Reflections on Connection-Centered Leadership - Issue No. 38: Which Story Do They Believe?
It can be unbelievably cold in the mountains of Wyoming before sunrise. Darin and I have stood in the dark with hot coffee in our hands, surrounded by a small army of photographers waiting for the first light to hit the Grand Tetons.
There are a million stars overhead, but everyone is waiting for the same thing: that brief window when the rising sun catches the mountains and changes the entire landscape.
On this particular morning, though, I wasn't only captivated by the mountains. I was watching their reflection.
The water was still enough that the image below seemed to repeat the one above it. The mountains and their reflection weren't identical, of course. One was the actual structure. The other was what became visible when that structure met the surface beneath it. But they corresponded closely enough that there was no question what I was seeing.
Trust works a lot like that.
I recently mentioned on the Let's Have This Conversation podcast that my undergraduate degree is in journalism with a focus on strategic campaigns. I remember our pieces being scrutinized, and if Dr. Lanville could get even a whiff of our opinion, we failed. Opinions belonged in the op/ed section. Ironically, another professor, Dr. Bengston, regularly reminded us that everyone is always selling something.
A few decades later, that lesson feels particularly relevant.
I've basically quit traditional news. It was probably a decade ago that I hard quit traditional news outlets, but honestly, it was more of a slow fade before the hard stop. News outlets became increasingly associated with particular perspectives, and “facts” began needing to be checked before being accepted as truth.
Then social media and AI filters added another layer, causing us to question what our eyes can see. Filters gave us flawless faces, immaculate homes, beautiful vacations, thriving marriages, successful businesses, and children who apparently never rolled their eyes at their parents.
Now, AI can generate or alter extraordinarily convincing images, videos, voices, and stories. We've become accustomed to asking a question:
Is what I'm being shown congruent with what is actually there?
We ask the same question about people. When who we think someone is doesn't match who they repeatedly demonstrate themselves to be, our experience begins competing with the narrative we've been given.
And experience is difficult to argue with.
In our personal lives, it can look like regret over having been vulnerable with someone who is no longer seen as trustworthy, which causes angst. We form a mind map to recognize patterns in the future and may approach similar people with the same caution, expecting them not to be true. We look for evidence that the person in front of us is who they say they are.
Mistrust doesn't always stay neatly contained either. Once we've learned to question whether the story we're being told matches reality, that vigilance can follow us into other relationships. We may begin looking for the gap before one even appears.
Our brains prefer consistency. Cognitive dissonance describes the discomfort that can occur when beliefs, expectations, attitudes, or behavior contradict one another. Relationally, we also notice incongruence between what someone says and what they repeatedly do, or between what we were told to expect and what we actually experience.
Repeated incongruence creates friction.
Trust is a premium. It is hard to win and easy to lose.
Trust requires enough predictable behavior, demonstrated consistently over time, to give us reason to believe the story we're being told. Through those patterns, we develop a reputation for dependability and stability.
That doesn't mean rigidity or perfection.
Trustworthy people make mistakes. Leaders make bad decisions. Parents lose their patience. Friends disappoint one another. Organizations get things wrong.
The question isn't whether there will ever be a disruption in the reflection.
It's what happens next.
Do we own our behavior and its consequences? Can we be held accountable? Do our actions after the mistake correspond with the values we claim? Does the relationship have enough consistency for the disruption not to make the entire reflection unrecognizable?
Relationships come with expectations, often unspoken or informal, and expectations require some form of accountability. When one part of a relationship repeatedly refuses accountability, the fabric of that relationship begins to fray.
The same thing happens in organizations.
Organizations are always telling a story about who they are. Mission statements, values, recruiting materials, websites, strategic plans, leadership communications, town halls, and carefully crafted culture statements all contribute to the narrative.
But employees and clients alike are gathering their own evidence.
What happens when someone raises a concern? How are decisions actually made? Whose opinions influence them? What behavior gets rewarded? What happens when a stated value becomes inconvenient?
You can say, “Our people are our greatest asset,” but what do people experience when resources become tight?
You can say, “We value work-life balance,” but who gets rewarded and promoted?
You can say, “We want innovation,” but what happens when someone tries something and fails?
You can say, “We value honest communication,” but what happens to the person who brings uncomfortable information into the room?
Eventually, people believe the story they experience.
Gallup's Employee Engagement Strategies for 2026 gives us a glimpse of this gap. Twenty-nine percent of employees reported lacking clear, honest, or consistent communication from leaders, while only 28% strongly agreed that their opinions count at work. Gallup also found that employees want greater visibility into decisions, the reasoning behind change, and opportunities to contribute.
