696. Building Trust: The 3 Layers Every Nonprofit Leader Needs - Aila Malik

Summary

Podcast Summary

We Are For Good Podcast – Episode 696

Title: Building Trust: The 3 Layers Every Nonprofit Leader Needs
Guest: Aila Malik
Hosts: Jon McCoy & Becky Endicott
Date: April 1, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode, recorded live at the We Are For Good summit, features keynote speaker Aila Malik, who delivers an impassioned talk on the transformative power of trust in the nonprofit world. Aila introduces her three-layer framework for trust—workability, credibility, and vulnerability—illustrating each with personal stories and actionable insights. The episode moves into a community Q&A, where Aila provides practical coaching on trust-building in everyday nonprofit challenges.

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Key Points & Insights

1. Trust Is the Work

• Not a "soft" skill: Trust is fundamental for effective leadership and lasting impact in the nonprofit sector.
• Functions in society: Trust underpins daily interactions and systemic structures, but it’s not distributed equally across all communities.
• Nonprofit context: The sector exists as a response to broken narratives—gaps in equity, access, and belonging.

"Trust is not a nice to have soft skill. Trust is the work. It's how our missions move. It's how repair become possible. And it's how narratives change."
— Aila Malik, 00:39 / 15:45

2. Personal Narrative: The Fragility of Trust

Aila shares a moving account of her childhood, when her mother's mental illness led to an incident with police and emergency responders. She reflects on how her trust in the system was a privilege not everyone can access, underscoring the ethical responsibility nonprofits hold when entering communities—never assuming trust exists.

"When we enter communities as nonprofit practitioners, we can’t assume our experience is in the room... Trust can't be assumed. It's offered carefully."
— Aila Malik, 07:30

3. The Three Layers of Trust Framework

Layer 1: Workability

• Basic, transactional trust allowing people to function together.
• Relies on shared purpose, facts, and clear roles (like a pit crew in F1 racing).
• In organizations, means clarity in mission, structure, and accountability.

Layer 2: Credibility

• Built from evidence, experience, and data.
• About "showing the work"—transparency with outcomes, learning, and consistency.
• Deciding to take risks based on credible information (e.g., trusting self-driving cars or adventure guides).

Layer 3: Vulnerability

• Deepest, most human trust; generosity of spirit.
• Not oversharing, but offering more truth than required.
• Moment-to-moment choices that foster deeper relationships, leadership morale, and solidarity.

"Vulnerability as generosity can look very simple. It can be a moment that owns a mistake without defensiveness."
— Aila Malik, 14:15

4. Trust-Building in Practice: Community Q&A Highlights

Finding Long-Term Partners & Funders [17:23]

• Lead with authentic confidence, data, and credibility.
• Embrace uncertainty and share openly what support is needed.
• Value both "no" and "yes" responses from funders.

Building Trust During Leadership Transitions [20:04]

• Approach organizations with humility, as a partner.
• Listen deeply to the organization’s story before suggesting changes.
• Amplify others’ expertise, remove obstacles, and always be a student first.

Establishing Community Trust From Scratch [21:56]

• Start internally: convene leadership/board, identify responses to current climate, and build a collective plan.
• Share and co-create commitments with the community for feedback and co-ownership.
• Use storytelling to build a shared, inclusive narrative.

Navigating Stakeholder Misalignment [24:12]

• Listen carefully and reflect back objectives for clarity.
• Seek common ground at the level of values (e.g., safety and freedom) even amid policy disagreements.
• "Force clarity" before moving to solutions.

Restoring Broken Trust [29:35]

• Apology and listening tours: openly acknowledge past failings and show up consistently.
• The act of repeatedly showing up for conversation helps rebuild trust over time.
• Story: Aila’s own conflict at home highlighted the slow, iterative work of rebuilding trust.

"There's something very powerful about people who just show up and let you have that acknowledgement and then go move into a restoration."
— Aila Malik, 31:20

Fostering Trust as a New Organization [33:47]

• Clarity of mission and roles is essential.
• Build a transparent culture where mistakes are learning opportunities.
• Vulnerable leadership normalizes open, growth-focused culture.

5. Consistency & Communication

• Consistent, transparent communication (town halls, memos, office hours) builds lasting trust, especially in times of uncertainty.
• Written documentation helps establish and reinforce shared commitments.

