Building a Culture of Trust | Live from the Global Leadership Summit

Today, I want to start by asking you a very personal question. And I'll tell you, I'm nervous to ask you this because I'm very insecure and I don't want you to hurt my feelings. But I'm gonna ask you a personal question. If you're ready for it, say, I'm ready. Are you ready? Ready. I'm curious, as a leader, do you trust me? A few of you said yes, which actually makes me feel much better for the opening talk of GLS 23. But if you do trust me, I'm kind of curious, like, why do you trust me? I mean, for the most part, most of us haven't met. I could be slick and slide in one by you. If you trust me, why do you trust me? And for the rest of you who don't trust me, what have I ever done to you? Like, why don't you trust me? Why won't you give me a chance? Why won't you give me the benefit of the doubt? It's interesting to think about trust. If you trust someone, especially someone you don't know well, why do you trust them? And if you don't trust them, why do you not trust them? What's fascinating to me is if we had met

three decades ago or so, you would have been more inclined to trust me then than you are now. And you would have been more inclined to trust others then than you are now. Remember the good old days. How many of you have been around long enough to remember when you used to watch the evening news? Raise your hand. Some of you say, what is the evening news? Those of you who were around long enough to remember, you probably remember watching the evening news and believing what you watched on the news. Who knows what I'm talking about? If you read something in print back in the good old days, you tended to believe that it was probably true. And back then when you saw someone in leadership, you generally thought that they probably had your best interest at heart. Those were the good old days. It's so interesting to me if you go back even just a few years before the pandemic and the painful division and social unrest, many, just a few years ago, they were skeptical about those in leadership. We weren't sure if we could trust those in leadership. Sadly, today, people are far worse than skeptical. After all the fake news and scandals and lies and deep fakes, most people, they aren't just skeptical

about those in leadership. They are full-blown distrusting. And this is a massive problem for all of us because all of us are leaders. Everybody knows you can't trust those politicians. You can't trust the media. You can't trust those greedy CEOs. You can't trust what you see on social media. You can't trust even what you type into chat, GPT, and he's supposed to be the smartest thing in the world. And everybody knows you can't trust those megachurch pastors. They're the worst. I say that kind of in joking, but I would say truthfully that perhaps for many of you as leaders, the number one biggest challenge that you're gonna face today is that people are not going to give you the benefit of the doubt. In fact, according to Edelman's Trust Barometer, you may say, what is Edelman's Trust Barometer? What I want you to do for a moment is trust me. It's a thing. And I didn't know what it was until I researched trust, but these would be considered the foremost experts on studying trust. And according to the Edelman's Trust Barometer, more than one half of the population won't trust someone or something until they see evidence.

If this doesn't get your attention as a leader, you better sniff some smellin' salt and wake up, because this creates tremendous Yes, problems to move people from one place to another. I'll just say it this way. Tragically, because of all that's going on in the world, distrust is now society's default emotion. And so for the opening talk of the 2023 GLS Summit, I wanna talk to you about this subject, the future of leadership is trust. Let's dive in. If I have not offended you up to this point, I will at some point, so I might as well get it done right now. I would just tell you leaders, not everybody trusts you. There are some people around you that may have been with you for a long time that trusted you at one point and they don't trust you today the way they did before. Your team, even those closest to you, sadly, will not naturally trust you. And you can pretty quickly figure out the bad news, and the bad news is this. If they don't trust you, they won't follow you. So what I know about you is that you are very, very wise leaders because you are investing in your leadership and you're getting better. And we know that everyone wins when the leader gets better. I know you're a wise leader,

and because you're a wise leader, you're gonna ask, well, how can we bridge the gap? How can we close the distance from people who are more skeptical and create a culture where people are trusting and will buy into the vision and give their whole hearts to it? How, then, if they don't naturally trust, do we create a culture of trust? And I need to tell you the answer is not a pizza party. It's not doing trust falls. It's not playing games with your staff. Creating trust today is going to take more intentionality on your part as a leader than you can imagine. And so based on my in-depth research, I wanna give you an equation today that will help give you the tools to build the necessary culture of trust so you can do what you've been called to do. The equation goes like this. Three contributing factors. Transparency plus empathy plus consistency equals trust. Let's all say this aloud. I need people around the United States and all over the world, let's say it aloud together. Ready? Transparency plus empathy plus consistency equals trust. It takes all three of these qualities to create trust.

