
Talk About Talk - Executive & Leadership Communication Skills
Leadership & Communicating TRUST with Anne Morriss (ep.219)
Trust comes down to three pillars: logic, authenticity, and empathy. But when you’re under real pressure, one of those pillars usually starts to crack. Leadership coach and bestselling author Anne Morriss joins Andrea to unpack the trust triangle and introduce two ideas every leader needs in their back pocket: your trust anchor (the pillar that holds firm no matter what) and your trust wobble (the one that slips the second things get hard). You’ll learn how to spot your own anchor and wobble, why this same pattern shows up in even the most accomplished leaders on the planet, and how knowing the difference can help you build trust faster and hold onto it longer. CONNECT WITH ANDREA ???? Website: https://talkabouttalk.com/ ???? LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreawojnicki/ ✉️ Andrea’s Email Newsletter: https://www.talkabouttalk.com/newsletter/ ???? Talk About Talk on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/talk-about-talk-communication-skills-training/id1447267503 ???? Talk About Talk on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3afgjXuYZPmNAfIrbn8zXn?si=9ebfc87768524369 ???? Talk About Talk on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@talkabouttalkyoutube CONNECT WITH ANNE ???? Website: AnneAndFrances.com ???? LinkedIn: Anne’s LinkedIn ????️ Anne’s Podcast, Fixable: Anne’s Podcast: Fixable ▶️ Anne’s TED Talk: Anne’s TED Talk BOOKS MENTIONED ???? Move Fast and Fix Things by Frances Frei and Anne Morriss: https://amzn.to/4wcl5JM ???? Uncommon Service by Frances Frei and Anne Morriss: https://amzn.to/4wF8i3D ???? Unleashed by Frances Frei and Anne Morriss: https://amzn.to/4ySGhqR ???? The Power of Full Engagement by Tony Schwartz and Jim Loehr: https://www.amazon.com/Power-Full-Engagement-Managing-Performance/dp/0743226755 TRANSCRIPTION Anne Morriss: If I’m underslept or haven’t fed myself properly or under stress, I am more likely to wobble. And when I’m wobbly on authenticity, what will happen is a people-pleasing part of me will show up and tell you, Andrea, what you want to hear and not necessarily what I think, know, and believe. Andrea Wojnicki: That was entrepreneur and leadership coach Anne Morriss. And if her name sounds familiar, it might be because she’s also the co-author of three books, one called Move Fast and Fix Things, one called Uncommon Service, and one called Unleashed. I am really excited to share with you my conversation with Anne. Amongst other things in this episode, you’re gonna learn the three-ingredient recipe for how you can establish trust. Okay, so first of all, yes, of course it is a three-ingredient recipe. The power of three, right? And secondly, trust is critical. I realized that I really don’t use this term trust very often. Instead, I talk about personal branding and credibility, but these are all related terms, aren’t they? So if you wanna make an impact, and I know you do, then you need to establish trust. In this episode, you’re going to learn the three pillars of trust, how to identify your trust wobble and your anchor, and a lot more. Let’s do this. Let’s talk about talk. Welcome to Talk About Talk. My name is Dr. Andrea Wojnicki. Please, just call me Andrea. I’m an executive communication coach at Talk About Talk, where I help ambitious leaders and aspiring leaders to communicate with confidence and credibility so that you can get ahead in your career. A quick note before we get started. If you wanna go deeper on improving your communication skills and your credibility at work, I encourage you to head to talkabouttalk.com. That’s where you’ll find lots of free resources, plus information about my keynotes, my corporate workshops, my master classes, my online courses, and lots more. It is all there. TalkAboutTalk.com. About the Guest: Leadership Expert Anne Morriss Okay, let me introduce today’s guest, and then we’re gonna get right into this power-packed interview. I encourage you to stay with us through the end, though, because as always, I’m gonna wrap up with three key learnings that I wanna reinforce for you. People tell me that they appreciate this. I get lots of emails saying this. So basically, you do not need to take notes. Okay, let me back up. I came to know Anne Morriss through her partner, Frances Frei, an award-winning faculty member and exceptional teacher who generously mentored me when I was a student at Harvard Business School. So the three of us, Anne, Frances, and myself, we all share a passion for helping leaders communicate more effectively. I was absolutely thrilled when Anne agreed to join me on this podcast. As I mentioned, Anne Morriss is an entrepreneur, a leadership coach, and an author. She’s also a TED speaker and the founder of the Leadership Consortium, a first-of-its-kind leadership accelerator that prepares emerging leaders for senior leadership. Over the past 20 years, she has helped organizations around the world strengthen their leadership, culture, and transformational change. Here we go. Thank you very much, Anne, for being here today to talk to me and the Talk About Talk listeners about trust and communication. AM: Oh, Andrea, I’m so delighted to be here. The Three Pillars of Trust: Logic, Authenticity, and Empathy AW: Let’s get right into this. Let’s talk about trust. I know that you and Frances say that trust is the foundation of leadership. Can you share with us what the three core components are of trust? AM: Yeah. It actually goes all the way back to Aristotle’s logos, pathos, ethos, which was a persuasion framework. So it will not surprise you that these ideas are very relevant to your mission on this podcast and in so much of your work, Andrea. But the three component parts of trust are, I’ll go through them the way we often teach it, which is that I am more likely to trust you, Andrea, as a leader, if I believe you can do the job, if I think you’re competent at the wheel, if I think your reasoning and judgment are sound. It is not enough; I also have to believe that I’m interacting with a real version of you, so that your, you know, your thoughts, your feelings, your actions are all aligned. We call that authenticity. It is still not enough. I also have to believe that you’re not just in it for you; you’re also in it for me. You’re also committed to my well-being, and you care about my interests and success, often in the job. When all three of, we call them the trust pillars, when all three of these trust pillars are sturdy and strong, trust is a very natural byproduct. And by the way, this is all from the perspective of the other person. So I have to be convinced of your logic, authenticity, and empathy so that I can trust you. And as you said right at the top, it is very foundational. Leadership is a relational practice. We often forget that when we tell the story, you know, these great men and women stories of leaders. We forget that it is fundamentally about having impact through other people. So that’s why this is just, this is so critical to anything you’re trying to accomplish as a leader. AW: So first of all, the power of three. Anyone who listens to the Talk About Talk podcast knows it. And actually, Aristotle, I was looking back at evidence of the power of three, and this is one of the things that comes up.\ What’s Your Trust Wobble—and Your Anchor? So logic, authenticity, and empathy. Can you comment on, as folks, you know, are climbing the corporate ladder, as their careers are progressing, they’re becoming more senior, they’re leading more people, where those wobbles in this triad might be more likely to happen? Or may- and maybe this is a different question, where they can be the most damaging or catastrophic in people’s quest to create, I guess, leadership presence or identity? AM: Yeah, absolutely. We think about this question all the time. And as you suggest, so we use this word wobble to describe this other very stable pattern. So one stable pattern is, we call it the trust triangle. So logic, authenticity, empathy, you need all three. The other pattern we see, even among the most accomplished leaders, is that all of us lose trust some of the time. And when that happens, it’s not that all three of these pillars collapse. One of them tends to get a little shaky. We call that your wobble. So that’s pattern one. And then the other pattern, the good– that’s the bad news. The good news is that one of them tends to be rock solid. So if I were to drag you out of bed, Andrea, at three in the morning, you would be logical or authentic or empathetic. So we call that your anchor. So we’re constantly working with leaders on these two questions of how do you lean into and leverage your anchor, and how do you keep your eye on your wobble? So it is different for each of us. And it is tied more to personality, is just a layman’s way to think about it, than role. What we do find, however, is that...