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Notable Quotes

• "People aren't resisting us, they're protecting themselves and measuring the cost of trust."
  — Aila Malik, 10:54

• "Credibility doesn’t remove the risk. It helps us decide whether the risk is worth taking."
  — Aila Malik, 13:14

• "Vulnerability and generosity must be the most radical practice that we have [as leaders]."
  — Aila Malik, 15:04

• "Try to witness someone. Try to see someone... What is an actionable way that you can extend gratitude or witness someone today and every day?"
  — Aila Malik, 40:13

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Intro and Theme Setup – 00:00
• Aila Malik’s Keynote: The Power and Layers of Trust – 00:39–16:56
• Q&A: Building Trust with Funders – 17:23
• Q&A: Entering Organizations in Transition – 20:04
• Q&A: Establishing Trust in Communities – 21:56
• Q&A: Navigating Stakeholder Differences – 24:12
• Q&A: Addressing Over-Indexing on Types of Trust – 26:08
• Q&A: Sustaining Trust with Teams – 27:50
• Q&A: Rebuilding Broken Trust – 29:35
• Q&A: Gaining Trust as a Young Organization – 33:47
• Q&A: Trust During Management Transitions – 35:46
• Closing Reflections and One Good Thing – 39:20–40:58

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Memorable Moments

• Aila's deeply personal story about trusting public systems as a child and recognizing her privilege.
• The pit crew metaphor illustrating “workability” at its best (09:47).
• The self-driving car and skydiving anecdotes as illustrations of calculated risk in credibility (12:40–13:55).
• The candid “apology tour” advice for organizations repairing broken relationships (29:56).
• Laughter as Aila relates how a family argument became an object lesson in trust-building (31:15).
• The reminder that trust is built by "seeing" and appreciating people (40:13).

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Actionable Takeaways

• Audit your organization: Which layer of trust do you operate in most? Where can you go one layer deeper?
• Practice vulnerability: Offer more genuine responses in conversation, acknowledge uncertainty, and share credit generously.
• Institutionalize trust: Use consistent communications, feedback mechanisms, and leadership modeling.
• Own, listen, rebuild: If trust has been broken, start with honest acknowledgement and sustained effort to repair relationships.
• Let the community shape the narrative: Gather and uplift stories from staff, donors, and those you serve rather than focusing on self-promotion.

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Final Thought

"Trust building is the most important work that we can be doing right now."
— Podcast Host, 40:58

This episode offers nonprofit leaders a profound and practical guide to embedding trust as the core of their work—internally, with partners, and community at large.

Transcript

[Podcast Host]

Hey, friends. We're so glad you're here today. Today's episode is a special one. We're bringing you a conversation straight from our recent We Are for Good summit. First up, you're going to hear the powerful talk from Isla Malik, our keynote speaker, that was titled Trust is the Work. Now, this conversation's so good because it really dives into what does it really mean for how we lead, show up and build community all through the lens of trust. After that, we're going to transition into the live community question and answer segment where Isla offers real time coaching and guid. It's honest, it's thoughtful. It's a conversation that I think is really going to connect with you.

[Isla Malik]

Trust is not a nice to have soft skill. Trust is the work. It's how our missions move. It's how repair become possible. And it's how narratives change. And when we practice with humility, with evidence, with generosity, we don't just strengthen organizations. We help rewrite the story of who gets to belong.

[John]

Hey.

[Becky]

Hi.

[John]

I'm John.

[Becky]

And I'm Becky.

[Podcast Host]

And this is the We Hear for Good podcast.

[Becky]

Let's get started.

[Isla Malik]