And if you lack one of these as a leader, your trust quotient immediately is diminished. I wanna give you a little heads up because sometimes you lose focus during a talk and you check Instagram or you text your kids or whatever. I wanna just give you a little insight. At the end of the talk, what I'm gonna do is I'm going to ask you to stand up for the one quality that you need to develop most. So as we go through this, I want you to listen and say of these three, transparency or empathy or consistency, which one needs the most development in your leadership so you can create the necessary culture of trust to do what you're called to do. So let's break them down and then you listen for your one. We're gonna start with what I call transparency, a truth to share. As leaders, you must be transparent and share truth. And the problem is that most of us, because of our insecurities and because of our fears, most of us are selective or even protective about what we share. In fact, I was taught by a mentor of mine. If you don't know, I am a pastor and I had a pastor mentor and he taught me to guard what he called, I love this name, he called it the pastor's mystique. That's just cool. Pastor's mystique.

It sounds like a body spray for a 14-year-old. The pastor's mystique, right? And so what he did was he said, like, as a pastor, you've got to appear just a little bit above everybody and you've got to be strong and you can't show your weakness, which is really easy for us as pastors because what you don't know is once we're ordained, we glow in the dark. Amy loves it. I turn the lights on and boo! The lights go off and then we glow. on the door, and things like lights for us when we're pulling up to a traffic light, they just turn green, my Bible hovers above, it's amazing the things, and I'm telling you that, obviously joking, we are all incredibly frail, we're all insecure, we all have weaknesses, yet as leaders, we feel this pressure to often show something that we're really not. I still get so nervous, I'm like, I'm nervous as I can be today. I used to always throw up before I'd speak, and you'll tell you, I just like, and I'd vomit in a bucket, and then I'd come out and say, God is good, right after I made my offering in a bucket of praise, you know, and so, I'm just, I'm being honest with you, and the good news is, I don't throw up in a bucket anymore. I just sit over in my seat, I throw up in my mouth,

close it, I swallow it, and I'm good to go. Is that too transparent? To create trust, you have a truth to transparently share, both professionally and even personally, and let me say it again, leaders, both professionally and personally, we have to be transparent. What's interesting, I've noticed, for me, is I tend to feel like being least transparent when things aren't going well. Like, how's the church going? Oh, praise the Lord, good, that sucks. You know, I don't wanna talk about how it's really going when things aren't going well, and especially with my team, because I don't want them to worry. But here's what I've noticed. If I hold back on communication, because I don't want them to worry, whenever communication decreases, uncertainty increases. And what I've noticed with our leaders today is when something is unknown, the unknown feels unsettling at best and threatening at worst. And so what do you do when you're leading something and the news is not good? There's bad news. What if the news is bad and you don't want to rattle your team? I always tell myself this, that it's better to disappoint your team with a hard truth

than to deceive them with a lie. It's better to be honest about where you are when where you are isn't where you wanna be than it is to deceive them by making them think something that isn't true at all. In fact, it may be counterintuitive, but when you actually tell the truth and acknowledge what they already know, you do not lose trust, but you build trust. And if you don't acknowledge that there's a problem in the room, you have no idea how much credibility you're losing by not telling the truth. Because if your team doesn't know and then discovers, they won't feel included. And I would say it this way, that someone who doesn't feel like they're a part will never bring their whole heart. Now, I know that rhymes and it's kind of cheesy. I try not to make it rhyme, but I do it all the time. It just happens. But don't lose the power of it. If they don't feel like they're in the know, if they don't feel like they're a part, they don't have the ability to consistently bring their whole heart. And so we wanna do this professionally. Here's where we are. Even when things aren't going well, I would say especially when things aren't going well,

