Build Trust. Navigate Change

When I was starting out, I wasn’t entirely sure where my career would take me.

My dad’s career in public service influenced my early thinking, and for a while I considered following a similar path. But it was thanks to my mum that I found my way into HR.

I became fascinated by employment law and drawn to something that, looking back, has remained a thread throughout my career: fairness and balance in the workplace.

From there, my career took me through recruitment and talent, and increasingly into diversity, equity and inclusion and wellbeing.

It hasn’t been a straight line.

There have been different roles, opportunities, challenges and moments when I’ve chosen to pivot. And then there are the changes in life we don’t choose.

Losing my brother was one of those.

Grief changes you. For me, it changed my perspective on what matters, where I put my energy and how I think about the people around me.

It reinforced something I’ve come to understand through my work too: we rarely know the full story of the person in front of us.

Perhaps that’s why this year’s National Inclusion Week theme — Build Trust. Navigate Change. — resonates so strongly with me.

Change is personal

We talk about change constantly in organisations: new structures, new leaders, new technology, new ways of working.

But change is also deeply human.

People come to work navigating things we may know nothing about. Bereavement. Caring responsibilities. Relationships. Health. Identity. Financial pressures. Uncertainty. Sometimes simply trying to work out what comes next.

Some change we choose. Some we don’t. Some changes us permanently.

We won’t always know what another person is carrying. But we can think about the environment we create around them while they carry it.

For me, that’s where inclusion, belonging and wellbeing come together.

Do people feel seen and heard? Can they ask for help? Can they challenge something or offer a different perspective?

And importantly, do they trust the people around them enough to be honest?

Trust doesn’t require agreement

That feels particularly important in the world around us today.

There is uncertainty and division. We bring different experiences, identities, values, beliefs and perspectives into our workplaces.

We won’t always agree — and inclusion shouldn’t require us to.

But can we stay in the conversation?

Can we be curious about a perspective different from our own? Can we say, “I don’t understand — help me understand”? Can we recognise our assumptions and sometimes be prepared to change our minds?

I keep coming back to listening to understand, rather than simply listening to respond.

Building trust isn’t about making every conversation comfortable.

It’s about creating enough safety to have the uncomfortable ones.

Listen to understand

“Building trust isn’t about making every conversation comfortable. It’s about creating enough safety to have the uncomfortable ones”.

Where I am today

Looking back, I can see connections I couldn’t possibly have seen at the time.

My dad influencing those early thoughts about a career. My mum helping me find HR. A fascination with fairness that led through recruitment, talent, inclusion and wellbeing. The pivots along the way. And losing my brother, which changed how I see so many things.

All of it has shaped where I am today with InConfidence.

Fairness still matters. Representation, policies and processes matter.

But increasingly, I’m interested in what happens between people.

Whether we notice. Whether we ask rather than assume. Whether we listen. Whether we make space for experiences different from our own. Whether people feel they belong.

And when life or work changes unexpectedly, whether there is enough trust around us to help navigate it.

I don’t have all the answers. I’m increasingly comfortable with that.

But I do believe we need more spaces for genuine dialogue and sometimes uncomfortable conversations — not always with the aim of agreeing, but with the intention of understanding.

A conversation to continue

For National Inclusion Week, I’ve created a free Conversations in Confidence guide — simple, practical prompts to help individuals, leaders and teams have better conversations about trust, change, inclusion, belonging and wellbeing.

Use it for your own reflection, take a question into your next one-to-one, or use it to start a conversation with your team.

Because inclusion isn’t something we achieve in a week, and trust isn’t built through one initiative.

But one genuine conversation can be a place to start.

Before We Decide

We make decisions about people all the time.

Who is performing.
Who has potential.
Who needs support.
And sometimes, who gets to stay.

But how often do we stop to ask:

What might we be missing?

I remember a conversation about someone who had been with an organisation for around six months.

Things weren’t working as expected, and the conversation had moved towards whether it was time for him to leave.