Well, it's a pleasure to be here and I hope I can ground. My intention today is to ground us in what this the topic of trust means. We live in a world that requires trust in order to function every day. We take risks we barely think about anymore. We walk down the street, we get into our cars. We board airplanes by pilots that we've never met. We engage with strangers, institutions and systems, assuming and hoping that they will deliver. And for many of us, we are privileged enough that this feels really ordinary. That kind of trust feels invisible and built into the background of our lives. And we trust that the systems and the laws around us will create some baseline of order. But underneath those systems is something even more powerful that sometimes goes. Narratives. Narratives shape intention. They determine who is worthy of protection. And they also sometimes decide who has access to safety and who does not. Some narratives erase, some justify harm, and some quietly explain away injustice. And it is inside of these narratives that our entire sector exists. The nonprofit and social impact sector is a response to broken narratives. We exist because the story has not worked for everyone. We find gaps of equity, of access, dignity. And we work to widen the circle of who belongs. So when we talk about trust, we have to begin with an honest truth that many of us in the summit, we move through the world with an everyday trust that other communities do not always have the privilege to hold. When I was about 8, my mom who was severely bipolar and schizoaffective. Also a single mom, an immigrant from Pakistan who later became a US citizen. And you're seeing a picture of my, my eight year old daughter and I wonder what she would have experienced when I was in that same age. And one of her, during one of my mom's pretty terrible, terrifying episodes, she decided she didn't trust anyone. And that morning she believed that there were assassins outside of our house and believe that there were spies on the inside. And she believed with her heart that the only way that she could protect me was to never let go of my arm. So after four hours of holding onto my arm with an intention of safety, she decided that enough was enough and she needed help with community helpers and she called the police. But when the officers arrived, she quickly shifted her fear and decided that they were part of that conspiracy. And she didn't let go. There were three officers, one went from my mother's throat and they told me run. And I did. And I watched my mother be carried out on a stretcher, handcuffed and ankle cuffed, taken to a psychiatric hospital. And here's the part that matters the most. I trusted them. I trusted the police, the paramedics, the doctors. I trusted that they intended to keep my mother safe and me safe. And over a course of 30 plus years of a mental health journey with my mom, that trust, imperfect as systems, may be, proved largely justified. But that is not everyone's experience. That trust is not universal and it's not guaranteed. So today I say all that to say when we enter communities as nonprofit practitioners, we can't assume our experience is in the room. We often step into spaces where trust has already been violated. There may have been harm by institutions, suppression of voice, surveillance disguised as support, narratives that explained away suffering. So when we enter the work of repair, restoration, rebuild, empowerment, we do so with deep, deep humility and gratitude for that moment. Because the communities that we serve are taking a risk to let us in. And so trust can't be assumed. It's offered carefully. And I think that's where we sometimes get it wrong. When trust is fragile, I feel like we can have a tendency to misread people. We label hesitation as resistance. Silence is disengagement. Sometimes we label caution as lack of buy in. But very often what we're actually seeing is risk management. People aren't resisting us, they're protecting themselves and they're measuring the cost of trust. They're asking, sometimes silently, what happens if I say yes? What happens if I Tell the truth. What happens if this doesn't work? And when we begin as practitioners to recognize that our posture changes, we slow down, we listen differently, and we stop asking, why won't they engage? And instead maybe start asking what would have to be true to make this moment safer. This whole understanding, my personal understanding, the context of our communities, has shaped not only my community facing work, but the work that I do with organizations as well. Most of my day job is walking alongside nonprofit organizations at moments of inflection. Leadership transitions, burnout, reinvention, mergers, closures. And my role is to honor the journey that all of those folks in that nonprofit have walked. The narratives that they've carried thus far and the gaps that have brought them to this moment. Honor them all. And then we build trust quickly through knowledge relationship, and create trust that stabilizes systems, clarifies strategy, and prepares organizations to welcome new leadership. I've done this personally for nine to one and a half years at a time with about 10 organizations. And then as a firm, we've partnered with hundreds across the country. So I come to this keynote with a very deep respect for the efficacy of organizational trust. Because without it, we cannot be credible partners to the communities that we serve. And we will not be able to shift the larger narratives that we are here to change and that we see in our country today. So let me break down how I think about trust. I don't think of it as a single thing. I think of it as layers, like an onion. And at the core of that onion is the most sacred part of who we are. Our identity, our beliefs, our values. And those things are sometimes protected so fiercely, just like my mother believed she was protecting me. So for me, trust doesn't always start at finding the core. It starts at the edges. So layer one, that outermost layer is workability. It's the most basic form of trust. It what? It's what allows people to coexist and function. And it requires things that our country sometimes is lacking today. It requires shared purpose, shared intention, or at least shared facts. Inside organizations, workability looks like a clear mission, a coherent strategy, defined