006-Rebuilding Trust When You’ve Messed Up

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Key Points Discussed in the Episode 
• Every action, reaction, and decision stems from an underlying need
• Psychology confirms behavior is purposeful, not random or purely oppositional
• Instead of labeling behavior as good/bad, ask what need it expresses
• Two key questions to ask: What might this person need? How can I support constructively?
• Leaders create stronger teams by understanding people, not just managing tasks
• DISC assessments help teams understand behavioral tendencies and style preferences
• Self-awareness allows us to recognize our own needs driving our behaviors
• Three action steps: shift to curiosity, lead with empathy, reflect on your own needs

AI-generated dictation of the podcast audio

Please note that this transcription was completed using AI software.  Occasionally, unanticipated grammatical, syntax, homophones, and other interpretive errors are inadvertently transcribed by the software. Please excuse any errors that have escaped final proofreading.

Katie Trotter: 0:02

And that’s why it’s so important for us to remember that leadership doesn’t require perfection.

Adam Salgat: 0:10

Welcome to Beyond the Class from knowledge to action, the audio cast that helps Chapman Foundation alumni continue the journey of applying the skills they’ve built and turning them into practical, intentional actions for everyday life. Built and turning them into practical, intentional actions for everyday life. I’m your host, adam Salga, and today we’re talking about something every leader faces messing up, whether it’s a misstep in communication, a decision that didn’t land well or a moment of missed connection. Mistakes happen, but what can separate good leaders from the great ones is how they respond. Joining me today is Katie Trotter, chief Program Officer at the Chapman Foundation. Katie, welcome back.

Katie Trotter: 0:53

Thanks, Adam. I’m really excited to be here and looking forward to talking about this topic. It’s one that applies to every leader, every human, because we’re all familiar with that moment of messing up.

Adam Salgat: 1:06

Absolutely are, and it’s typically not a very fun moment. So let’s get through ways that we can make it a learning opportunity, right?

Katie Trotter: 1:15

Absolutely.

Adam Salgat: 1:16

So, as a leader you mentioned in your blog, you say that leadership carries weight. It’s more than making decisions or holding a title. It’s about influence. Can you expand on that for me?

Katie Trotter: 1:29

Yes, leaders set the tone in any environment that they’re in, and they are constantly modeling what they have for their expectations, and we do this in the way that we show up each day. It includes things like our attitude or the level of preparedness that we show up each day. It includes things like our attitude or the level of preparedness that we have when we enter into a space. We also do it in how we communicate, the way that we might react or respond to different teammates. All of these small moments are constantly shaping the cultures around us, whether we’re leading within a team or a family or even just a group of volunteers that have just met. All of these actions, as leader, carries influence. Now, sometimes, what you see are leaders who are really intentional about those small moments, and that type of intentional leadership really fosters trust and collaboration.

Katie Trotter: 2:20

It helps to create environments where people feel safe, seen and motivated. It helps to create environments where people feel safe, seen and motivated, and some of us are in a space where we might be leading a really large group of people. It might be a huge organization or a large group. Some people are even leading on the global stage, but it doesn’t have to be the case for everyone. All of us have the opportunity to impact and influence those smaller cultures around us, and that’s really what we want to focus on. How do we use intention and influence so that we’re impacting people through our choices and our responses and really just the way we carry our presence?

Adam Salgat: 2:58

You mentioned there about this being small, intentional actions and even if you are leading a global company, your interactions are still personal, right? So kind of that ripple effect of those smaller interactions lead to global change or large-scale change at times.

Katie Trotter: 3:17

That’s a great point, right. You’re having these small interactions that impact a small group of people that then go out into different groups and, yes, I love that, that idea of that ripple effect.

Adam Salgat: 3:27

One of my favorite phrases from your blog is chronically human. What does that mean in context to leadership? And give me a little more meaning around it also.

Katie Trotter: 3:37

Yes, I love that term and I mentioned previously that a leader sets the tone, models expectations and really helps to shape the culture, and that’s why it’s so important for us to remember that leadership doesn’t require perfection. In fact, all of us are going to have some off days or a bad day. We don’t really show up the way that we wanted to, and when we just try to pretend like we have it all together in those moments, that can actually sometimes get in the way of our ability to connect with others. Some of the best leaders I’ve seen are really able to embrace their full humanity right, both their strengths and also their blind spots or growth opportunities. I love this concept of being chronically human because it means that we have to acknowledge how complex human beings are. We carry with us our gifts, our creativity and our insights, but all of those beautiful, wonderful things live alongside our pride and our fear and those mistakes that we make. But the more honest we can be with ourselves, the more connected and authentic our leadership can become.

Adam Salgat: 4:47

That is such a great reminder of everything that we carry as a human. So that is why I really connected with the idea of chronically human. Right, we can’t get away from the great stuff, we can’t get away from the difficult stuff. So let’s talk a little bit more about what happens when we do mess up.

