Episode 90: The Silent Signal Breaking Team Trust Under Pressure

Episode Summary

Most leaders think trust breaks down because of poor communication or team dynamics. The reality is, it starts much earlier—internally. In this episode, Coach Mo breaks down the “silent signal” leaders give off under pressure that either builds or erodes trust in real time. When your S.W.A.G.™ (Self-Awareness, Why-Power, Aligned Action, Grit) is off, your team feels it through communication, teamwork, collaboration, and trust—your CT2™. Through a real coaching scenario, this episode reveals how internal pressure, the inner critic, and the need to prove yourself quietly disrupt leadership presence.

If leadership has felt off lately, this is your signal.

👉 Take the Burnout Mirror assessment to identify where your S.W.A.G.™ is off and what’s driving the disconnect:
 innerarenaleadership.com/burnout-mirror

Key Takeaways

• Your team reacts to your energy before your words
  Micro-shifts in tone, hesitation, and tension signal misalignment instantly 
• S.W.A.G.™ off → CT2™ breaks down
  Internal misalignment shows up externally as weakened trust, collaboration, and morale 
• Pressure doesn’t create the problem—it exposes it
  The inner critic drives overperformance, which creates disconnection 
• Ignoring the signal creates patterns
  Suppressed signals lead to hesitation, over-explaining, and guarded leadership 
• The reset is simple, but not easy
  Ask: What am I feeling? What matters right now? What builds trust here? Can I stay present?