you acknowledge it. If you don't, you lose a ton of credibility. And then you also want to be very transparent personally. And I would say with wisdom and strategic transparency personally, because honestly, goodness, true story, I heard a leader come into a room one time and say, oh, my hemorrhoids are flared up, so if I'm standing funny, it's because of my hemorrhoids. Don't do that, okay? Don't do that. Keep that as a prayer request between your prayer friends. That's not what I'm talking about. But what I, just don't wanna say that, but what I am talking about is doing a little bit of what I did when I told you that I am actually ridiculously nervous today because I really care about you and I wanna do a good job. You need to do that, to open up occasionally about your own weaknesses as a leader, about your own fears, and even about your own insecurities. For example, I'll share with you something that's not easy for me to share, but the challenges of the COVID season, man, it is hard on all of us, right? I mean, like, would you? Please, somebody just like nod really big

so I don't feel alone. Can we just like cry together? It was really, really, really, really hard. And it shook a lot of my confidence. I feel like I couldn't do anything right. I mean, you got these people like going, if you're not wearing a mask, you're gonna kill the world. And the other half of my church was like, if you make us wear a mask, you don't have faith and you're going to hell. You know, going, I think I care and I have no faith and I'm dying and I'm probably going to hell. You know, I couldn't get anything right. And then one of the most painful things that I'd ever endured in leadership hit me when a couple of leaders that I trusted stopped trusting in me and didn't give me the benefit of the doubt and became critical. And I can't tell you what it did to my confidence. It's like, I'm the Craig Rochelle leadership guy. I'm the opening talk to UN guy. And I want to quit because I can't even make a decision. And then when I make a decision, I'm hedging. And the quality of my leadership went from, if it was a seven, it went down to like a two. And so here's what I did. It was so difficult to do, to stand in front of the most amazing staff of people who have given their lives for the greatest cause on earth

and to look at them and say, will you please forgive me? I failed you and I have not led well. And it was like, I mean, you know, sometimes you get emotional, like you're watching a chick flick and you're trying not to show it. You're like, oh, football. You know, like, I'm not crying, whatever. You get that little kind of emotional. And then there's the, what I just call like gross, ugly, I hope no one's videoing this cry. I just, I broke down like that and just cried and cried. And I sobbed and I just apologized. And I told our team something that is, it's like the, to me, it's like the unforgivable sin as a leader. I said, I've been leading out of fear and not by faith. Because here's the deal. Some of you have been there. You can hold the score down with good defense, but you never win anything unless you put points on the board. You don't win anything. The moment you start leading defensively is the moment you start losing everything in leadership. You have to have faith. You have to have faith. And so I just, I sat there and I, like, I literally, Amy will tell you, it's like, she's like, oh, let me comfort you, let me comfort you.

Here's your teddy bear. You know, I just, it was ugly, ugly, ugly cry. And I apologized to my team. And my honesty, listen to me, it did not cost me credibility. It built trust. It built trust. The transparency of even showing weakness built trust. Why? Because people may be impressed by your strengths, but they connect with your weaknesses. You know that, right? Like you're impressed with that lady that comes into the office and she's got everything right and her hair always looks good and she has all the right answers and she's always getting promoted and she's the smartest one there and you hate her, right? And then you found out that her life's falling apart. You go, I love her, she's just like me, right? Isn't that weird? Because you may be impressed with what they got, but you connect with who they are. And so if you tell your team, hey, you know, things aren't going great, you start to build trust along the way and you're transparent and you lead with raw transparency, what happens in your organization? Three things happen when you lead with transparency.

Let me tell you what happens. When you lead with transparency, teams get closer, you solve problems faster and trust grows stronger. The moment you start to open up and bring your whole heart, sometimes as leaders, you'll say like, why don't they think like I think? Have you ever thought that? They don't think like they think because they don't see what you see. If they don't see what you see, they won't know what you know. If they don't know what you know, they can't think like you think. So if you help them to know what you know, they can think like you think, they can care like you care, and teams get closer, and you solve problems faster, and trust grows stronger. To build a culture of trust, because leader, you need to understand, they don't naturally trust you now, and it's not gonna happen by accident. You have to lead with transparency. You have a truth to share. Some of you, that's your one. You need to be more transparent. The end of the talk, you'll declare, transparently and publicly before everybody, I need to grow in that area.

