Lead Like You Mean It: How to Build Trust Through Leadership Communication

Leading with meaning is about taking a holistic approach that blends your life and your career. It’s about acting from your purpose, making intentional choices, nurturing relationships, advocating for yourself and others, and being of service to others.

I unpack all of this and more in my book Lead Like You Mean It: Lessons on Purpose and Integrity from the C-Suite.

How we communicate can help or hinder us from leading with meaning. Author and speaker Simon Sinek said, “The ability of a group of people to do remarkable things hinges on how well those people can pull together as a team.”

And, in my opinion, how well people pull together as a team depends on their trust and communication. Together, trust and communication promote cooperation and collaboration that contribute to increased efficiency, speed, lower costs, and improved performance.

Trust in communication also enables individuals to create and sustain personal and professional connections that contribute to strong cultures at work—and meaningful lives beyond the workplace. 

Stephen Convey calls trust “the glue of life. ”He says it's the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It's the foundational principle that holds all relationships.

Trust in communications is essential for forging and sustaining deep, enduring, and mutually respectful relationships. It is the bedrock of high-performing teams.

However, anyone who has been a part of an organization of any size knows that a culture of trust supported by steady, strategic communication can be challenging to maintain. That’s because sometimes we lose sight of the fact that effective communication consistently reflects and reinforces attributes of trust, including:

• Aligning your words with your actions,
• Demonstrating expertise, and
• Building relationships through transparency and clarity.

Credit to Zenger Folkman, a global leadership development firm, whose research informed this framework (discussed more fully in Chapter 8 of my book).

But how do we build trust in communication throughout our organization—to create our desired culture and deliver expected results? 

It starts with articulating a clear, compelling vision of the future, grounded in a greater purpose and shared values and supported with a constant drumbeat of subtle and overt, large and small, verbal and physical behaviors that demonstrate our sincerity and steadfastness.

Because trust is earned, not owed, everyone benefits from engaging in consistent, deliberate communication that is appropriately transparent. I say “appropriately” because sometimes we can’t or shouldn’t share everything.

As a leader, I always make it my goal to provide clarity even when I can’t offer certainty. My experience as a leader has taught me to consider the following for every communication:

• Message: What do I want to say … and why? Understanding the goal of my communication provides a benchmark against which to measure my effectiveness.
• Audience: What do I know about them that might shape the relevance of my strategy and tactics or the eventual outcome? The more information and insights I have about my audience, the better I can tailor my message.
• Vehicle: Where will I be communicating(forum/channel), and how will it affect my approach? Will the interaction be formal or more casual? Written or spoken? Amplified across multiple platforms or shared only once?
• Timing: When is the optimal—or necessary—time to communicate? Keep in mind there may be broader circumstances dictating the timing, and this context is vital in ensuring that our audiences are ready when we share our messages.
• Tone: What is the appropriate voice for delivering the message? Even a clearly expressed, relevant, and timely communication will not engender trust if the tone is insensitive, abrasive, or simply unsuitable to the culture. The right voice and tone are fundamental to building trust in communications.

“Message-Audience-Vehicle-Timing-Tone” has been my mantra for decades. I’ve shared it with mentees as a tool to set the stage for better conversations in their life and leadership learning journeys. I’ve used it to assess my own communication, following interactions that don’t go as I had planned. And it has saved me on many occasions from saying something I shouldn’t have or from delivering my message in the wrong tone.

Try using these tips for communicating in the year ahead, and please join my community at www.layshaward.com. I am genuinely interested in learning from you, because leading with meaning is grounded in the idea that we all get better together.

(Laysha Ward is the Author of Lead Like You Mean It: Lessons on Purpose and Integrity From the C-Suite, published today, February 18, 2025)