roles and responsibilities, clarity about who gets to make decisions, how are they made. We don't all have to be best friends for workability, but we know that we have to know how to work alongside each other. One example that I love. I watched F1 on the flight over here. Brad Pitt, still handsome. And if you look at this picture, this is a pit crew. And pit crews can change tires, all four tires under four seconds. Seven seconds is slow. The level of precision that they have to work at requires an extraordinary amount of workability, trust. Everyone has to know their role. Everyone is accountable. You can't look over someone's shoulder and micromanage how that other person is changing the tire. Everyone does their own job and the crew's primary concern is the driver's safety. And the driver trusts the crew with their life. That is workability at its best. A second layer, a little bit deeper is credibility. We begin to trust a little bit more because of evidence and experience. I recently rode in my first fully self driving car in San Francisco. No driver, traffic everywhere. And in that moment I had to decide what I trusted. And I'll tell you, it wasn't the cars. Cars are the cars. It was the data that that car had, the miles, the cameras, the sensor, all of the processing and predictive velocity calculations and modeling. I decided that I trusted this system because it had access to far more information than a single human driver could and that it could reasonably respond faster than fear. That's what credibility looks like. It's not certainty, but it's evidence that is weighed that is strong enough to take a risk. So I made a calculation to take that risk based upon the evidence that I presumed that car had. And that's not my first time doing it. As Becky and John said, I had the deep privilege to travel with my family of we were a family of five, similar to what John did on his road tripping. And we in one of our, in our year we found ourselves in rural Namibia and we were preparing to skydive and kids and all. And for the first time in my life and I knew nothing really about our guides. I definitely did my diligence of asking how many dives were logged and how did they pack the parachute and was there redundancy and had there been serious mishaps or death? Right. Expecting all of this to be just told to me, that was it. So in that moment I was doing the same thing as a self driving car. I was assessing credibility. I was fully aware of the risk. I even still to this day have a note on my iPhone to be right at my funeral. Right. That was what I, I was preparing. Oh, this could go wrong. But then based on the evidence in front of me, we calculated as a family the risk and we jumped 10,000ft. Credibility doesn't remove the risk. It helps us decide whether the risk is worth taking, which is a personal decision. And in our sector, credibility works in the same way. We don't build trust by saying trust us we build trust by showing our work, showing up, consistency, showing our data, our learning, our outcomes, and our willingness to adapt. So layer three. It's the most precious layer of trust. It's vulnerability. And sometimes it's the rarest. In some of the cultures that I see, vulnerability is trust that is rooted in shared humanity. It is a form of generosity of the human spirit. Vulnerability is not oversharing. It's not emotional dumping. It's not the absence of boundaries. It's the generosity of spirit that says, I will offer a little more of my truth than is strictly required. It lives in the grace of both the giving and the witnessing and receiving. Sometimes that generosity shows up in the smallest moments. Think of the question, how are you? You can answer, I'm fine. And that relationship stays exactly where it is, and that's okay. But it stays exactly where it is. Or you can answer, I'm okay, but it's been a hard season. That extra bit is a gift. It invites the other person into something without demanding anything in return. And often, when we give a little bit of that generosity, the other person mirrors it. Not always with words. Sometimes just with presence or a hug or a witness. That's how trust deepens. Now, I don't want to romanticize vulnerability. We are and should always be a choice where, when, and with whom we offer it. But vulnerability as generosity can look very simple. It can be a moment that owns a mistake without defensiveness. Yep, got it. I missed that one. It could be giving someone else credit for what you learned from them. Thank you so much for sharing that with me. It can be offering sincere gratitude for impact that mattered, something that they did to touch your life that they may never have known, didn't have to do it. It was a generosity of gift, of gratitude. It could be naming an uncertainty instead of pretending for certainty. These moments don't weaken leadership. They strengthen it. They build morale, cohesion. And it is exactly what is needed at scale. At a time when workability layer is fragile and credibility is questioned, efficiency is accelerating, AI agentic AI and human connection feels increasingly distant. So in an age of speed and optimization, which are really great artifacts of performance culture, vulnerability and generosity must be the most radical practice that we have. And so that brings me back to my mom. Her story is not only about fear. It's about intention. She was trying to protect what she loved most. Me. And that is true for the communities we serve and for the staff that we lead and for the organizations that we steward. Everyone is protecting something. And when we recognize that we Stop trying to push past the fear and the feelings and we start creating conditions for safety. After today, you'll return to your organizations and your communities. And I invite you to notice. Which layer of trust do you tend to operate in? In what context? At home and at work and in the community. What feels most comfortable to you and your organization? And most importantly, what would need to be true for you to go just one layer deeper. Trust is not a nice to have soft skill. Trust is the work. It's how our missions move. It's how repair become possible and it's how narratives change. And when we practice with humility, with evidence, with generosity, we don't just strengthen organizations. We help rewrite the story of who gets to belong.

