Insights

Trust doesn’t form in milestones. It forms in moments. Microtrust is the accumulation of small, consistent actions that show reliability and care. It’s what signals to people that they matter long before recognition programs or engagement surveys ever do. Big gestures are memorable, but microtrust is what sustains relationships. It shows up in how you…

Transparency isn’t always trust. Sometimes it’s overload. Managers often equate transparency with sharing every detail. But transparency without clarity just creates noise. A Gartner-sponsored survey found that 38 percent of people feel they receive an “excessive” volume of communications, and of those who feel overloaded, only 6 percent say they are highly likely to remain…

Trust isn’t earned once. It’s exchanged daily. In every people–manager relationship, trust functions like currency. It fuels openness, feedback, and collaboration. But like real currency, it loses value quickly when actions and words don’t align. A Harvard Business Review study found that people working in high-trust organizations report 74 percent less stress, 50 percent higher…

A few years ago, I built a “Daily Points of Engagement” checklist to help managers stay intentional about the small actions that build trust and connection. You don’t need all ten to make a difference. Start with one. Engagement isn’t built in meetings or measured only in surveys. It’s built in the moments that fill…

It’s easy to think the traditional manager role is outdated. After all, 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐲, 𝐟𝐥𝐞𝐱𝐢𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐩𝐮𝐫𝐩𝐨𝐬𝐞, not oversight. 𝐁𝐮𝐭 𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐧’𝐭 𝐨𝐛𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐭𝐞. 𝐏𝐨𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐢𝐬. Many managers were promoted for performance, not people skills. Some simply aren’t suited for the role, while others could thrive with the right training and support. Either way,…

People don’t leave hard jobs. They leave miserable ones. Patrick Lencioni’s The Truth About Employee Engagement points to three quiet forces behind disengagement: feeling unseen, believing your work doesn’t matter, and not knowing if you’re succeeding. These same forces still surface in engagement surveys today. They rarely appear as “anonymity,” “irrelevance,” or “ immeasurability.” Instead,…