As I continue to walk alongside leaders who are leading corporate organizations, nonprofits, cities, churches, families, and everything in between, I find it important to name that what worked before is no longer working.
But maybe the answer isn’t simply to find a better way to lead. Maybe we also have to ask: What kind of people, and what kind of communities, are we becoming?
We can’t create healthy communities through unhealthy ways of being.
We want choice and autonomy. We celebrate independence and self-sufficiency. We desire power and control. And yet, when the going gets tough, we can be quick to blame, complain, and abdicate our responsibility.
I’ve been thinking a lot about how my own thoughts, words, and actions can create walls where there should be bridges—unintentionally and even unconsciously.
There was a time when our default was innocent until proven guilty. Trust extended freely until it was broken. We recognized our weaknesses and appreciated the gifts of others. We asked for help rather than suffering in silence. We assumed positive intent.
These are the practices of a healthy community. And, increasingly, that’s not who we are.
So as leaders, what do we do with that?
I had a client recently say to me, “I long for civility and a process that allows voices to be heard.”
I grieve what has become our cultural norm, and yet I remain hopeful.
Because we can embody the change we seek. We can confront misinformation and distrust directly. And we can help people remember what unity and community look and feel like again.
We don’t get to wait for the environment to become healthy before we choose to lead in healthy ways.
Be a person of unity.
Being—or becoming—a person of unity is not a matter of personality. It is an invitation to develop your character. Ask yourself:
- Am I contributing to connection or division?
- Do my words create curiosity or certainty?
- Do I make it safer for people to tell the truth—even when the truth is uncomfortable?
- Am I seeking to understand before I seek to correct?
- Do I talk about people when I could talk with them?
- When I disagree, do I still communicate dignity and respect?
- Have I left room for the possibility that I might be wrong?
Then practice three things:
Pursue truth: Don’t allow misinformation to become the foundation of decisions. Slow down. Verify. Ask better questions. Name what is known, unknown, and assumed.
Build trust: Trust isn’t built by demanding that people trust us. It is built through consistency, transparency, humility, follow-through, and the willingness to have difficult conversations.
Choose togetherness: Don’t confuse unity with uniformity. Make room for different experiences, perspectives, and gifts while remaining committed to something bigger than ourselves.
Learn to distinguish misinformation from disagreement.
Not every difference of opinion is misinformation. Not every question is distrust. And not every disagreement needs to be resolved. But misinformation and distrust cannot simply be ignored and hoped away.
As leaders, we have to be willing to slow down the conversation and take the approach of pursuing what’s true together rather than giving an answer or issuing a directive.
Publicly navigating the questions below—and being willing to challenge our own perspective in the process—can be a powerful way to confront misinformation and help others do the same. It also builds trust.
- What do we actually know?
- How do we know it?
- What are we assuming?
- What information are we missing?
- Who might have a different perspective?
- What would change our minds?
- Where can we go together to find the truth?
Rebuild the muscles of being in community.
I believe we haven’t just lost trust. We’ve lost some of the practices that allow us to build trust, navigate differences, and learn to be in community with one another.
When it comes to leadership, we have to start by remembering what it means to be human—individually and together. We need to actively practice things like:
- Listening without immediately responding
- Asking for help
- Tolerating discomfort
- Disagreeing without withdrawing
- Repairing relationships after conflict
- Assuming the best while still addressing harm
- Acknowledging what we don’t know
- Celebrating someone else’s gifts
- Allowing someone else to lead
- Staying in relationship when agreement isn’t possible
Unity is not agreement. Community is not comfort. Trust is not the absence of questions.
We can embody the change we seek.
We can choose curiosity over certainty, relationship over division, truth over rumor, responsibility over blame, and authentic dialogue over surface-level conversation.
We can confront misinformation and distrust directly without becoming people of distrust ourselves.
And little by little, we can help one another remember what it feels like to belong—to be heard, to be known, to disagree and still remain connected, to need one another, and to be part of something larger than ourselves.
That is leadership, too.
Not simply leading people toward an outcome, but helping us remember how to be human together again.
Grit, Gratitude, and Grace 