Hi Reader,

Early in my career, I had two very different leaders.

One shared transparently. One was a place where ideas went to die.

The second one is the story I want to tell you today - because our brains recall the difficult ones faster, and because what happened in that role is probably more familiar to you than you want to admit.

I spent nearly two years raising my hand.

Making suggestions. Volunteering for stretch assignments. Learning from everyone around me. I wanted to demonstrate my value, to make a mark, to show what I was capable of.

What I built instead was a bottleneck.

Because I could do almost everyone's job, it became easier for others to know: Jessy's got it. I never said no. I never turned down more work. I was so committed to being useful that I made myself invisible in the ways that actually matter - my ideas, my judgment, my leadership potential.

When I made suggestions based on a genuine understanding of where the problems were, I was dismissed. And then dismissed again. And again. Until I stopped raising my hand altogether.

Eventually, I left.

When they asked why in my exit interview, I said what most people say: I wanted to try something different. They were surprised. The economy was soft. Others had stayed. On paper, there was no obvious reason to go.

But I was already gone long before I handed in my notice.

Sound familiar?

What the research confirms about what I lived

According to Gallup's State of the Global Workplace, only 23% of employees globally strongly agree that they trust their organization's leadership.

In Canada, HRPA data shows that managers who fail to communicate the reasoning behind decisions - even when the answer is no - see measurably higher rates of disengagement within six to twelve months.

And the number that should stop every people leader cold: employees who feel their voice is consistently ignored are four times more likely to be actively searching for another role, even in a soft labour market.

People may not be leaving right now. But they are looking.

The economy is doing the staying for you. Do not mistake that for engagement.

The leader who changed everything

The leader who changed everything for me did not have a bigger budget. Did not have more time. Was not running a formal mentorship program.

What they had was a phrase I have never forgotten:

"That's a great idea. Unfortunately we don't have the capacity right now because..."

Not a deflection. Not a closed door. Not silence that slowly starts to sound like dismissal. A complete sentence. A real reason. A relationship maintained even inside a no.

I was the youngest person on that team. The only woman of colour in the room. I had every reason to expect to be overlooked. Instead I was brought into the fold. My ideas were engaged honestly. When they could not move forward on something, I knew why - and that transparency kept my trust intact even when the answer was not what I wanted.

That is what the Relationships pillar in the Grounded Leadership framework is built on. Not warmth as a personality trait. Not team lunches or culture initiatives. The daily practice of communicating honestly enough that the people around you never have to guess where they stand.

Trust is not built in the big moments. It is built in the accumulation of small ones - the follow-through, the honest no, the acknowledgment that lands before someone stops expecting it.

When those moments disappear, what follows is not a dramatic exit. It is a slow withdrawal. A hand that stops going up. A voice that goes quiet. A high performer who starts updating their resume on a Tuesday afternoon and tells no one.

What I want you to understand

My manager in that first role did not think they were doing anything wrong.

They were busy. They were managing up. They were dealing with their own pressure. The dismissals were not malicious. They were just - absent. There was no container for my ideas, no feedback loop, no honest accounting of what was possible and what was not.

And that absence cost them a committed, capable, deeply motivated employee who had spent two years learning their business from the inside out.

The exit interview told them nothing useful. Because exit interviews happen after the relationship is already over.

The conversation that would have changed the outcome was not a formal one. It was the five-minute version of: I see you. Here is what I can offer you right now. Here is what I cannot. Here is why.

That conversation is a leadership conversation. It does not belong in an HR program. It belongs in the relationship between a leader and their people - practiced consistently, before someone stops raising their hand.

One move this week

Think of one person on your team who used to contribute ideas or volunteer frequently and has gone quieter in recent months.

Do not send them a survey. Do not add a standing agenda item.

Reach out directly this week - a conversation, not a meeting - and ask one question:

"Is there something you have been sitting on that you have not found the right moment to bring up?"

Then create the moment. Hold it. You are not looking for a deliverable. You are looking for the signal that tells you whether this person still believes their voice matters here.

What you do with that signal is where your leadership either builds trust or begins to erode it.

The Grounded Question of the Week

Where in your leadership are you giving people answers that are complete enough to keep their trust - and where are you leaving them in uncertainty and calling it kindness?

An invitation

What I described in that second leader - the transparency, the honest no, the trust that held even inside rejection - that is not a personality type.

It is a set of practices. And they can be learned.

This November, I am launching something I have been building toward for a long time.

The Grounded Leadership Ecosystem is a four-part workshop series for people leaders who are ready to move from reacting to their team dynamics to actually shaping them. Each session goes deep on one of the four most consequential leadership practices I work with:

• Clarity - so your team knows exactly where they stand and what is possible
• Boundaries - so you stop absorbing what belongs to the system and start protecting what matters
• Influence - so your leadership lands even when you do not have positional authority
• Conflict - so the hard conversations become the ones that actually move things forward

The first session - Clarity - begins November 4 at 12:00 PM PST.​

This is not a webinar. It is a working session. You will leave with something you can use the same afternoon.

If you have ever been the person in that first role - the one whose hand stopped going up - or if you suspect you might be leading someone who is quietly disappearing right now, this series is built for that moment.

→ Register for the Grounded Leadership Ecosystem- Clarity​

Spots are limited. The first session is two weeks out. If this is calling you, now is the right time.

If today's story resonated, forward this to a leader who needs to hear it. The one about the hand that stopped going up.

Until next time,

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Leadership & Culture Change Consultant | Keynote Speaker | Creator of the Grounded Leadership Framework and the 7 Days of Clarity Experience
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