Empowering Women Leaders Empower New Leaders–The Transfer of Trust to Your Team
My latest album, The Transfer of Trust is about to drop and I want you all to know before I take the show on the road (Eras style…I might even go blond). Every hit single I’ve included is meant to inspire empowering women leaders to empower new leaders.
Here’s the list of the greatest hits waiting for you on this new hot album…
Trust is a Highway (to Empower Your Leadership)
Trust and Take Care of Yourself to the Moon and Back
The Spiral of Trust and Influence
Don’t Stop the Light
More Than Your Corner Office Blues
Say It Loud, Shout it Proud
Permission-Free Zone
Mind Your Mind
Thank God I’m the Alpha Dog
Okay, okay. What’s up with the whole music metaphor (apart from the fact I’ve been taking singing lessons behind the scenes)?
I’ve been doing the can-can to the theme of “trust” for several months now. A lot of the focus has been on self-trust and empowering women leaders to play a bigger game, take up more space, and elevate their leadership to a show-stopping level.
But I don’t want those ideas to be one-hit wonders. I want every person on your team to know this soundtrack by heart. I want the self-trust you’ve been developing to transfer over to your team because empowering women leaders have the ability to empower new leaders–the next generation of authoritative, influential, and impactful leaders who are going to change your industry and the world.
The Transfer of Trust
You’ve got all the concepts and understanding around self-trust down by now–especially if you’ve been reading every post I’ve put out this year. At a minimum, you know the greatest hits because I just listed them. (Scroll back to the top.) The thing is theory is great, but application is better.
So, how do you go about transferring trust to your team so you can empower new leaders?
I’m going to give you a few practical suggestions to get started, but first, I want to be clear about something. The transfer of trust doesn’t happen immediately. We can’t listen to an entire soundtrack all at once; we listen one song at a time. And we don’t learn the moves to a dance simply by watching, we have to actually attempt the steps.
In other words, the transfer of trust will take time, repetition, and practice. Keep your expectations realistic but your actions consistent. Small, consistent actions is what always wins the race when it comes to awakening great leadership. When you model that piece alone, you’re already empowering new leaders, showing them what progress looks like and that it’s better than perfection.
Okay, here are a few places to begin. Try a couple on for size and then build from there.
1.Share your vision and activate their buy-in
There’s a great book by Patrick Lencioni The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team and the first is a lack of trust and lack of trust means you as a leader have to be authentic and vulnerable. You have to get their buy-in. There needs to be a back and forth between you and your team.
If you don’t transfer trust, everything else is lost. But you’ll never transfer trust if you’re not all on the same page about what you’re working toward. If you’re the lead singer and your team is the backup dancers but they’re not sure what song is playing, your concert performance is going to look like a hot mess. They’ll be moving left and you’ll be moving right. Give your team the “song lineup.” Share what you’re all working toward and why it’s important and discuss their role to activate their buy-in, get them excited, and show them each person’s contribution is important.
2. Give them the chance to do something without you
Ever heard of a trust fall? Well, think of when a singer leaps off the stage into the crowd and the crowd carries them… This is a trust fall on steroids. Also known as bodysurfing. You need to bodysurf but on a smaller scale (and not by actually throwing yourself onto them.) Think of something small you can hand over and see how they respond.
All too often, leaders don’t delegate. We think we can do things quicker ourselves but when we do that, or someone comes to us with a question and we say, “Don’t worry about it, I can get it done faster,” then we are training people to only be able to do things with us and not to think for themselves. So, there are simple things we can do to begin in transferring trust and empowering our team to take action without us.
Next time someone comes to you with a question, before answering, ask them what they would do? 9 times out of 10 they are going to know but they haven’t learned to trust themselves.
Try to back them. Even if you don't agree, let them give it a shot. Maybe it's something that will work; you don’t know. They don’t know. Give them a chance. They might fail, they’ll come back to you, and then you provide more direction. Giving them a chance is about empowering them to do it themselves and that can be as small as turning the question back to them and giving them a chance to do it their way.