The second thing to build a culture of trust is that you need empathy. You need a heart to care. You need a heart to care. Why does this matter? Because your team will never care about your mission if you don't care about your team. They will never, ever, ever give their lives to a cause if they're not led by someone who cares about their lives. So to build trust, what we tend to think as a leader is we tend to think, well, I gotta prove my leadership power to them. I've gotta let them know that I'm smart and that I'm talented and that my vision is good and that I'm competent as a leader. It's counterintuitive, but the opposite is true. To build trust, you actually talk less and listen more. To build trust, you don't share what's on your heart as much as you get to know what's on their heart. Dr. Cloud writes about this in his book, Trust. He talks about connecting with someone that when you think you're gonna talk your way into them trusting you, you don't talk your way into it, you listen your way into it when they know that you care about them. So what I did when I recognized that culturally we had less trust in our organization than ever before, we have 63 top-level leaders. There's 45 campus pastors. That's a pastor that's over 45 different churches

in our organization. And then we have another group of what's called central group leaders that oversee the different ministries and organizations. There's 63 of them, and so I had 63 personal meetings or phone calls because what I needed to do is I needed to care for them personally. This was not one-on-63 top leaders. This was one-on-one. And I talked to them or met with them or called them, took an extraordinary amount of time, and I asked them questions. I'm gonna give you an example of the questions I asked them. It wasn't like, how's it going in your ministry? And what's your biggest problem you're trying to solve in your ministry? I asked them things like this. Hey, can you tell me what you're most excited about in this season, personally, what's going on in your life? I asked them, what would you love for me to know about you that I've never asked before? I asked them, hey, if I could do one thing to make your life better, what would it be? To really build trust, we don't talk more. We ask more, and we listen more. And I wanna tell you, when your team tells you something that's personal, I mean, like, put it in your memory bank. Write it down somewhere. And the next time you see them,

ask them about their four-year-old that they're worried about. Ask them about how they're doing when they lost their mother. Ask them about something that matters to them. Why? Because you don't just care about what they do, but you care about who they are. That's what sets you apart and sets your team apart. To show that you care, it would be summarized with four words. I notice, and you matter. I notice, and you matter. Just for fun, wherever you're sitting, would you look at the person sitting next to you and just say, I noticed you came ready today. Tell them what you do matters. Tell them what you do matters. Now what I want you to do is I want you to look at the other person, your second choice. Your second choice, tell them you matter, too. You matter, too. The talk you're going to hear after mine is going to rock your world. The talk. You're gonna hear after mine's gonna rock your world. You know why? Because Erin, who's gonna give the talk afterwards, was up here last night obsessing over the slides. Change this here, and this needs to go there,

and how are they gonna do this, and on and on and on and on. Listen, what I see in her is someone who cares so much about you that she was obsessing about the details. If I want her to trust me, I'm not gonna tell, I'm doing the opening talk, I hope you're there for it. But I notice how much you're investing in this, and your care, your concern matters. So what you do is you tell her, hey, I noticed that you stayed late, and I noticed that you're setting the standard around here, and I noticed that you put in a lot of extra effort, and this place wouldn't be the same. I notice, and you matter. This works in your marriage, too. I noticed you got your hair done today. Oh, you didn't? Well, it looks like you did. And then the next day, I notice you, oh, you didn't? Well, it looks like you did. Because to build trust, it's not about you looking good, it's about you loving well. I always love it when my mom starts the applause. They're not gonna naturally trust us today. There's more skepticism. So we have to lead with transparency. We have a truth to share.

We have to lead with empathy. We have a heart to care. And then leaders, you're gonna have to build trust, you're gonna have to lead with consistency, and also, you're gonna have to build trust. You're gonna have to build trust in the people that you trust. You're gonna have to build trust and consistency in order to build a culture that people trust. Consistency, a culture to trust. I'm curious, how many of you have ever served under a leader that was very sporadic and inconsistent? Raise your hands, raise your hands, okay. Okay, don't point at them. That's not kind, we're gonna be loving it right now. Almost every hand goes up. So what does that tell me? That tells me if most of them are inconsistent, odds are I might be as well. As Dr. Cloud asked, what's it like to be on the other side of you? All right, let me ask you this way. Do you think your team ever wonders which you is gonna walk into a meeting? Right? I mean, some of them are gonna tell you like, oh yeah, we got Hummingbird, you. Oh, it's gonna be a good day. Oh, we're gonna think they're good.

