Is Your Leadership Style Too Rigid? Discover How Flexibility Builds Trust and Drives Success

03/17/25 • 35 min

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In our latest episode, we talk about the often-overlooked but game-changing aspect of flexible leadership with Kevin Eikenberry, a well-known author and leadership expert. As leadership gets more complex, knowing how to be flexible gives leaders the tools they need to handle uncertainty. Kevin shares how leaders can develop an adaptive mindset based on intention and awareness, helping them respond to challenges on the fly.

You'll hear Kevin's take on self-reflection, understanding context, and why moving away from rigid answers creates a more collaborative environment. As always, our conversation blends theory with practical approaches, showing that flexibility isn't about abandoning your values; it's about enhancing how you respond to different situations while staying true to yourself.

Kevin has generously offered a unique gift for our listeners: KevinEikenberry.com/gift

Join us for a great conversation about building trust and vulnerability in leadership roles and how these elements help create resilient, high-performing teams. Whether you're a veteran leader or just starting out, this episode offers insights that can transform your leadership approach.

We want to thank the team that continues to support us in producing, editing and sharing our work. Jonah Smith for the heartfelt intro music you hear at the beginning of each podcast. We LOVE it. Hillary Rideout for writing descriptions, designing covers and helping us share our work on social media. Chad Penner for his superpower editing work to take our recordings from bumpy and glitchy to smooth and easy to listen to episodes for you to enjoy. From our hearts, we are so thankful for this team and the support they provide us.

Send us a message - we'd love to hear from you

Kevin has generously offered a unique gift for our listeners: KevinEikenberry.com/gift

Previous Episode

Questioning your worth as a leader?

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How often do you blame yourself for not doing enough to support the people who work for and with you? If you do, it turns out you aren’t alone.

In this episode, we look at what happens to leaders when they carry the belief they aren’t doing enough—for the teams they lead and the teams they are on. We consider examples of people we’ve coached who lived with some version of this story, and the suffering it produces, including breakdowns in trust, frustration, exhaustion, and despair.

You will also hear about leaders who found their way out of the “I’m not doing enough” story, and how coaching can support such a journey. Spoiler alert: the antidote to not enough is NOT doing more. Rather, it involves honest, clear-eyed self-reflection, some vulnerability, and the courage to ask for help.

Our hope is that this episode will inspire leaders caught in this belief to recognize that an unqualified “enough” has no upper limit, and instead to discover what their team members really need to do their jobs well.

Next Episode

How Would a Trust-Building KPI Benefit Your Company?

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Trust-building isn’t just a nice concept; it can be identified as a key performance indicator that can reshape how consistently people build and maintain trust within an organization and even with external stakeholders.

We're joined by Sandra Rose and Leonie von Uthmann from NRICHED, who introduce their groundbreaking tool, TrustY - an innovative product that puts a number on trust in your organization. Together, we break down the four essential pillars of trust - sincerity, reliability, competence, and care - and explore how each one impacts workplace dynamics and how each can be measured to pinpoint opportunities for strengthening.

Sandra and Leonie share real-world stories that show how companies can measure and improve trust levels, leading to more engaged teams and less turnover. And we tackle the shift from seeing trust as a "soft skill" to recognizing it as a vital business metric that drives success.