Adam Salgat: 5:05

I want to bring up and try to illustrate a graphic that I saw on Instagram. It’s a simple drawing and at the top it read how much you learn. Then below it there’s three outline drawings of the human brain. The first brain, all the way to the left, is colored in about 25%, from the bottom up, and under it it’s written from theory, implying that how much we learn is roughly 25% from theory. The second brain is colored in about 50% and says from practice. And lastly, the third brain is colored in about 85% and says from mistakes, implying that how much we learn is often done so through the mistakes that we make. So when you see a graphic like that, katie, tell me a little bit about how it makes you feel, and can you talk about that concept?

Katie Trotter: 6:00

That’s such a great visual to keep in mind, adam. I think that oftentimes when we first experience a mistake, we get so caught up in why it was wrong how did we do that? How do we maybe even cover it up or be defensive about it, when, really, if we can shift it to look at mistakes as a learning opportunity? I feel like that image could be plastered among a lot of different offices and home spaces for people as a great reminder.

Adam Salgat: 6:25

Yeah, I felt like it was a really solid reminder. It’s why I wanted to bring it up in this discussion. So when we start thinking about when we mess up, know that we can learn from it. We can get better from it. In your blog, you state that avoiding accountability, however, erodes trust. So if we make that mistake and we avoid the accountability, I imagine first of all we’re missing opportunities for growth and then, on top of that, we’re eroding trust. What does accountability look like in this kind of practice? What do we need to?

Katie Trotter: 6:57

do, adam? Every leader does make mistakes. And guess what? Everyone on your team knows that you are human.

Katie Trotter: 7:07

So if you’re never taking accountability, if you’re never owning up, it’s not that people are assuming you’re perfect, right. It leaves them wondering, or there being some uncertainty, or, as you mentioned, some of that distrust starts to build. So it’s not that we’re trying to be perfect, it’s that we’re wanting to be intentional about how we respond in those moments where we’re not perfect. And when we do avoid that accountability and it starts to erode that trust, right, it really starts to break down that team dynamic and seep into the culture, whereas, on the flip side, if we can really step into owning our missteps, modeling some of that humility and clarity can really start making some space for repair and that rebuilding of trust. All of that starts with first acknowledging the impact of our actions, and the goal is not to do that with a sense of shame or guilt, but really with that honesty To your point, adam, from that image, to be owning that growth opportunity. What did I learn from this? And being able to have conversations around that?

Adam Salgat: 8:05

We’ve talked a lot about theory here a little bit, but, as we like to do here on the audio cast, can we get a real life example from you, where maybe something you lived or you know someone who’s lived it, and can we step through that a little bit?

Katie Trotter: 8:17

If I heard you right, you’re asking me to share when I’ve messed up.

Adam Salgat: 8:20

Oh yeah, I guess that’s another way to put it, yeah that’s right.

Katie Trotter: 8:25

Yeah, luckily I am not perfect, so I do have a few examples we could pull from.

Adam Salgat: 8:28

Well, tell me more about that.

Katie Trotter: 8:30

We don’t have enough time in the podcast, but one example that I can give is when I was leading a large group project.

Katie Trotter: 8:38

It had a lot of moving pieces, a lot of different team members were all involved and at the particular time that we were working on this project, I had a lot of extra transition and stress that was happening. I had really stepped back and different team members were taking ownership, making decisions, driving things forward, and it felt like everything was moving along very comfortably and efficiently. Right as the event was getting to be coming up on my calendar right, it’s the next week I’m seeing it crop up. All of a sudden I had a moment of oh, this is happening really quickly. I really wish that I’d stayed more engaged, I wish I knew more of the details and, without giving a pause, I hopped onto my email, started shooting off messages you can appreciate this, adam Friday afternoon asking for all of these details that I’m pretty sure were provided in previous emails and communications that I probably missed in my hurry, kind of just creating this sense of urgency and chaos for other team members.

Adam Salgat: 9:38

Yeah, so it sounds like you’re definitely in a state of heightened emotion, so your logic’s a little bit out the window. What can you do and that’s what we’re going to step into now is five steps to repair and rebuild trust, and this sounds like step number one in your story. Here is a great spot to start, so tell us what step number one is and go from there.

Katie Trotter: 9:59

So step one is regulating your emotions, just taking that moment to calm your nervous system so that you’re able to really engage with clarity. You can’t learn anything if you’re so focused on feeling shame and guilt or defensiveness that really takes up so much of your energy towards something that’s not going to be helpful or productive.

Adam Salgat: 10:20

You mentioned about taking that deep breath. I know Misty Jenks, our CEO, and a prior audio cast mentioned that that is a great way, like scientifically, to get your body to start to calm. Have you ever heard that? And then any other tips that you might have, even personal ones, that you do, to reach that state of calm, to get those emotions regulated?

