How do you give people your presence when everything else feels more urgent? How do you do it when your calendar is full, you’re moving from meeting to meeting, and there is always another decision to make?

The question itself reveals part of the problem.

Presence is one of the most important things leaders give their teams: attention, understanding, and the sense that what they’re experiencing matters.

But presence gets crowded out because its cost is immediate and its value is delayed.

The email feels urgent now; the meeting starts now; the decision needs to be made now; the person in front of you needs two minutes and there’s no flashing red light telling you what it will cost if you don’t give it.

That’s what makes presence so easy to de-prioritize.

Presence is rarely crowded out by things that don’t matter. It’s crowded out by other things that matter too.

But the cost of de-valuing presence is longer term and profound:

• People stop bringing you things early.
• Problems get bigger before you hear about them.
• People tell you less of what they’re really thinking.
• You make decisions without context you could have had.
• People feel unseen, even when you genuinely care about them.
• Trust slowly erodes.
• You become increasingly disconnected from what is actually happening.

The cost of presence is usually measured in minutes. The cost of its absence can be measured in trust, information, and relationships.

Presence isn’t just about making people feel good.

When people feel seen, they tend to show up differently. They contribute more. They are more willing to be vulnerable. They share what they are really thinking. They tell you what is really happening.

And those are exactly the things leaders say they want.

My coaching clients have changed the relationship they have with their teams simply by becoming more intentional about giving people their attention.

If you want your team to give you truth, ownership, and their best contribution, you first have to give them something too.

So if presence is really essential leadership work, should it be treated as something we squeeze in around everything else?

Probably not.

If we genuinely value presence, eventually it has to affect our choices.

Maybe we schedule fewer meetings. Maybe we question which meetings actually require us. Maybe we create enough margin that someone on our team can get two minutes of our full attention without feeling like they are interrupting something more important.

Maybe we stop treating presence as the thing we will give people once the “real work” is done.

Because presence is part of the real work.

Collaboration isn’t only about what people give each other. Leaders have something to give too.

At some point, someone is going to drop the ball, maybe even more than once.

So you stop trusting their judgment. You double-check their work, give them less responsibility, and start expecting less.

Some of that may be 100% appropriate, but there is another question to consider:

What would this person actually have to do for me to believe in them again?

While I can’t tell you exactly what the answer is, I can give you three principles to consider:

1. Losing confidence can be legitimate.

I am a big proponent of believing in another person and seeing more in them. But belief isn’t pretending that everything is fine.

Poor behavior, failure to meet expectations, or a pattern of poor behavior needs to be addressed. Start with curiosity about what’s really happening, then move to clear expectations and consequences when needed.

We can believe in people while holding them accountable to the standard.

2. Accountability needs a path forward.

What specifically would they need to do to rebuild your confidence?

Get real specific about the actions and behaviors they need to demonstrate to regain your confidence. Both for your own sake, so you have objective measurement, and for their sake, so they have clarity.

If someone can never do enough to change your view of them, you’re no longer evaluating their performance. You’re protecting your conclusion.

3. Be willing to change your mind.

Once they’ve done what you asked and fulfilled their responsibility, you have a responsibility as the leader too. Sometimes the person has changed, but we haven’t changed our story about the person. And we let the past run the future.

Ask yourself whether you’re responding to what’s happening now or what was happening before.

Regaining confidence is a two-person process.

 

We owe people the truth about what needs to change. We also owe them a genuine path back.

Summary: In this article, Mark S. Kenny explains why the health of a team is shaped less by structure or team-building activities and more by the everyday behaviors people practice with one another.

 

Who wants to be on a team that feels fractured, full of friction, or just plain frustrating? No one.

And this is not a small problem. When it’s not solved, teams lose people, energy, engagement, and execution. When the executive leadership team is fractured, the effects spread through the organization.

Most of the time leaders reach for structural or team-building solutions. I think this is because structural fixes and team-building activities are easier to grasp. They feel tangible. But by themselves, they don’t actually solve the problem.

