Chad Silverstein recounts a team-practice anecdote where a trusted colleague told him his words had unintended emotional impact. He reflects on how leaders’ casual comments can build or shatter trust, the fragility of trust, the responsibility leaders have for how they make others feel, and the importance of receiving and repairing feedback when people are brave enough to speak up.
Chapters
I'll never forget one of the team practices where I got in the middle of the room and people were giving me feedback. I had someone who I trusted and she was definitely a key player in my company. She looked me in the eye and she said, chad, you don't understand how much of an impact you make when you share things with us. So I asked her to tell me more and she said, well, you just, you don't know, like, how you make people feel. Sometimes you're just talking and you say things and it makes. It's very powerful. And so I thought about it afterwards and I just, just, you know, I didn't realize, you know, the way she felt and the way she explained it helped me understand a little bit more about, you know, being in a position of authority and that everything I do and say matters because people take it the way they take it based on where they are. And I remember talking to Chet after practice and he just told me, you know, it's definitely a little bit of a blind spot and you're just being yourself. But people aren't used to that. And because people aren't used to that, or they don't trust or they don't understand what it's like to be here because they haven't been here for a long time, you have to be a little bit more. More careful about, you know, when you challenge people and when you've got that edge, because it can be taken the wrong way. And a lot of times leaders are taken the wrong way. They're misunderstood. And I think that's a dangerous place to be when you're trying to build trust on a team. At the heart of performance is trust. You have to have trust. You have to build trust. It doesn't happen overnight. And trust is fragile. You can work for years to build trust. And one comment, one comment could literally shatter the trust that you have with somebody if they take it the wrong way. And if someone takes something that you as a leader said the wrong way and you didn't intend for them to take it that way and it wasn't your intention, but they are too scared to say something to you, and you didn't pick up on any micro messages to go repair, what a shame that is. Because then you have a relationship now that's strained. You as a leader don't even know about it. This person buries it and they harbor it. And then, you know, who knows where that sabotage shows up, you know, six months from now, they don't remember, and they remember how they felt I think that's a powerful, powerful melody line of this day in that quote by Maya Angelou. Because people do remember how you make them feel. If you think about people in a family who don't talk anymore, they haven't talked for years. They don't even remember what the fight was about, but they remember how they were made to feel. And as a leader, that's a big responsibility. You can lift people with your words or you can crush people with your words. And you have to be very deliberate and you have to be able to pick up on the times where you hurt people and you didn't mean to, especially if it's miscommunicated. Now, if you have to give someone a hard message and they feel hurt by it, sometimes that has to happen. You can't avoid that just because someone's going to feel hurt, especially if it's true. But I'm talking about the times where, you know, people will remember, you know, things that you didn't intend and it's a shame that they'll be too scared, but you hopefully have enough trust where they can come share how you made someone feel. And if you have a team that is building trust and you're blessed to have people come to you and share with you, hey, I need to share something with you because you made me feel. And they finished that, you better be careful not to crush that person if you're an authority position or in a leadership role, because you should feel blessed that the person had the courage to come tell you that and you should say thank you. And it doesn't mean that you have to take responsibility and apologize for something that you did if you don't feel like you did anything wrong. But you probably didn't mean for them to feel hurt the way they did. And that's something you can definitely, definitely take responsibility for. And there's a way to do that and there's no right way to do it, but there is a way to do it. And I think you as a leader, you have to figure that out. And so, you know, just remember, though, that how you make people feel, people aren't going to forget that that's on the good side and the bad side.
