My name is Tracy Hutton, and I'm here representing a whole lot of other coaches. I hope that what we offer through stories, through tips, and through questions will enable you to gain some new insight to your power as a leader. There's a fair amount of research that indicates when leaders can create an atmospher or culture where there's significant trust on the team that performance increases. When I first meet leaders, I often lean in a little bit to that and ask what rituals or efforts they have in order to create trust in a team. It's a huge question. How do I generate more trust? How do I have the people on my team know that I have their backs? And yet I was thinking about this leader. And the role that he had was new. He didn't get the sense that his leader understood what he was trying to get done in his role, and not only did she not understand it, he didn't feel like she even cared. He couldn't get her time and when he got it, she seemed distracted and to be confused by what he was trying to share. And he really started to take that on like maybe I'm not explaining myself or maybe what I'm doing is not important. Maybe this isn't going to make a difference, and he started to disengage. Then the gods intervened and there was a bit of a restructure. He got a new leader. I just encouraged him. I said, "take what you've been saying and present it again to this new leader and see if it makes a difference and maybe she'll hear it differently." I'll never forget the call I got on the phone. I said, "how did it go?" And he said, "it was night and day. It was like — well, I was speaking to a different person. It was an entirely different person who made the time to get clear, to sit and to not be afraid to ask him questions or to say, "tell me more about that" or, "I don't quite understand what you're saying." It's not like she was soft on him or just said yeah, when he was explaining, he said, "I really got the sense that she was invested and interested in what I was trying to share. Then I really get the sense that she sees what I'm trying to do now and I've already seen her take steps in order to be able to facilitate me being connected to some people who could support me. She really understands me and what I'm trying to get done." And his engagement has gone through the roof. If everyone on my team had the sense that my leader is with me, that they're behind me and no matter what, they're going to stand with me. What will the difference be on the team? Might just consider that for a moment. A client had a big project. They had to pull it together, guides and PowerPoints and the whole curriculum in a sense, and they had been like, "I got this." They were afraid to go to their leader and say, "I think I'm a little bit behind with creating this program." And it was getting down to the wire. My coaching with them is like, how supportive is your leader going to be if you let them know where you're at, what's going to occur? And like, "well, I'm not really sure. It's a new leader." Most leaders don't like to be surprised by things, so I would get in there as early as possible and be clear about where you are on the status of this project. Next time I connected with them, I'm like, so what happened? Did you get the project done on time? She told me the story of like this "miracle weekend" where the leader certainly had not like, "it's okay that you're behind," but didn't get angry or get after them. But more so said, "let's get into action. We can get this done, and we'll bring the team together and get it done." And basically opened her home over this three-day little span of time, and they brought the whole team together at her actual home. They worked through this project and all the timelines and one small team in the kitchen, another living room, another in the dining room. At the end of that three days, she said that the product that they created was awesome, but there was always that sense she said of that leader celebrating along with them, rolling up our sleeves and getting into the writing and bringing it together. It was certainly a lot to learn from this client about being clear with where we are with our projects, of course. But more so that this incredible trust they now have for that leader, that I can tell them what is so, and that leader will support me and help me get through it. When teams don't feel the trust with their leader, they tend to do the bare minimum in terms of output and energy into whatever they're doing. They'll just do whatever they need to do to get by. But when they have a sense of oh, there's some capacity or some space here for me to try something, to do something a little bit different, to put more energy into this, and my leader has me, you'll see a lot more discretionary effort and energy come through the work when they know that you've got them. One of the key things to remember as a leader: you're getting work done through others, and the work is going to get done with a lot more energy, imagination, creativity, and effort when that team has a sense that their leader is there to support them.