Katie Trotter: 10:42

Yeah, I know there are some people who really find it helpful to go for a short walk just to kind of have some of that physical energy out of their body. I do not have the science behind this, adam, but for me I like to remind myself that those emotions that I’m feeling, the shame, the guilt, the feelings of inadequacy, whatever those might be just reminding myself, those aren’t helping me become the leader that I want to be, and so that reframe sometimes allows me to just get out of that stuck space and be thinking about what I want to do next.

Adam Salgat: 11:12

Okay, so thinking about what you want to do next, let’s move on to step number two, step number three, and then do your best to kind of continue along your story and your example.

Katie Trotter: 11:24

So step number two is naming the behavior. This is the opportunity for us to be really honest about what happened. And again, this is not about staying in all those crappy feelings. It’s really about how do we take ownership in this space. So for me, it was being able to articulate I know that I sent email communication without any context about why I was asking those questions.

Katie Trotter: 11:47

The timing of when it was sent was very inconvenient for all the people who’d been working so hard on the project. Now, when you look at the third step, this part’s really important and I think it often gets missed. And this is about naming the better choice, sharing what you wish you had done differently. And this shows a few different things for the person you’re talking to. One it shows growth. It shows that not only you realized you messed up, but that you see a better path forward. The other part that I like about it is that it kind of gives some accountability for down the road, they now know what to expect from you the next time something like this happens. So if I’ve already told you that I’m going to show up differently next time and what that will look like, I feel like that makes me feel a little bit more accountable to behaving differently in the next time.

Adam Salgat: 12:34

I think those are great reminders and I love the way that you stepped through both of those and they in your scenario. It sounds like what would that specific better choice for you? What would that look like?

Katie Trotter: 12:45

Well, I’d like to say that, ideally, what I would have said is that from the very beginning of the project, I would have stayed more engaged and followed along on the timeline, noting that there were some things in that moment that were outside, some things in that moment that were outside of my control that created that kind of last minute urgency. The better choice that I stated then was, hey, I should have picked up the phone to call, just so they could hear the tone, to understand why it was that I was asking for some information that may have come through earlier on that I might have missed, and then to give them a little bit of a head start on when I needed it by. Instead of this, I have all these questions period right. Really saying, even if I could get this by Sunday evening, it would be helpful when I’m traveling.

Adam Salgat: 13:24

That’s great, yeah, so I mean, you really look at the behavior and you choose. Okay, I can do this differently next time. We have two more steps to consider, though, here, and number four is engage in conversation, meet with the person impacted, approach with empathy and humility. In this particular case, I’m not sure if you needed to do this, but if you did tell me about it, if you went through that conversation, but if you didn’t talk a little bit about that piece and how you’d go about it.

Katie Trotter: 13:54

Yeah and Adam, before we even get to that part. One of the things that I think is helpful about step four is that sometimes, as leaders, we stop after three because it’s all things that we can do internally in our head. So for me, I definitely could have been hey, step one. I have all of these feelings, but I’ve noticed that I’ve messed up. I’ve got myself calmed down. I, in all of my great leadership, growth and opportunities right, take time to reflect on that specific behavior internally, think about what I want to do differently next time, and then I stop Because in my mind I’ve learned from my mistake, I have a new path forward, but what would be really uncomfortable is admitting my mistake to the other person.

Adam Salgat: 14:35

That’s a good point.

Katie Trotter: 14:37

So step four is really important because it is about bringing the other person in, and this is where the trust starts to get rebuilt.\

Katie Trotter: 14:43

I want to meet with the people I sent that email to, whether it’s over the phone or, ideally, in person, just to say, hey, here’s the behavior that I did, here’s how I want to show up differently and I have to be open to hearing what they have to say about that, which leads into step five, which is really in that conversation and that engaging, listening to understand their perspective, using those reflective listening skills that I know, adam, we teach in classes and you’ve talked about on other audio casts as well, because sometimes what happens is that the way that I’m trying to correct my behavior is not something that they would actually appreciate, or maybe I thought that they were feeling some way based on my mistake and I didn’t get it quite right. So four and five are kind of this gap, great trust-building activity where we get to learn more about the other person’s experience with our mistake and we can find a new path forward together.

Adam Salgat: 15:36

I love that reminder about it being a conversation also because I immediately kind of thought about this being confrontation and your need to be able to confront them about something that you did yourself. But it’s a reminder for everybody out there Confrontation is always a conversation. That’s our hope, right.

Katie Trotter: 15:55

It’s such a great reminder.

Adam Salgat: 15:56

When we think about these five tips. Obviously, with a lot of the things that we teach, we talk about the ability to take them outside of the workplace, right? So this is a model that works anywhere. It applies to personal relationships too.