The real leverage is everyday behaviors.

A team usually doesn’t look fractured because of one dramatic event. It looks fractured because certain behaviors have become normal over time.

You can often see the fracture in behaviors like these:

• Hiding mistakes, avoiding asking for help, or pretending to know
• Holding back disagreement to keep the conversation comfortable
• Getting defensive, digging in, or overpowering others when challenged
• Talking about issues outside the room instead of addressing them directly
• Raising doubts after a decision instead of before it
• Withholding support for a team decision once the decision is made
• Avoiding calling out missed commitments or unclear ownership
• Protecting individual priorities, departments, or agendas at the expense of the team’s most important outcomes

 

So What Actually Fixes It?

I talk a lot about giving each other Presence, Truth, Grace, and Belief. Those aren’t abstract ideas. They show up in behavior.

Presence changes how we listen. Truth changes what we are willing to say. Grace changes how we respond to mistakes. Belief changes how much room we give others to own the work.

A team-building session can help. But only if it surfaces the behaviors that need to change and is followed by sustained work to practice those behaviors together.

Teams fracture behaviorally. And they have to be repaired behaviorally.

So ask yourself:

What behaviors have we allowed to become normal that are making it harder for us to work as one team?

Summary: What does it take for an organization to truly work as one team? In this article, Mark S. Kenny explains why strategy, structure, and process are not enough on their own, and why collaboration depends on what people give one another beneath the visible work: Presence, Truth, Grace, and Belief.

 

What does it take to build an organization that actually, truly works together as one team?

A lot depends on it: how we serve customers, how we execute across departments, how well we achieve our strategic objectives.

We almost always start with what’s visible: structure, processes, meetings, communication plans, and even strategy.

All of that matters.

But I’ve worked with hundreds of organizations in various capacities during my career. All of them focus on what’s visible. Only some of them actually worked together cohesively.

Those visible elements help coordinate people. But they don’t necessarily cause people to collaborate.

That’s why two organizations can have equally good systems and vastly different abilities to work as one team.

There is work to do beneath the work. Before people can execute the strategy together, they have to give one another what makes joint execution possible.

Collaboration isn’t what we do together. Collaboration is what we give each other.

What do we need to give?

• Presence: enough attention and curiosity to understand what the other person or team is carrying.
• Truth: enough honesty to put what is real into the room.
• Grace: enough room to recover from mistakes, friction, and history without letting the past keep controlling the future.
• Belief: enough confidence in one another to trust people to contribute, grow, and own their part.

Before people can execute together, they have to give one another the conditions that make execution possible. Those are not soft extras around the work. They are what turn coordination into collaboration.

Before asking “Do we have the right strategy, process, or meeting structure?” ask another question first:

“Are we giving one another what we need to make any of it work?”

Summary: This article from Mark S. Kenny explores how leaders can give grace without lowering standards, avoiding accountability, or immediately restoring trust. It offers three distinctions and three practical questions to help leaders keep the past from unnecessarily determining the future.

 

In my last article, I wrote about what I call the Grace Toll: the cost teams and organizations keep paying for something that has already happened.

But there is an obvious question: what if what happened actually matters?

What if someone made a decision that hurt the team? What if a leader handled something poorly? What if a department repeatedly failed to follow through?

Are we supposed to simply give grace and move on?

No. Grace is not a free pass.

Over the past week, I’ve wrestled more with this idea. Because I naturally lean towards giving grace. But I’ve also experienced plenty of times when guardrails, boundaries, and accountability were appropriate and needed.

So how should we think about this?

Here are three distinctions I’ve come up with to help:

1. Grace doesn’t eliminate accountability. It eliminates punishment beyond accountability.

We have to address the behavior: someone didn’t follow-through, a person acted inappropriately, or they didn’t meet the standard. We need to have the conversation, clarify the expectation, and establish consequences if necessary.

But once we’ve appropriately dealt with it, there is a difference between holding someone accountable and making them keep paying.