[Podcast Host]

Thank you, man. You could just feel the weight and hope in this conversation that was there in the room that day. I'm so grateful for Aila's vulnerability, her wisdom, and this powerful framework. So we want to get activated now. And we lifted real world challenges that members of the community and attendees were navigating right now.

[John]

So what you're about to hear is

[Podcast Host]

the live coaching conversation with Aila where she works through those questions in real time.

[John]

First one, doesn't it always come back to finding long term partners and finding funding? How do you think about that through the lens of this trust conversation?

[Isla Malik]

I think, I think we have to trust that the work that we're doing is great and that we will find the right partners authentically. And so I think in the context of this conversation, we need to present with confidence and credibility. So what data are you sharing? How are you helping people understand the impact that you're making? And let partners trust that partners will give you what, what they need to see. If it's a no, it might be a no for now, and that's okay. We don't want inauthentic partners. We want to be able to have conversations that deepen our shared understanding. And if we find shared human humanity and shared connection, then it's an invitation that comes very easily. So I know that's, that's all kind of topical, but I think in a time where, where we are, where things are shifting beneath our feet and there's a lot of uncertainty, I think we need to ground in who we are, what our purpose is, what solution and change are we trying to make, and how do we know that we're actually doing a great job and then present that to people who can witness and see us in ways that will be great partners? I don't think we have to have all the answers. Deep funding relationships mean back to the trust and vulnerability that we're open and vulnerable with the things that we're not so sure about. And it invites people to contribute. Funders that are long term partners and moved want to contribute to what you're doing and so give them the straight up parts of, you know, what, what you need help with.

[Becky]

I love the embrace of the messy. I feel like in the first probably 15 years of my nonprofit career, there was this sense that it needed to

[Isla Malik]

be Norman Rockwell with the bow tie, pretty bow sparkles.

[Becky]

I mean, and it's. We're in this era where it's like we are human and being human builds that trust. Why would we want to create a container of perfection for our funders?

[Isla Malik]

I think it's important for us to see the funders and with gratitude. There's. So there's plenty of things to fund these days. There's plenty of ways to have impact. We hope that something I say today moves you or invites you to join us and thank you for using your talent and generosity somewhere in our. In our shared ecosystem. Right. So I think there's a way that we can both see the funder for their no and their yes and show the messy. To your point.

[Becky]

I love this. Okay, so.

[John]

So be sure to upvote in the Q and A. So people are dropping the Q and A. Is there vote for the question you want to ask. But I want to ask you one Isla that's coming to mind too for me is that you drop into these organizations you alluded to at points of transition and executive directors leading or they're going through a transition. How do you build trust dropping into those situations? I feel like you've talked about this on the podcast before and it really cut through for us.

[Isla Malik]

Yeah, I mean, I think I do a lot of listening to what the experience is of that culture and that organization to make sure that I'm really understanding and honoring what they want to tell me and show. I think when I enter, it's a lot of it really is with humility and an understanding that they are the experts. They don't necessarily. No one needs a babysitter. None of us do on this chat. Right.

[John]

Or want a babysitter. Unless it's for the babysitter.

[Isla Malik]

Nobody needs that. Nobody needs more work. Nobody needs to, you know, onboard somebody else to then tell them what to. That's not so it's. It come. I come in as. As wanting to be a thought partner to amplify their expertise and Remove obstacles from them and align and being a very direct shooter of saying, you know, here's, here's what I'm seeing. Do you think that this is kind of right or what do you think your role is? So it's not that I'm avoiding tough conversations, but it's entering first with making sure that I'm a student of their experience and their expertise before I offer suggestions on how we could get more strategic and brilliant, cohesive. That's it.

[Becky]

I think that is the way. So we said this at the beginning but this is a two way conversation and not just with us and Isla, but also with you. So we're gonna tee up some questions that we've received from you all and I love Olivia's first one. She says we don't have trust established in our community and really don't know where to begin. What's a great first step they could take today?

[Isla Malik]

You know, I'm going to answer that in just two ways in the, in your organizational. Well, maybe just one way. I think if we're when we get overwhelmed and we watch the news or at least I do know that we are so blessed to have actionable places where we're making an impact in the sector. I'm so grateful to be part of this sector in this moment. I think it's a huge, a huge gift. And so I would start with your organizational community and I can share this with Becky and John to invite but one of the things that we did was got our leadership team together and our board and talked about what is our response in this shifting political climate. What are we going to build, what are we going to protect, what are we going to partner on, what are we going to amplify. And we have, there's a framework that I'm happy to share but we, we really talked about by departments what is their alignment to this moment so that we could establish a shared set of honoring and a shared plan. And we use that plan with funders, we use that with families around hey, here's what we're the organization if you're interested for a template of this is hopeservices.org and if you put if you Google Hope services political response you'll see a document that document was fully co produced by layers of our everything the finance department, IT department and then we lifted it up to say here's who we are in this moment. And so I would if you don't have trust established find ways to have conversation and lift up a product that you, you are saying that you will commit to.

