S4 Ep 15 - How To Build Trust To Drive High Performance with Marie-Claire Ross

The Inspire Podcast

In this episode, Bart speaks with Marie-Claire Ross, author of Trusted to Thrive, about how leaders can drive high performance in their teams through a balance of high safety and high accountability cultures. She outlines why humans are wired to seek psychologically safe environments, and why it's so hard to build. Then she explains why safety without accountability leads to atrophy, why accountability without safety leads to loss of trust, and how the balance of both creates what she calls the Achievement Zone. Her practical guidance and specific examples make this conversation one every leader should digest. Find out more about her book here: https://www.marie-claireross.com/trusted-to-thrive You can find Marie-Claire on Linked In here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marieclaireross/ 01:07 Teaser 00:33 Show Intro 01:09 Introducing Marie-Claire Ross and her book 02:23 How Marie-Claire got into this field 03:23 Working with troubled young adults 05:30 Making corporate training materials 07:01 Noticed lack of trust – and started her company to address this issue 08:25 Bart reads from her book 09:09 Why was trust not focused on by leaders? 11:41 How has Covid changed ideas on trust and leadership? 13:11 Had to delineate personal/work lives 14:03 How do you know when trust is present 15:21 Psychological Safety – what is it? 16:03 Trust is more contextual 18:25 How can leaders work with safety and trust? 20:14 Advice to leaders 20:29 Importance of connection and a meaningful future 21:37 Learning together helps 23:12 Stepping into a meaningful future 23:55 Leading in a virtual world 25:16 Make meetings better 25:44 Ask people questions 27:54 Just “safety” is not enough – you need accountability 30:31 The anxiety zone 32:47 Creating accountability 35:45 Clarity about goals and directive is key 37:22 Visibility and transparency are more and more important 38:20 Number one thing leaders should do 39:24 Being a self-aware leader 40:57 Thank yous 41:34 Where to find the book 42:17 Outro