Or, maybe it’s running a meeting without you (more on my own story in a moment) or asking someone else to lead the next team meeting. These don’t have to be earth-shattering activities. The point is to let someone else take ownership of something you typically do and see how they rise to the occasion and how others respond.
3. Lean into situational leadership styles that build more trust
Situational leadership is about choosing the right approach at the right moment with the right person to achieve the best results. There are four styles (delegator, coach, director, visionary) and each has a time and place. At least three of these (delegator, coach, visionary) foster a greater culture of trust within your team because you’re inviting them to expand or contribute while offering them direction, encouragement, and resources to be successful. The last of these (director) not so much.
I was speaking to someone recently who is entirely directive in her leadership style and it’s not working for her or her team. She’s also new as a manager and hasn’t ever led people before. She’s just giving people directions like a traffic cop and she is influencing them to act but not inspiring them or breathing life into them to buy into the vision in an engaging way.
Directive style of leadership can backfire because you’ll always be doing things yourself, giving people direction, and they won’t learn how to think for themselves. What ends up happening is they’ll resent you and you’ll resent them. This is hardly a breeding ground for trust.
But, when you know how to dance to the beat of situational leadership, it’ll be a whole other level unlocked…Think Emmy-award-winning performance.
The ROI on the Transfer of Trust
You’ll never be sorry that you introduced your team to the tune of self-trust. When that trust has been transferred, everybody benefits. Case in point…
Just a few weeks prior to writing this post, I worked a light week to spend time with a family member who was in town. Plus, I needed the break. I was starting to feel that burnout again, the one that comes when I’m trying to do too many things at once, making my own rhythm feel less like a dynamic salsa and more like raging headbanging.
I let my team know I would be light on email and audio messages and wasn’t going to the marketing meeting. In a Voxer message, I let them know that whatever they decided about next month’s theme for my content was good with me. “I trust you,” I told them. And it wasn’t lip service.
By showing up to calls each month, I’ve observed and listened to my team members chime in with their ideas, suggestions, and perspectives from their zones of genius and their seat at the table. And every month as work is getting done, they prove they are attentive to my brand, my message, my vision, and my goals and are thoughtful and strategic in what they’re producing or suggesting.
I gave them the license to meet without me and to know they didn’t need me to be there to make any final decisions. Guess what? Every person who said they were going to show up, showed up. They didn’t drop the meeting or skip it because “the boss” wasn’t there. They came up with a theme and plan for the month as intended. They arrived with ideas and left with their own list of action items and who was responsible for them.
I got what I needed–next month’s content strategized and implemented without extra time, energy, or effort on my part. They got what they needed–to be trusted to do the jobs they’ve been hired for, the chance to contribute to the vision of my company (a vision they buy into), and clear direction on what each person needed to do to achieve the result they all agreed on.
The transfer of trust to your team empowers new leaders within your team–and not just the ones who lead the meetings without you or step into your role when you’re out. Each team member can be empowered to be a leader in their own way by taking more ownership of their role and responsibilities. Your transfer of trust will show them how much you value them and their contribution by passing them the mic and giving them a moment.
When your team feels valued, they’re more likely to stay engaged, be more communicative, work more efficiently, and seek out more opportunities to stretch themselves to their next level. When they’re better, you’re better,and vice versa. You showed them that…Empowering women leaders empowers new leaders. Just think of how far that vibration can extend, what it can achieve, and the change it can make. I bet the impact will be so great that you might as well get nominated for Most Empowering Women Leader of the Year.
And the award goes to…
(*drumroll)
You!
For your new hit album, The Transfer of Trust.
(*and the crowd goes wild…)
P.S. You can thank me in your award speech. ;-)
—
Are you ready to shatter glass ceilings and lead with confidence? Our Make Imposter Syndrome Your Superpower Masterclass is tailored specifically for women like you in male-dominated industries. Learn to navigate challenges, set powerful goals, and achieve extraordinary success.
👉 Join Make Imposter Syndrome Your Superpower Now and become the leader you were meant to be!
