5 Leadership Habits That INSTANTLY Build Trust
- ETW Writer
- 2 minutes ago
- 2 min read
Episode snapshot
Leadership transformation starts at the top and on the inside. Tom Willis (author of The Great Engagement and co-founder at Phoenix Performance Partners) unpacks five habits that build trust fast, why integrity = word + deed, and how to align leadership, management, and coaching so culture reliably creates value.
About Tom
Co-founder, Phoenix Performance Partners (organizational culture & executive development)
Author, The Great Engagement: How CEOs Create Exceptional Cultures
Big ideas
It starts with you. If you won’t do the hard work personally, you’ll frustrate your team.
Value creation = fulfillment. The more you help others, the more meaning you experience.
Integrity, defined. Integrity shares roots with “integrate” and “integer,” your word and actions must be one.
Clarity before culture. Fuzzy job descriptions and vague agreements destroy trust; clear outcomes and follow-through build it.
Lead, manage, coach (in that order).
Leadership: paint a future people adopt as their own.
Management: secure explicit agreements and inspect what’s promised.
Coaching: address the gaps with learning, support, and accountability.
Brains resist the new. Novelty triggers fight/flight; great coaching helps leaders notice fear and respond with service (“agape” love).
Purpose > platitudes. Don’t wordsmith mission statements; discover personal purpose, then aggregate into organizational purpose people can live.
Measure what matters. Culture work must connect to material, emotional, and spiritual (connectedness) value, practical and measurable.
Struggle better. Discomfort is the gym where capability and character are built; widen your “productive discomfort zone.”
Results over rituals. Strategy that doesn’t execute is decoration, design leadership experiences, not trainings, and promise results.
The 5 trust-building leadership habits (from Tom’s playbook)
Keep your word at micro-level. Be on time, deliver when promised; visible follow-through cascades accountability.
Create shared futures. Repeatedly articulate where you’re going and why it matters to them.
Make clean agreements. Write the role in outcomes, confirm mutual commitment, and recap in writing.
Coach after the check. Inspect commitments; when there’s a miss, coach, don’t avoid.
Choose service over fear. Notice the inner critic and respond with a “put others first” mindset in decisions and conversations.
Practical tools you can use this week
Role Clarity Rewrite: Convert one job description into 2–3 measurable outcomes + leading indicators.
Promises Log: Track every commitment you make (and to whom). Close the loop daily.
R/G/Y Dashboard: List your value-flow (awareness → MQL → SQL → sale → delivery → CX) and support functions; mark each red/yellow/green to focus effort.
Post-Meeting Audit: End meetings with explicit who/what/when; send a 3-bullet recap in 10 minutes.
Purpose Starter: List your top 5 personal values; write one paragraph on the future you want to help create.
Memorable lines
“Everyone thinks it’s about others, not me. It starts with you.”
“Integrity is doing what you said you’d do, on time.”
“Leadership casts the future; management secures the promises; coaching closes the gap.”
“Don’t train leadership, live it together.”
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