On the surface, perhaps the decision seemed straightforward.

But something didn’t sit comfortably with me.

So we looked again.

Not to lower expectations.
Not to avoid accountability.
But to understand the context in which we were asking someone to meet them.

There were things happening in his home life.

There were also things about the environment and culture around him that needed to be considered.

And once those things became part of the conversation, what had initially looked like a simple performance decision became something more nuanced.

Context didn’t remove accountability. It helped us exercise better judgement.

I’ve thought about that distinction many times since.

Because inclusion isn’t only about who we invite into organisations.

It’s also about what happens once people are there.

How we interpret what we see.

The assumptions we make.

The questions we ask before reaching a conclusion.

And whether we are willing to consider that someone’s experience of the same workplace may be very different from our own.

That matters because people don’t leave the rest of their lives at the door when they come to work.

I was reminded of this during the anti-immigration protests in the UK, which have grown in prevalence since 2024.

For some colleagues, what was happening outside work wasn’t something they could simply observe from a distance.

There were concerns about physical safety.

There was psychological safety too.

People were watching events unfold around them while still being expected to arrive at work, join meetings, make decisions and continue as normal.

And sometimes, leadership avoided the subject.

Perhaps because people didn’t know what to say.

Perhaps because they were worried about saying the wrong thing.

Perhaps because the events didn’t touch their own lives in the same way.

But avoiding a difficult conversation doesn’t mean the experience disappears for the people living it.

Silence communicates too.

It can communicate that this isn’t something we talk about here.

That people should carry what they’re experiencing quietly.

Or that something affecting their sense of safety and belonging sits outside the boundaries of what leadership is prepared to acknowledge.

This is where inclusion and wellbeing become more than policies, programmes or statements of intent.

They become part of how we lead.

Do we notice?

Do we ask?

Do we create enough safety for someone to tell us that our interpretation may be incomplete?

And when they do, are we willing to reconsider what we thought we knew?

Inclusive leadership doesn’t mean having the perfect response to every situation.

Nor does it mean removing standards or avoiding difficult decisions.

It means recognising that fairness sometimes requires us to understand more before we decide.

To ask before assuming.

To listen before concluding.

To consider the individual and the environment.

And to understand that wellbeing, belonging and performance don’t exist in separate boxes.

That requires judgement.

But more importantly, it requires discernment.

Judgement reaches a conclusion.
Discernment questions whether the conclusion is ready to be made.

Judgement closes the conversation.
Discernment keeps it open long enough to see more clearly.

And in leadership, that difference matters.

Because once a judgement is made, it shapes what we see next.
But when we pause for discernment, we give ourselves the chance to see differently.

And sometimes, that pause changes everything.

The most important leadership decisions are not always the ones made quickly or confidently.

They are the ones where we are willing to say:

“We may not have the full picture yet.”

Because the decisions we make about people do not simply reflect culture.

They define it.

Redefine Success

We talk a lot about success.

What it looks like, Who has achieved it, How quickly we should get there. But for leaders, I think there’s another question worth asking:

What are you taking ownership of?

Walk with me.

Leadership isn’t just about the title you hold or the results you deliver.

It’s about how you show up when things are difficult.

It’s recognising the part you play in the culture around you. The conversations you have. The ones you avoid. The behaviours you challenge — and the ones you allow to continue.

Because whether we realise it or not, people are paying attention.

Taking ownership doesn’t mean having all the answers.

It means being willing to ask better questions.

To listen when the answer is uncomfortable.

To acknowledge when something isn’t working.

And, importantly, to do something about it.

That takes confidence. But not the loudest-person-in-the-room kind.

It takes the confidence to say, I could have handled that differently.

The confidence to change direction.

The confidence to make a decision and stand behind it.

And the confidence to create space for other people to step forward too.

So perhaps we need to redefine success.

Not simply by what we achieve, but by how we lead, what we take ownership of and what becomes possible for the people around us because we did.