More recent Gallup research makes the connection to trust even clearer. In May, only 20% of U.S. employees strongly agreed that they trusted their organization's leadership. Employees who strongly trust organizational leadership are 3.7 times as likely to be engaged.
Communication can explain the story. Culture supplies the evidence.
These premises are true cross-contextually among work, friends, and family. We are leading and influencing in each sphere of our lives.
Often, when I'm working with leaders on a change in culture or climate, incongruent narratives are a great place to begin. When what people are told to expect repeatedly runs counter to their lived experience, credibility erodes. We shouldn't be surprised when disengagement follows.
So how do we find the gap?
1. What story are you telling?
Write down your own mission, vision, and values, and give yourself an honest assessment of how well you're demonstrating them in your relationships.
Do the same for your business, team, or family. What story are we telling about who we are? What do we say we value? How consistently does our behavior provide evidence that the story is true?
2. Be brave enough to ask how others experience you.
No defending. No justification. No explaining why their perception is wrong.
This is a 360° feedback exercise of sorts. Data is good. And, data is neutral until you assign emotion to it. Knowing whether there is a gap between the story you intend to tell and the one someone else experiences gives you somewhere to begin.
This is also where leaders have to be particularly careful. People often forgo honest feedback if they believe telling the truth will hurt others' feelings or lead to negative consequences for them.
If we ask for honesty and then punish it, we've created another incongruent narrative.
3. Look for the patterns.
Are you consistently showing up differently with one person, a group, or under certain conditions?
Are there places where you're overcompensating or overperforming? Does that reveal a blind spot or perhaps an area where healing is still needed?
Organizationally, compare the customer and employee experience with the values on the wall. How well do customers understand what you say you're building? Would your employees describe the culture the same way leadership does?
One person's perception isn't necessarily the whole story, but it is part of the picture. If one person's experience differs from the larger pattern, explore why. Don't disregard their experience. Consider why you're showing up differently here and offer a bridge when possible. Patterns, though, are harder to dismiss.
4. Own the gap.
Where there has been inconsistency, own it.
Ask forgiveness where it's appropriate. Don't simply apologize; articulate what will change so people know what different behavior will look like, and so you become a safe and trustworthy leader. Then, follow through consistently.
Trust isn't restored by announcing that we're trustworthy. Consistent behavior over time gives other people evidence that change is real.
Appropriate vulnerability from a leader can also give others permission to be honest about their own mistakes, limitations, and concerns. That kind of reciprocity creates room for connection.
5. Check again.
Congruence isn't established because we completed an assessment and declared ourselves aligned.
Return to the people affected.
Ask what they're experiencing now.
Connection-Centered Leadership gives us three places to continually check the narrative.
In this shifting world, where we can sometimes feel like a ship without a rudder, I am grateful for my vertical connection with the One who never changes. Vertical connection is the anchor that always holds. Vertically, I have to know what I actually believe and what is foundational enough to remain unchanged regardless of the room I'm in. My values cannot simply become whatever produces the easiest outcome.
Inwardly, awareness asks whether the story I tell about myself is congruent with what is actually true. Where am I rationalizing behavior that doesn't align with the values I claim?
Where does the person I believe myself to be differ from the person my choices are demonstrating?
Outwardly, I have to be willing to consider how other people experience me. Do they experience the values I say I hold? Does the culture we're creating resemble the one we're describing?
Congruence doesn't require perfection. It requires enough consistency that people don't have to continually decide which version of us to believe.
Which brings me back to that morning in Wyoming. The reflection in the water wasn't the mountain itself. Wind could disturb it. Light could change it. The angle from which I viewed it affected what I could see.
The same is true of people.
Everyone experiences us through their own history, perspective, expectations, and circumstances. We cannot completely control another person's interpretation of us any more than the Tetons can control every ripple in the water.
But there was enough correspondence between those mountains and their reflection that I immediately recognized what I was looking at.
Perhaps that's a reasonable expectation for us, too. The story we tell about who we are should be recognizable in the experience people have of us. And when we're inconsistent, we own it.
And the story an organization tells about what it values should be recognizable to the people living inside its culture.
Because eventually, people decide which story they believe.
And lived experience supplies an awful lot of evidence.
Questions I'm Sitting With This Week
What story do I tell about who I am, and would the people closest to me recognize it from their experience of me?
Where is there a gap between something I say I value and what my behavior repeatedly demonstrates?
As a leader, what would my employees, team members, family members, or friends say the culture actually rewards?
Am I creating enough safety for people to tell me when their experience doesn't match my perception?
Where might greater congruence strengthen trust, connection, and engagement in the relationships or organizations I lead?
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