Transcript

The Silent Signal Under Pressure

SPEAKER_01 0:44

Let's get your right thing. Welcome to another episode of the Let's Think About It podcast. I'm your host, Coach Mo. And today we're going to talk about the silent signal that's breaking team trust under pressure. You may think it's your team reacting to something that you said, or maybe even something you didn't say. But they really are reacting to something you didn't even realize you showed. There's this silent signal that we naturally give off under pressure. It's either building trust or it's breaking it down in real time. And so this episode, it's not about me teaching you new communication skills. It's about what's happening internally before you even open your mouth. So here's what I mean. Let's just jump right into an example. Um, because I work with a lot of leaders, high-achieving leaders, high-performing leaders. And I was speaking with this particular leader who's new to their role and to the not new to leadership, but new to the organization and leading others. I like to protect the confidentiality of my clients. So I'm not gonna provide any type of identity, but I'm gonna talk you through the scenario that transpired in relation to what we're talking about here, the signal, the silent signal that's breaking team trust under pressure. So this leader tremendous amount of experience in leading organizations. They were even a high-level senior exec at a different organization. So then they moved over to this other organization. And of course, coming into a new organization, guess what we typically do as high performers and high achievers? We have to prove ourselves. We feel the need to prove ourselves. Long story short, there's some a particular individual on their team, young, high achieving, up-and-coming, professional, coming up the ranks. This person has a tendency of getting in their own way. So there was a particular assignment that was due task, and this high achieving leader that I'm coaching said she assigned a task, and this individual told her, No, he's not gonna do it. So think about that. In the moment, being new to an organization, leading at the highest level that you've led in the past, and you're in a situation where someone tells you no, that they're not gonna do something and they're under your watch, what would you do in that situation? How would you approach it as a leader? So obviously she was triggered. How can this person have the audacity to tell me no, that they're not gonna do something? So I said, How did you handle that dynamic? And she said, I don't know, I never dealt with that before. And I said, think about it, in that moment, when that no was told to you, how did that make you feel? How are you showing up in that moment? She was frustrated, really disappointed, discouraged, anger triggered. How was that affecting the communication with this individual? I just told them that they need to do this. And so what really transpired? That's why I'm talking to you, Mo. How do I deal with this situation? Which is crazy, right? How can someone that's under your watch push back and tell you no? So then I asked her, How are you showing up? Because what gives a person the courage to tell the new leader of an organization no? Why is that individual so confident that they can tell you no without any without any consequences or repercussions? So there's a hidden dynamic there. And then the other question is how are you showing up? Even before the conversation of the ties that you need to give this individual, what ways do you show up? What is your confidence? What's your demeanor? What's your energy? See, all of those things matter because these are the things that we naturally feel from our leaders as employees. Okay? So leaders may think that there's a poor communication, a lack of alignment, there's something wrong with the team dynamics walking in. But the breakdown really truly starts before there. And that's what I was trying to get to with this leader that I'm coaching. And I said, How's your swag? She's like, What? Swag? What are you talking about? I said, your self-awareness, why power, aligned action, and grit. I don't understand where you're going with this, Mo. That's what she said. I like to do that, I like to throw things out there like that. But I said, okay, you're coming in to an organization. You already admitted to me that you have something to prove with yourself. What that means is you can't allow yourself to be let down in critical decision-making moments. You need to do more to prove that you're knowledgeable, capable, very engaged with how you're gonna assign tasks and everything like that. So you're going above and beyond to prove to self that you're capable of leading this organization, leading this team, right? She said, absolutely. I was like, take a step back. How much weight are you carrying in doing that? She said, and it's a lot of weight. I was like, absolutely. If you feel the weight that you're carrying, what does your team see? She said, I don't really think of it like that. Because you're in this autopilot of trying to prove your worth to the organization, which is putting your swag off. Because in the moment, the self-awareness, let's start with that, the S, self-awareness. It's you're pushing harder, trying to prove yourself, because the inner critic is telling you that you have to do more to prove yourself. So that throws off your awareness to slow down in that moment. The why, the why power, what's my purpose? That's off. Your purpose is off in that moment, in these moments. And it slows your action because you're stalled in the judgment that you're carrying in which you need to prove yourself. But the reason you got the role is because you already proved yourself. I get it. You're in the organization now, and you gotta validate. You gotta validate to your superiors that I gotta do this right. I can't afford to mess this up. So you're carrying that weight. And the G, the grip piece of it, because the self-awareness is off, you don't, you're not in alignment with your purpose and you're stagnant in your actions, the grit becomes off too. Because you now you feel you have to grind harder. And so your team feels that. They feel it in a sense that maybe she doesn't really have the confidence to be the leader that we were hoping that she can be. So they push back because they can feel it, they can see it. New leaders come in, carrying all this weight, changing protocol without connecting with teams, doing all of these different things in fear, hoping that they don't mess this up. It shows and it creates resistance with your team. Swag is off. And when the swag is off, your external scorecard to validate that is what I call C2 squared. C2 squared, communication, teamwork, collaboration, and trust. So when your swag is off, externally communication with the team may be off, lack of teamwork, collaboration, and more importantly, trust might be off. From the bigger picture, morale starts to take a dip. So going back to the situation with this leader that I'm coaching, right? The person pushes back and says, No, I'm not doing that. Her swag is off, right? Because her swag is off, guess what that leads to? Hesitancy to communicate with this individual that pushed back and told her no. Now she's carrying this judgment within self of how am I gonna approach this dynamic with this person when he just told me no. Her ego, that punk ass inner critic, shows up and telling her, oh nah, we ain't about to have that. We can't have nobody telling us no, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So, in this, in a sense, now she has to defend herself. She's thinking performance management, she's thinking, I gotta write them up, I gotta get this person out of here, blah, blah, blah. Because the swag is off. And when the swag is off, the inner critic is running with that. When the inner critic is running with that, it widens the gap in how you're approaching communication, teamwork, collaboration, and trust. C2 Square. That's the external piece, the external scorecard of the result of swag being off. So we get these signals early on, and maybe we ignore them. These signals can be frustration, fear, worrisome feelings, nervousness, tone, your tone maybe is tightening, pulling back instead of leaning in. All of these are little silent signals that we feel that's telling us that maybe our swag is off, and we ignore it because we feel we gotta push through it, it'll go away. Or maybe it's over-explaining. And I asked her, right, when this person said no, what was the response to that? She started over-explaining. I said, help me understand why this individual had the courage to tell you no. She said, that's a great question. And then I said, How likely are you willing to explore that? She said, I am going to explore that. I said, exactly, because in these moments, there's a connection that needs to happen. There's some understanding that needs to happen before you can even move forward with leading