Businesses are strained. I speak with leaders who describe the stress of budget cuts, mass layoffs, shifting priorities, and more. Under strain, leaders often focus on fixing processes. They convene stakeholders to adjust strategy or make quick decisions to stabilize the business. But one of the most important leadership priorities often gets overlooked: repairing and rebuilding trust.
The paradox is that stress makes it biologically harder to build trust. The business gets strained, then our relationships get strained. When we’re under pressure, our nervous system triggers a threat response. This narrows our focus, limits our ability to see things from other people’s perspective, and pulls us away from empathy and connection. Executive functions like creativity, problem-solving, and emotional regulation go offline. Compounding this challenge, our self-awareness also goes offline, so we don’t even realize we have lost the ability to manage strong emotions. We become more confident in our knee jerk reactions, making us vulnerable to act on bias instead of wisdom.
This isn’t a personal failing. It’s a predictable brain response to stress. The good news is that we can interrupt this pattern with small intentional actions and re-engage the parts of the brain we need for trust-building. For example, before going into a hard conversation or team meeting, take two minutes to focus on something you feel genuinely grateful for. Gratitude activates neural pathways that lower the stress response and boost executive functioning. It creates just enough space for you to show up with more curiosity, flexibility, and emotional presence.
These small moments matter. Trust isn’t built in grand gestures. It grows in micro-interactions like how we open a meeting, how we listen, and how we regulate ourselves when things get tense. This isn’t about being “nice.” It’s about leading with awareness, empathy, and mindfulness, which are all core competencies for leadership in today’s environment.
Over the last 15 years, I have built ReFresh Communication, LLC to help leadership strengthen their collective organizational intelligence by rebuilding trust and improving retention through culture, communication, and equity-focused strategies. Our team knows that when inclusive communication meets the drive to solve the world’s biggest challenges, real progress becomes possible. Institutionalizing inclusive culture and managing relationships under stress takes intention and practice. Click here to find out more about how we partner with corporate and nonprofit organizations to help them lead through uncertainty with care and clarity.
