Truth-Telling

I’ve worked with Trisha Welstad, Leadership Center’s CEO & Founder, for about a decade. We met at a conference our previous company sent us to and became fast friends through a comedy of errors. Our work together wove in and out for a few years—helping with one-off projects, leading retreats, and developing programs—but ultimately, we were friends. In 2021, I left my job and came to work for Leadership Center. I had so much fun helping Leadership Center grow by building an infrastructure that could support our incredible team and services, each step clarified by our mission and vision and refined by our values.

One of those values is Truth-Telling. Truth-Telling at Leadership Center looks like a culture of integrity, clarity, and accountability that enables us to take informed, healing action. We are committed to communicating openly and authentically even when it's hard.

When you love the people you work with, it often doesn’t feel like work. But loving your team can also raise the stakes when it comes to practicing Truth-Telling. Trisha and I have a decade of friendship, and now more than ever, we’ve had to stretch ourselves in communicating openly about expectations and needs. We encourage one another regularly to practice integrity, clarity, and accountability, even when it’s uncomfortable.

We do this because we know what happens when you don’t. We’ve experienced those cultures of uncommunicated expectations and frustrations. We know how it erodes relationships and productivity. We don’t want that for Leadership Center or the organizations we serve. Our executive team knows that it starts with us. The health of the leader impacts the health of the whole.

The only way to push beyond comfort zones into greater leadership health is to have deeply held values steering the ship. For Leadership Center, one of those values is Truth-Telling.

How do you know it’s time to practice Truth-Telling? Take a brief audit of your last two weeks at work.

1. Have you felt frustrated over the same issue more than twice?
2. Are you having more mental conversations than real ones with someone?
3. Is it increasingly difficult to have a generous perspective toward someone on your team?

Time to lean in? Here is a resource you can use to prepare mentally and emotionally for this good, brave work.

Wondering how to begin? Consider the following steps from Gottman Institute’s Gentle Start-Up:

1. Save the conversation for a calm moment.
2. Use gentle body language and tone of voice.
3. Use “I” statements to express how you feel.
4. Describe the problem clearly.
5. Respectfully make a specific request.