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Successful leadership requires being trusted. But trustworthiness is, unfortunately, insufficient to establish trust. As William James observed, the initial step in determining whether someone is trustworthy is trusting them absent evidence of trustworthiness. We only acquire evidence that someone warrants trust if we first extend it without evidence.
This creates a genuine paradox — and it's compounded by the fact that experience, narrative, and individual disposition can all impede the willingness to take that risk.
I'm reminded of the frequent response when people see me walking my German Shepherd. People's past experiences and accepted narratives shape how they respond to a German Shepherd approaching them — whether they cross the street or comment on how mean he looks has nothing to do with the actual dog at my side. Only if they take the risk of trusting us will they discover he is profoundly uninterested in them. And then they'll see that making themselves slightly vulnerable was not a foolish risk.
His trustworthiness is irrelevant to whether anyone believes him to be trustworthy. That belief is built through the many small moments in which he responds well to the risks people take — walking next to him, petting him, throwing a ball. But this raises the first real challenge for any leader: what makes it possible for someone to take that first step?
That challenge has only gotten harder. In this moment, when people are quick to sort each other into camps before any evidence is in, the capacity to extend trust to someone unfamiliar — and to model that capacity for the students watching how we do it — matters.
Leaders with a coaching mindset have a meaningful advantage here — and coaching training, the kind LifeBound offers leaders across higher education, is one of the most reliable ways to develop one. Coaching is fundamentally about creating a space where someone feels safe enough to explore new ideas, consider alternative options, and take the time to wonder what they actually want — what fears, desires, and beliefs currently drive them, and how their understanding might shift in ways that further their own goals. The capacity to cultivate that space is what coaching training actually builds.
I was reminded of how powerful that space can be during a recent one-day coaching workshop I was facilitating. Participants took turns — each person both coaching and being coached — and when they returned from those practice conversations, they were struck by how valuable the experience had been. When asked what made it worthwhile, they said it was being genuinely listened to, having room to think out loud with another person.
What made that possible, in part, was low stakes — they were paired with strangers they were unlikely to see again. But the more important factor was that the person in the coaching role had committed to working on being present: not judging, not steering toward a predetermined answer, just following, asking questions. That commitment created enough safety for real thinking to happen.
That's the paradox resolved, at least in miniature. The threads that lead to trust require a space where being vulnerable — where trusting absent evidence — feels safe enough to risk.
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At LifeBound, we work with leaders in higher education to develop exactly this kind of presence — through coaching training, workshops, and ongoing development that builds the mindset, not just the skillset. If this resonates, we'd welcome a conversation. It's not technique. It's transformation.
To learn more or explore which option is right for you, visit www.lifebound.com.
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