It's Hummingbird, Hummingbird. Oh, this is so much fun. And then sometimes they're Seagull, you, Seagull. You swoop in, you poop on everyone in the room and you fly away. Right? You think your team ever wonders which you is gonna walk on their own? Because some of you, you've got a different mood for every meeting. You have a different plan every time you meet. You have a different plan every time you meet. I'll never forget this. You have a different plan every time you meet. You have a different plan every time you meet. You have a different plan every week. You have a different direction every quarter. And that's why one of the best strategies to build trust is to lead with consistency. Be consistent with your expectations. Do you know why most team members don't meet your expectations? Here's why. The number one reason team members don't meet expectations is because the expectations are rarely clear. Oh, you got so quiet. It's like I'm talking about your boss sitting right next to you right now and you're afraid to breathe. Don't breathe, just look forward.

Act like you don't know what I'm talking about. All right? Because to build a great organization, to create a culture of trust, to fulfill an important mission, you wanna be clear, be clear, and be consistent. And when you are, let me show you what happens. I'll give you a whole talk in three statements. If you apply these three statements, this will be worth your entire time at the Global Leadership Summit. This is not an overstatement. If you do this, it will change your organization. Ready? Be clear what you expect. Reward it when you see it and correct it when you don't. Boom! Mind-blowing. If you are. consistently clear on the outcomes that you expect for your team to create, and you reward it when they do it, great job, here's a bonus, here's a raise, here's time off, here's applause, here's a celebration, and you correct it when you don't, and you're consistent about it, you will see trust grow and results flow in. The problem is most of us are inconsistent, and you know inconsistency doesn't work anywhere else in your life whatsoever.

Those of you that are spiritual by nature, you've never heard someone say, I went to church two times last year, and I'm closer to God than ever before. That's some of you, we call you a CEO Christian, that stands for Christmas and Easter only, what it stands for, and I'm thriving spiritually, and I just can't, it doesn't work. Nobody ever says like, I worked out four times last month, and I set a record of the all you can eat buffet, and I've got abs of steel, you don't say that, you don't say that, in your marriage, you don't ever say like, yeah, I try to tell the truth, like I probably tell the truth like 65% of the time, and so we're just thriving, we just can't keep up, stay away from each other, we love each other so much, no. No, write this down, when it comes to building trust, it's not what you do occasionally that matters, it's what you do consistently. It's not what you do occasionally that matters, it's what you do consistently, and some of you are gonna say, but you know, hey, like, but consistency's like boring. I'm way more creative than that. I'm way more exciting than that. I was at a place one time, very true story, and they introduced me, and they said, Craig Rochelle's the most boring leader who's ever lived, and everybody was like offended by it, and he said he eats the same thing every morning,

a little oatmeal with 12 blueberries, and he wears the same shirt to work, and he works out at the same time, he's the most boring leader ever, and everybody was devastated. I walked up as happy as could be, because the best leadership is boring leadership. I tried to write a book on this, I wanted to call it Boring Your Way to Success. I honestly did, my publisher said no. I proposed Boring is the New Sexy. They said no to that as well. Like, if you asked me, like, hey, what's new at Life.Church? I'd be like, nothing. What's new, what's your new venture? Nothing. Same mission. Same values. Same plan. Heck, if you've been here for a while, my people tell you the same sermons. You do better, like, every time I read the Bible, David beats Goliath. Noah builds an ark. And every Easter, the tomb is empty. I mean, one year you come in like, he's still there, it just doesn't work, you know. It's not what you do occasionally that builds trust, it's what you do consistently. It's what you do consistently.