Katie Trotter: 16:11

Absolutely. I would love to say that mistakes are just kept in one environment, but part of that being chronically human means we’re making mistakes all the time in all different environments and, adam, I could actually give you a great example on that one, if we have time.

Adam Salgat: 16:25

Yeah, I’d love to hear a personal example. Those are always poignant for our listeners, I believe.

Katie Trotter: 16:30

So I have two daughters at home are always poignant for our listeners, I believe. So I have two daughters at home, nine and 16 right now, and they were very animated and sharing with me kind of like a big story that had lots of emotion behind it and discussion and excitement. And I was in one of those very unfortunate distracted modes. I was still thinking about that work project that I had going on, the phone dinged, and instead of waiting I caught my eyes kind of diverting, you know all of the things and just not showing up the way that I want to as a parent. And in that moment I looked up and saw just the dejected looks on both of their faces, just kind of this sense of not feeling heard or important. And in that moment, right, I think as a parent sometimes I shouldn’t speak for other parents. I will say for me.

Katie Trotter: 17:18

Sometimes I can feel this defensiveness rise up, like the temptation is, they should know that I was busy in that moment when they came to share. Why couldn’t they wait until it was a better time? But that again is me not choosing to use that learning opportunity. Right, I’m not going to become a better leader or a better parent by always dismissing those moments. So you go through all the steps right, you’re figuring out what behavior it is and you have an opportunity to say to your kids what I did in the moment, which was just I am so sorry. That is not how I wanted to respond when you were sharing this story with me. Could we try it again? That is not how I wanted to respond when you were sharing this story with me. Could we try it again? And I think for me it was more important for me to model for them. Here’s what it looks like when you mess up. Here’s a new path forward.

Adam Salgat: 18:02

What I hear you explaining right at the end. There is the opportunity for you to show some action and in that case you have the opportunity to do it immediately, to kind of show them. This is how I should have the opportunity to do it immediately to kind of show them. This is how I can do. This is how I should have been listening to you or how I could have been listening to you. That’s not always going to be the case when we need to show action. But talk a little bit about that. Next step right is what are the actions we’re going to take to show this behavior change?

Katie Trotter: 18:29

It’s such a great point to bring up Adam because I could get really good at apologizing and never change my behavior right. And if I just keep saying sorry that I wasn’t listening, sorry that I was distracted, sorry that I didn’t show up for you, that trust is never going to rebuild and that connection’s never going to be there. So this action step is really important. It means that the next time they come to me with something that they want to share, or the next time back to my work example I find myself kind of last minute stressed and I’m tempted to shoot off that Friday afternoon email. It means that I’m going to pause and choose to act differently in the moment. And those are the moments that are so critically important. Those are the moments that are so critically important.

Adam Salgat: 19:10

I think it’s a great reminder also to say you can realize in the moment that even if I can’t adjust my behavior directly right now, I can ask for change from them to say can I have five minutes so I can give you undivided attention?

Katie Trotter: 19:25

Oh, that’s great. I think I might write that one down to use later, Adam.

Adam Salgat: 19:29

Oh, I’m sure you’ve used it before. I might write that one down to use later. Adam, oh, I’m sure you’ve used it before. Well, Katie, thank you so much for taking the time today to talk to us about leadership and rebuilding trust when we make a mistake. Can you give me a level up opportunity for our listeners out there?

Katie Trotter: 19:48

Yeah, I’d encourage people to think about a moment where they’ve messed up or maybe caused harm, whether it was intentional or not, and, instead of avoiding it, really take a minute to ask what’s one step that you’re going to take to repair and rebuild trust.

Adam Salgat: 20:03

I love that. So go back and listen to our five steps there and then also consider what are the actions you’re going to take after stepping through those pieces. Consider what are the actions you’re going to take after stepping through those pieces. So, katie, if an organization is looking to continue to improve their leadership, what do we offer outside of?

Katie Trotter: 20:20

our foundational classes. We have a variety of different learning sessions that are available for organizations that want to continue on with this work. So things like we covered today how to be an awesome leader even when you mess up, but we also have a variety of other topics around workplace culture how to build psychological safety and trust within your team and how to navigate the change process. Those are just a few examples.

Adam Salgat: 20:44

If you’d like to get in touch with us on those, there is a link in the description of this audio cast that will lead you directly to our speaker page. You can fill out the form. Katie, thank you so much for being a part of our audio cast today.

Katie Trotter: 20:57

Thanks for having me, Adam. It’s always a pleasure.

Adam Salgat: 21:00

To our listeners. If this episode resonated with you, share it with a colleague or a friend, and don’t forget to subscribe. Until next time, we’re inviting you to walk your path with intention. Intention, because you are the message. Take care, my friends.