[Becky]

Okay. I'm obsessed with that. You just got a. That was such a good pro tip. You just had a tool and a framework. And I just. I just think, wow, that Putting those values, those intentions out there. And I think what would be really powerful is to just even present that. To hope serves community and say, is this you? Does this look like you? What are your stories? What's supported? That's where I would start. Olivia, too, is like culling whatever that storytelling vibe is into that narrative, because then the narrative becomes collective, correct, and shared, which is so powerful. So I absolutely love that one.

[John]

All right, Daniel, I'm sending you a fist bump. Thank you. For this question. He asked, how do you encourage and facilitate trust when dealing with stakeholders who have different goals and objectives?

[Becky]

Oh, I love Daniel's question. Yes, here we go.

[Isla Malik]

I do, too. I mean, I think we first just have to track back what. What we're hearing. I know that's kind of the theme, and I don't want to sound redundant, but I think so often we. We start to jump into stuff and we don't quite know the problem that we're solving. So I think the first thing is I would really double down and make sure that. Am I hearing stakeholder X, you know, John, am I hearing that this is what you care about most, or this is your concern? Or this is. I would. I would really try to track back the listening and then see if you authentically have an alignment. I'm going to give you a very quick example. I was recently facilitating a retreat, and it was a retreat that had the board was. It was a membership organization, and the board was very left, and they were talking about how do we have people in our membership that might have a totally different political view? And we were talking about gun control, which is a very controversial topic. And so one of the questions was something like, do we start to survey? And if people are very pro guns, then. And I stopped the conversation because those are artifacts. Gun control and gun safety is an artifact of a deeper intention. The deeper shared humanity intention is that we care about safety and freedom. And so now different people oriented to those values. And I'm not here to say I'm not. That's not my role as a facilitator to say what I personally orient to. But what I do want to lift up is how do we get to the conversation of safety and freedom that we both believe in and then see what's possible. And maybe it still is a discord, but I think when you're talking about stakeholders and alignment. You want to force clarity so that you can understand if the alignment could be there.

[Becky]

Forced clarity. I'm here for that. Okay, we've got a really good question from Aisha. I've been thinking about trust as a three part system. Personal trust with relationships, organizational trust which is structure, Aisha's smart and strategic trust which is direction and decision making. In your experience, what's the type of trust do nonprofits over index on?

[Isla Malik]

That's a great question. I actually have to say that I I think it's really different based upon the type of work you do and whether your structure is a founder based structure or not. That's my experience. So the type of work you do, if you are a relationship based mission, you're doing case management, you're doing home visits and you're founder led. My experience is that you operate from high organization index in relationship building in the feel good and those pieces and maybe don't have as much structure around data and impact and clarity. This is a gross overstatement. I think when you're in the work of what's a different mental health clinical work, you may, yes relationship is part of what you do. But there's a lot of structures around billing and all of those pieces that force a different type of infrastructure. So I think they all matter and I think even your framework is beautiful. I think just looking at where are we in these things and what would have to be true to up each of these pieces a notch makes makes a ton of sense. I don't know if that you guys would add anything.

[John]

I mean you're right there. Soledad, thank you for your question. How do you stay rooted in trust and vulnerability with your team and partners in the midst of doing all the work? Is it regular cadence of coming back to it? Is it trainings of the importance of it? Like how do you put it in?

[Isla Malik]

I think I'll say three things really quickly. I think it's one consistency. So whatever your communication, it's communication and consistency. So the in my job I mostly show up as interim CEOs at places and so I usually the current CEO that I'm in, I have a 606, 700 person workforce, 20 person board and so I do town hall videos and mission memos is what I call them where I talk about what is the buzz, how, what do I know, what do I not know, link reliable sources. What is hope stance? I think having buckets of consistency and over communication is really helpful for folks and saying I don't know, you know, that's a good one because it does build trust. And I think that the team just needs to know that we're watching and we're looking or watching the same resources you are and we've got you, but we don't necessarily need to know it all. I think the other really important pieces are to back to. The first comment is try to lift up in writing what you can so that people feel like there's a record of this is how we're going to move or this is what we should do. And then the third is, I think, hold sessions, containers of uncertainty. So there may be office hours or lunches or places where people who just know that if they. That they have access to you and that they can show up and ask you questions. So I think increased facetime, increased communication and consistency.

[Becky]

That's it.

[John]

Amazing framework.

[Becky]

Yeah. So good. I love this question from Deborah. Deborah, thanks for putting this. In the early years of the organization did not build trust. They did exactly the opposite. So I think so many of us have been there. I relate. How do you bounce back in the lives of those partners?

