth speaker. If you're just speaking whatever is coming across your mind and you got all this clarity, but you're not actually listening or connected to what other people think, need, and feel, that's equally less trustworthy because people know you're not going to shift anything for what actually needs to change in you to become that. And so there is something about when it comes to being that emotionally mature, differentiated leader, that willingness to edit at the same time of deepening the person that you are is so critical and not being blown by the winds of change or adversity in a way that it's all things are up for grabs.
Al: One final question, Rob. In our workplace these days, which got remote and hybrid situations, you know, we're together sometimes if we're in a hybrid situation, or we're not if we're in remote situations. And so that certainly seems to have an impact on trust. So for a leader who's leading in either hybrid or remote, what are some considerations when it comes to building trust? What would you say to one of those leaders?
Rob: I know there are challenges, and there are also opportunities. And I think one of the first things to do is to avoid blaming technology or the medium, because that is actually—I had a guy, that I think both of us know, fly to Seattle to ask me this question. We had this conversation over coffee. And he said—this was years ago—and he said, “Rob, do you believe that you can mentor people online?” I said, “Frankly, I don't care.” And what I meant was, I told him, I said, “The question assumes that we're doing it well face to face.” And my point was, like, I just want people to mentor people. Like, let's stop arguing about the technology, because it makes the assumption that we do this well face to face, and we weren't. And so I think in the same way, let's look at the technology with wisdom and say that there are certain things it doesn't do. But what it has created, I would say, is a challenge of knowing in some cases, and an opportunity to actually know better in other ways. And so when people are visible to us, let's say we're a manager, we can actually see whether they're working or not. And we deal with so many managers now who are working in remote kinds of settings. We just don’t see each other in the hallways, so there’s literally no way to mentally map whether or not people are engaged or that they're working and so on.
Now, that said, I would say this, that working in remote ways has actually increased the performance and the efficiency of many people. One of the things that it has done is it has decreased some of the emotional labor, is what it's called, that some people have had to use. And so it's actually helping them to perform even better, which affects trust.
I do have a couple of suggestions, Al, that I know might be a little bit controversial. One of them is this: if people are able, turn your videos on because there is something about seeing each other. Monitor it the way that you want. Some people like filters. I don't like when people put filters on, because I want to see people's home where they try to office. You know, like, what is the problem with that? And so I think that's one thing, but not every time. But if people are able, then to do that.
And I think the other thing that I would suggest is more than whether—and this is probably true in either case, whether people are working remotely—because my teams all over the country, so it's different now—but is that having a regular rhythm of team meetings. Pick a weekly rhythm. Make sure you have clear accountability and measures of success, not for the sake of monitoring people, but for the sake of their motivation. And then those moments together are critical. It's like when you're in a remote setting, you have to fight for those times. And take 10 minutes at the beginning of those meetings. If they're on some technology, take 10 minutes. We don't just talk for 30 minutes, but just say, “How was your weekend?” My team does Monday—WiLD days are Mondays. So it's, like, that's when we're together. And we take 10 minutes. We go, like, “Let’s talk about the dumb stuff that happened over our weekend, and then we're going to jump into our performance together right away.” So I think the regular rhythm has been so critical for so many teams for building trust.
Al: Yeah. That's a part of it, isn't it?
Well, Rob, this has just been a great conversation. Going back even to the beginning, I was thinking— you said, “More than a feeling.” I was thinking, “There's a song called More Than a Feeling.”
Rob: There is a song.
Al: Boston, More Than a Feeling. Yeah, yeah. But we'll spare singing that right now. But trust is more than a feeling. And then you began to outline the key elements that define trust: integrity, ability, reliability, strength, truth, and transparency. I mean, so, so critical. And then we spent a little time talking about the chemical elements, the additional elements of organizational trust versus team and personal trust. And how, you know, you're working on a state of trust in the workplace, and I can't wait for that to come out next spring. And the way you've kind of identified a two-by-two matrix, looking at the different types of trust, either team trust versus organizational trust, and your trust index. And, you know, the islands of trust, the shell of trust, the jungle of trust, and the stronghold of trust. Great, great terminology to help organizations and leaders identify kind of where they are on this whole topic. And that 50% of people are in the jungle, and I think we can all relate to what the jungle is and how that feels. But then we talked about building trust, what that takes. We talked about being editable, and are we able to be authentic and be trustworthy as a leader? Then, I just love what you're saying. Assessment is development. It’s the beginning of an intervention. And so again, to our listeners, are you assessing these key elements that you should be, that are really foundational to relationships in your organization? And yeah, just some of the differences between the Christian cultures versus for-profit business, that relationship between empowerment and control and how they both are important, but having systems for clarity to allow for communication to be effective for trust to be built. But then, yes, trust can be broken, and what do we do about that? So, Rob, this has just been a great conversation.
Is there anything else you'd like to add that we've talked about? Leave us with kind of a bottom line.
Rob: We are designed as builders and as gardeners at the same time. In other words, like, every one of us who is in a leadership role and every person that works in our organizations is designed to build something and to build something together. And at the same time, we have to tend to what I describe as this fragile garden of relationships, of trust, that sits at the base of that wall that we are building together. And I think that the piece of that is, like, that's the idea. And what connects those two parts of us together, the relational piece of us and the builder in us, is trust, that trust is a manifestation of belief and a faith. It’s like when I trust you, I actually will fall. So it takes belief and it gives it legs and it gives it teeth. And so I hope that people will feel that sense. And also, that you can measure it. You can measure trust, and that assessment matters, that it's the first step in beginning that intervention to start to flex the right muscles to build an organization where people can flourish and grow.
Al: Great.
Well, Rob, thanks so much for your contribution today. This has just been a great conversation. And most of all, I appreciate your commitment to equipping whole leaders who are trustworthy and exhibit strong character and value. So thanks so much for taking time out today and speaking in the lives of so many listeners.
And thank you so much for listening to my conversation with Rob McKenna. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.
You can always find ways to connect with him and find links to everything we discussed in the show notes and transcript at workplaces.org/podcast.
And if you have any suggestions for me about our podcast or have any questions about flourishing workplace cultures, please email me at al@workplaces.org.
And finally, if you're ready to strengthen trust, improve engagement, and transform your workplace culture, consider starting with an Employee Engagement Survey from Best Christian Workplaces. It's more than just an assessment; it's the first step toward real growth. Visit workplaces.org to learn more to begin building a flourishing, trust-based culture today.
Please keep listening to our weekly podcast as we continue to learn from leaders who are proven inspirational leaders exhibiting Christian character and excellence in their leadership. Next week, we'll be talking with Tami Heim, the president of Christian Leadership Alliance.
Outro: The Flourishing Culture Leadership Podcast is sponsored by Best Christian Workplaces. If you need support building a flourishing workplace culture, please visit workplaces.org for more information.
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