this person. Maybe there's a sense that this person doesn't feel connected to you. Because they don't feel connected to you, they view you as not a confident leader and they choose not to follow you. And it's up to you to seek understanding to why they're not trying to follow you. This is funny. It's not funny, but it's funny. Because it hit a nerve with her, because she's like, you know what? No, you're right. You're right. I need to spend more time understanding their processes and how they do things here. She ignored that because she came in trying to prove herself, blazing with directives and things that need to be done, not necessarily considering the way things are already operating. But this is a high achiever who knows what works really well. But there's a piece of cultivating the C2 Squared, ensuring that the communication, the teamwork, the collaboration, and trust is intact with her team before making all of these other changes. But the early signal of your swag, her swag being off, she was ignoring that, which peeled over to widening the gap of communication with her team. Real talk. We, as high achievers, and I'm guilty of this too, when these early signals happen, we often feel like I just need to stay focused and move forward. I don't know. I need to just push harder. I don't have time to do a reset. I don't have time to rest. We need to get these results the way that I was hired to come in here to do and press this forward. And so it's this internal weight that we naturally carry. And it's heavy because we're trying to prove ourselves within self. It's this narrative that we believe to be true within self because the inner critic is telling us that if you don't do it this way, if you don't work harder, if you don't work faster, you're gonna be exposed. But exposed to what? You already proved your worth and getting the job, getting promoted, making the ladder move. You already proved that. You already have trust with management that hired you, brought you in, asked you to do XYZ. But yet, our swag gets off because we carry this notion that we have to perform higher, harder, more elite. We replay that habit in our mind over and over and we believe it to be true. At the end of the day, guess what it's doing? It's creating this silent signal that's breaking down team trust. And it's all happening under pressure. It's crazy, right? Today is about understanding how to condition that and why there might be some lack of trust between you and your team. So think about, take a step back and look at is my swag in place? Is it on? Because the swag, self-awareness, why power, aligned action, and grip. This is how you check in real time to see if your swag is on. And it's just as simple as asking yourself, what am I feeling right now? Start there. What am I feeling right now? The first signal is if you're feeling some sort of frustration, some sort of doubt, worry, guilt, sorrow, any of those type of emotional feelings that can potentially be there, that's a sign that your swag is trending off. That's number one. Number two, the white power. Check in with it. What actually matters in this moment? Ask yourself that. What actually matters in this moment? Okay. Number three, aligned action. What response creates trust, but not just control? How can I gain trust in this moment? And number four, grit. Can I stay present instead of reacting? That's what I talked with my client about in helping her get her swag back in that moment. I asked her to get back her swag. I said, when he said no, what could you have done to generate trust in this situation? And she said, that's a great question, Mo. And I said, continue to explore that. And when you discover that answer, seek understanding with them. Create the win, create a win-win with them. Let's put our ego to the side and seek understanding into what gives an individual the courage to tell you no. Where is that coming from? Let's understand his processes and viewpoint in the situation. What's his interpretation? What baggage is he carrying? Maybe his swag is off, and he doesn't know his swag is off because this concept hasn't been taught to him. So he's carrying judgment and how he sees you. We need to explore that. We need to seek understanding of where is this coming from before we can even regain the C2 squared result that we're looking for. It starts with us as individual leaders first. We are the ones that carry the swag. And us carrying the swag influences the results of the culture that we desire to build within organizations. And that desirable culture is a high C2 square. Communication, teamwork, collaboration, and trust at a high level. Typically, when it's operating that way at a high level, leaders got their swag because they're highly collaborative, there's a lot of trust present, all of these different things. So I challenge you guys, right? Everything isn't perfect. I understand that. But I challenge those hidden signals that we all experience. Challenge it. Challenge it by asking yourself, what am I feeling right now? Why is this triggering me? Maybe the trigger feeling that you have is just the signal to shift, to ask an open-ended question, to be curious. Because if you can do that in real time, you're elevating communication. Communication is a key component to the C2 Square, which improves morale, collaboration, trust, all of that. So let's shift the paradigm from these uncomfortable signals that we feel. Just maybe, just maybe, that's the trigger to tell you, hey, now is time to communicate. Hey, now it's time to ask what my purpose is in this moment. Maybe it's the signal to establish trust right now, in this moment, and look at and explore what habits I can create in this moment right now that builds trust towards this situation. How can I stay present instead of reacting in that moment? Maybe that's what the signal is. We're naturally trained to experience that signal as being negative and bad. So we have to avoid it. We have to get frustrated. We have to push back against it. No, let's shift the paradigm in it. It's the signal to get your swag back. And that's it. That's it. What's the win win in this moment from what I'm feeling? That's say you could do that? That's high level self awareness. That's swag. That swag. Ultimately, when we have our swag, it contributes to higher morale in any organization that we work in. I'm not saying it's easy. I'm not. We just gotta get our reps in on practicing it on a regular basis. And stop allowing the hidden signals that we're consistently receiving to make us feel discouraged. It's really what it is a signal, a warning. That the engine light is blinking on and off, on and off. And guess what happens when you ignore the engine light? The car gets worse, the truck gets worse and worse. And then what happens? You ended up having to take it to the shop, and you ended up having to drop hundreds, even thousands of dollars to get it fixed, all because we were ignoring the engine light that kept coming on, blinking on and off, blinking on and off. Same thing with your leadership. You're getting these signals of overthinking, hesitation, doubt, some worry, all of them. Those are the signals. Those are the flashing alert signs. But you don't have to hire a coach to diagnose it. You can actually take a burnout assessment that I have. And you can, it's in the notes. The link is there, but you can go to interarena leadership.com forward slash burnout hyphen mirror. And you can take it there and give you a full diagnosis. You can do these little steps and ask yourself, why am I off right now? What is this signal telling me? What's a win-win in this situation? You can ask countless questions for yourself. But doing that generates the self-awareness that you need and getting your swag back. And when you can develop that, and it's just reps, it's remembering to get your reps in that ultimately builds a better C2 square within your organization or your team. And that's what we want. And check this out works in your family too. Swag is a leading self-conditioning system. That's it. It applies in your personal life too. Because you can feel it. You can feel when you're off. Get back on. Get your swag back. So much follows after that. But start, start with the burnout assessment. Totally free, take about five minutes of your time. It's really easy to do. It gives you a quick diagnostic of where your swag is and how it pertains to maybe your burnout. Get a burnout outlook, just where you are. Inner arena leadership.com slash burnout hyphen mirror. I appreciate you guys listening in, checking in. I hope you got something out of today. Until next time, see you when I see you. That's another rep in the inner arena. You didn't just listen, you leveled up your swag. Self-awareness, why power, align action, and grid. If this hit home, share it, subscribe to the Let's Think About It podcast, and lock in with me on YouTube at Swag Coaching. Until next time, stay aware, leave with your life, click in the link, and keep your grid stone.