[Isla Malik]

Yeah, so I think I've been in many situations where I've taken the helm where the previous leadership did not, you know, did not do right or lost trust. We'll say lost the trust. Trust of their partners. And so sometimes we start with an apology tour, a listening tour and an apology tour with stakeholders and own. I, you know, understand that the staff and the board have the same types of clarity of like, here's what we can own. And, and then start meeting people and listening to their experience and, and, and own it and apologize or talk about what's different and, and just show up with consistency. Nothing may change in that first session, but when people see you come back again and again, they begin to trust you. I'm just gonna. We have little limited time. I wanna tell you guys something. When I was writing this keynote all. Every time you asked me to do a keynote, it invokes this whole journey. Well, it invokes this whole, like, journey of like, oh, my God, what does trust look like in my life? And. Right. And so in the midst of all of this, in. After talking, sharing my keynote with my husband, shout out to Capella, who's maybe out there watching? I don't know. We had a fight and I was like, well, now you've broken my trust. And we're talking about it. And I literally said, as we were talking through it and all of this, I was like, oh, the Universe has given me this, like, broken trust moment to actually analyze what needs to be true to build it back up again. And what I found was he kept being ready to talk about, like, he's, like. He was showing up, right? And I was still mad, but he's like, hey, look, I'm here and I'm showing up. And then after two or three conversations, I started to feel expressed and tracked and acknowledged and then started to be able to move back into a restart. But there's something very powerful about people who just show up and let you have that acknowledgement and then go move into a restoration. And the fight with my husband was, like, perfect timing.

[John]

I'm glad we can trigger that. That's really

[Becky]

created some strength.

[Isla Malik]

It was great.

[Becky]

It was good. I mean, we talked about this at the beginning. Things have to break until we break through. So I think that's a really good.

[Isla Malik]

And breaking is okay. That's resilience. Sometimes that's also like, sometimes things are. Things are. Have an eventual course. Like, I think not every organization is gonna like organizations that can go through difficult moments and then come out on the other side. Just like relationships, they're stronger because of it. So I think we shouldn't shy away from. From the mess back to the conversation, or from the acknowledgement. But how do we use that as a moment to deepen relationship is a nice inquiry.

[Becky]

You know, I want to give one more example to Deborah, because I do think that you talk so much about narratives, which was so powerful, and I think the story of your organization is one that you don't always have to tell yourself. True. And so if you're really trying to build trust back, I think the tip to go and cull these stories from your community, not just from your funders, not just from your board. Ask your staff. Ask people who've been giving to you a really long time, invite them in. How have they been impacted by your organization? Because what happens when you do that is that. This is a Seth Goin quote. We're teasing Seth right before he comes in. He says, your brand is not what you say about you. It's what other people say about you. So if you are gonna be building trust, do it with community, do it with others. It will intensify and strengthen your ability to move through that next phase, which I think is really strong.

[John]

Oh, my gosh. Okay, we have time for just a few more, and I want to go to Prisca. Thank you for this question. What are the best things to gain trust As a young organization,

[Isla Malik]

I got there's three. No surprise. I like threes.

[John]

Everything is a framework

[Isla Malik]

is. One is clarity. And in no particular order, one is strategic clarity. So does everybody know your mission, your. Your, your. Your vision, the impact that you're making, the purpose, like really clear alignment of who you are, what you're about, where you're moving to? I think the second one is about what I call like a thriving culture, which is really around your. A cycle of trust and transparency, which is what we're talking about. In other words, being. Having this, the team be transparent about what they do or don't know and inviting that of employees. Artifact is do your employees tell the organization, especially young organizations, hey, this might not be my jam. I might be thinking about in the next year moving forward and giving. Having enough trust to be able to share that they would like to look for something else or work someplace else or in a different role is an immense gift to both the organization and the employee. And then the third is the. Your vulnerability is always framed by the vulnerability of your, of your leader, your leadership team and your CEO that norms how comfortable we're going to be. And again, vulnerability doesn't mean emotional dump. It means mistakes. Are mistakes invited into your organization as ways to get better or are they shamed? And I think that's a really interesting artifact on how we learn together, grow, become a learning organization. So I think if you're a young organization, look to those three areas and see do we need to strengthen. Do we have artifacts to strengthen clarity? Do we need to have artifacts around role clarity and HR processes to strengthen our culture? And do we have enough retreats and human work, psychological work at our leadership level to make sure that we're creating psychological safety?

[Becky]

Okay, so Danielle, I love this question. I was hoping this was going to come up. But as a middle manager, what would you say to upper management during a transition to encourage trust and honest outreach to funders?