What does consistency create? Consistency creates emotional safety. I know I'm safe here, I can trust where they're going. Consistency creates organizational clarity. We know who we are, we know what we're about. Consistency creates exponential impact because we're consistently doing the right things over a period of time. The future of leadership, listen to me when I tell you, is trust. And if they don't trust you, they will not follow you. And they naturally trust you less today than they did before. So, back to my opening question. As a leader, do you trust me? And if you say yes, why? And in my mind, as I prepared this talk, I assumed that many of you would not be as trusting today as you would have been before. And so let's review our three things and you can try to work on which one is yours. Transparency plus empathy plus consistency equals trust. So since I assumed that by nature, because of where society is today, you might not trust me, I knew that I had to be a little bit transparent with you. And so what I did was I opened up and I told you I am actually insecure. And I told you a story that is one of my most embarrassing leadership moments because it wasn't just a mistake, it was a bad season of insecure leadership.

I was transparent with you. And I showed empathy along the way by telling you, it's incredibly difficult to do what you do, it's more difficult to lead today now than it ever has been before. And then what I wanna do is like honest to goodness, I just wanna be consistent. Meaning, when we started the Craig Rochelle Leadership Podcast nine years ago, first Thursday of every month, it's gonna be about 20 minutes, gusting up to 25 minutes. It continues, it's just like clockwork. This is my sixth year to have the unbelievable, indescribable honor of doing the opening talk for the conference that changed my life and leadership. And so, thank you. When I tell you, that I started working on this talk two years ago, 10 months ago, it's because I started working on it 10 months ago. And I'm already working on next year because I wanna do everything I can to consistently value you by adding something that helps you get better. Because I believe in you. I believe what you do matters. So what I wanna do is I wanna ask you, which one is your one? Where do you need to grow in your leadership?

And you're gonna ask, how do I build trust? How do I build trust with others? Let me fundamentally tell you this, that to earn trust, you have to give trust. You have to give it. And what you're gonna do is you're gonna ask, well, how do I know if I can trust this person? How many of you have ever wondered that? You got so many, are they ready for it? How do I know if I can trust them? You're gonna wanna write this down because this is a revolution. How do I know if I can trust them? Write this down. The best way to figure out if you can trust someone is to trust them. There it is. And that's the truth. You're gonna have to take a risk on people, just like someone took a risk on you. Because you didn't get where you are when you were good, you were sucking at some point in your leadership. But you learned and grew as you lived. How do you know if you can trust someone, you're gonna have to trust them? But what if they let you down? And let me just tell you, some of them will, some of the time, it's gonna happen. But remember this, you may be disappointed if you trust too much,

but you'll always limit your leadership if you don't trust enough. Some of you, the greatest limiting factor to the future of your leadership is your lack of trust in the people around you. If you have to do it all, listen to me, if you have to do it all, either you're too proud, or you're not surrounding yourself with the right people. Because when you have the right people around you, and you trust them, they'll end up doing it better than you, and together, you'll do something incredibly special. So I'm gonna ask you, if you will, at all of our sites, to stand when I get to your one. Which is your one? And by the end of this time, I hope everybody's standing. How many of you need to grow in your transparency? Stand to your feet. How many of you need to grow in empathy? Showing your heart. How many need to grow in your consistency? Stand to your feet. As you remain standing all over the room, I want you to think about what you're learning, take it home, and put it into application. And I asked you the wrong question when I started. I wanna confess. I asked you, do you trust me? That's the wrong question. The right question is this, do I trust you?

And what I wanna do right now is I wanna tell you more than you can imagine, I trust you, I believe in you. I believe in you, I believe in you, I believe in you. I believe in you with all my heart. I believe that every single one of you, that you are not here by accident, but by the design of one whose power is greater and love for you is deeper than you could imagine. And people will let you down, including me, but if you trust me enough to hear this, I wanna tell you, just for a moment, about a God who never will. That you can actually, according to a verse in the Bible, trust in the Lord with all of your heart and lean not on your own understanding, but in all your ways, acknowledge him, and he will make your path straight. Amen, amen. Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! So I believe in you. I trust you. I love you. I believe you'll make a difference. I believe you can be a bright light in a dark world. I believe you'll confront injustices and you'll right wrongs. I believe you can build stronger and more ethical businesses. I believe you can build more passion and God-honoring churches. I believe that you have the courage to stand up when others back down and I believe you will get better because everyone wins when the leader gets better.