[Isla Malik]

To encourage. Yes, I see why I would love to hear his thought. To encourage trust and honest outreach to funders. I mean, I think I'm going to let you guys take this one because I'm not sure that I understand the last piece. But I will say in general, middle management to upper management, that's hard because you're managing without authority. Sometimes I would really, from a broad perspective, I would really always invite people to look at data. So doing 360 surveys that are anonymous and inviting that across the organization helps get data to upper management around how they're doing. Hopefully a CEO or an upper leader is inviting that across and down the organization. But sometimes it takes a middle management to suggest, hey, what data can gather in a safe way to give everybody some pulse. Check feedback on what's going on. Honest outreach to funders that I'm going

[Becky]

to kick to that. I think what I would say is there's two things that could happen here. Do you have a great relationship, do you have great trust with upper management? If you do, to me that is a solid trust based conversation where I believe you could ask those really tough questions. If you don't, I think I'm going to take a tip from my therapist here. Thank you, Sarah. Ask questions and I would create space and intention around how you ask this question to upper management. How are we encouraging trust? Like flip it. How are we encouraging trust within our funders? What are the steps you're taking?

[Isla Malik]

How.

[Becky]

How are you strengthening the brand of the mission? How are we following up? And of course I would just let that sit for a second. Listen, I think it's important to be an active listener and whatever the response is, I would go to that third layer and say be vulnerable and say I'm a feeler. So I would probably say I would start with I'm just concerned or I feel that I'm worried that can you help me get strategic clarity around this also? How can I help you with that? How can the team wrap around you and then it becomes collective?

[Isla Malik]

And I think now I'm understanding the question if there's a transition happening and maybe the upper management doesn't want to be honest that the transition is impending to funders, I would say back to exactly what Becky said. I would try to shoot for a shared plan. What is our implementation plan on communications around this? And can we create an inner circle of trusted funders that can give us feedback on that plan and communication? Because sometimes when you approach funders as a partner in the transition, they have skin in the game around it and it's less of a freakout. I also think on founder transitions, sometimes a lot of founders over index that their communication will scare people. And I think actually we're not trusting people to come in our celebration of that moment and our clarity in that moment. So as a middle manager, as much as you can do to get a shared written plan, I think that goes a long way for, to your point, collective wisdom and figuring out if there's ways to insert inner trust. Circles of confidentiality.

[Becky]

Danielle, I really encourage you to attend Naomi Hadaway's session today. She is the master of transitions and transitioning. In and out of organizations in a healthy way. So check that out.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[John]

Okay. Ayla, you know how we start to wrap up conversations?

[Becky]

Not your first show.

[John]

We're have to ask for a one good thing. But I was also reflecting over here that we met you on Clubhouse. Let's be clear in 2020. Do you remember this app we were talking about Clubhouse.

[Isla Malik]

I know it was such a short

[Becky]

lived at the you talk about trust

[John]

building in this new age. You know, it's like we found kinship, we found shared value. We were we led into more vulnerable conversations over time. And then I think of the first impact up. So some of y', all I got to spend with you in San Francisco. Who showed up in two hours of traffic to sit next to me was Isla on the floor.

[Becky]

I also gave the keynote that day.

[John]

Like there's just. You've exhibited what trust can look and feel like in a modern world to us and to this team and how you're serving this community today with your wisdom. So thank you for that. And so what's your one good thing?

[Isla Malik]

Well, so I'm just gonna say it's exactly what you all do. My one good thing is try to witness someone, try to see someone. And I think just a sentence Julie's gonna kick me out is I think you guys do that so well. I was just talking in the break room. There are so many people in this network that is amazing. And you make everyone feel like a vip. I mean there's always hugs and authentic witnessing and seeing and gratitude and so a lot of what I hope you see in me is a mirror back. And I aside from having a love fest here in this living room, I invite my one good thing is what is an actionable way that you can extend gratitude or see someone or witness someone today and every day. I think it would be really powerful one.

[Podcast Host]

Wow. What a conversation. I'm so grateful that you joined us today. There is just so much there to sit with and put into practice from this conversation. But if there's one thing to carry with you, it's this. Trust building is the most important work that we can be doing right now. And friend, we do not want you to go at it alone. And be sure to join our mailing list [e-mail] each week we send a roundup of our best content frameworks, freebies of the week and so much more. We get you connected to the we are for good community in all the events and activation and movement that is happening all over the world. So we'd love to see you. Join [e-mail] thanks so much for being here with us.