2. Grace does not require you to restore trust immediately. It allows someone the opportunity to rebuild it.

Someone who has repeatedly broken commitments may need to demonstrate reliability over time.

Grace says that I won’t pretend it didn’t happen or take appropriate measures, but I also won’t decide that what happened is all this person will ever be.

3. Grace doesn’t mean ignoring patterns. It means making sure we’re responding to new patterns instead of old ones.

An old story can become the lens through which everything someone does gets interpreted. They ask a question and we think “There they go again.” They disagree and we think “Typical.” They make a mistake and we think “See? I knew we couldn’t trust them.”

In this case, the past isn’t informing the future, it’s determining it.

 

With those distinctions in mind, here’s a simple three-question test to help us discern a situation:

1. Has this been appropriately addressed?
2. Is there a current pattern that requires accountability, or am I responding to an old one?
3. What would I do differently right now if I weren’t thinking about this person’s past?

 

Grace doesn’t ask us to lower the standard. It asks us to address what needs to be addressed without letting the past run the future.

We need to hold people accountable. Set appropriate boundaries. And require trust to be rebuilt when necessary.

But somewhere along the way, we also have to give people the opportunity for tomorrow to be different from yesterday.

And someday, we’ll need someone to give us that opportunity too.

Summary: How can teams stop letting the past shape the future? In this article, Mark S. Kenny explains the hidden organizational cost of unresolved history, what he calls the Grace Toll, and why grace can help teams move forward without ignoring accountability.

 

Several years ago I had an insight: when teams feel fragmented, when there is ongoing conflict, or when departments won’t work together, there is often a reason that isn’t obvious.

Every organization has a past. Every organization accumulates history.

Someone dropped the ball. A department didn’t come through. A leader handled something poorly. A change was forced through. Someone said something they shouldn’t have.

That’s inevitable when people work together.

The problem is that some organizations keep paying for the past. They let the past run the future.

For example:

• A mistake that happened two years ago can still be sitting in a meeting today.
• A conflict between two leaders can affect people who weren’t even there when it happened.
• An old departmental failure can shape how people approach the next initiative.
• A former leader’s behavior can determine how people respond to the next leader.

The event ends, but the cost doesn’t. You pay repeatedly.

Another decision gets questioned. Another meeting takes longer. Another conversation gets avoided. Another email gets copied to three unnecessary people. Another idea doesn’t get shared. Another cross-functional project starts with suspicion.

This is the organizational cost that often goes unrecognized.

I first had this insight several years ago when I was working with a team that felt fractured. During one session we had together, a past wrong came rushing back into the room, just like it had happened that morning. Several members of the team were still frustrated by something one team member had done months earlier.

What I began to realize is that the team wasn’t reacting to what was happening that morning. They were reacting to the past.

Sometimes the problem is that situations like this were never addressed. But sometimes they were addressed. People just remember what happened and adjust their behavior:

• They include a department a little later.
• They share a little less information.
• They stop giving someone the benefit of the doubt.
• They become more guarded in meetings.
• They assume motives based on what happened before.
• They stop asking for help.

We tend to diagnose this as a trust problem, a communication problem, or a collaboration problem. And sometimes it is.

But I’ve come to believe that sometimes we’re dealing with something else:

We’re withholding grace.

Grace isn’t being kind or polite. It’s not pretending the past didn’t happen. It’s not excusing bad behavior.

Grace is not letting the past run the future, both for ourselves and for others.

There is an important distinction here: there is a difference between letting the past inform the future and letting the past run the future.

Sometimes the past should inform the future. We may need better boundaries. We may need greater accountability. Trust may need to be rebuilt. A pattern of behavior may need to change.

Grace doesn’t require us to forget what happened.

It requires us to stop making every new interaction pay for an old experience.

When we don’t, there is an organizational toll. I call it the Grace Toll.

Mistakes never die. We keep score. We hold grudges. Old stories show up in new conversations. Meetings, decisions, relationships, and new opportunities all pay a little more because of something that happened before.

Eventually, the Grace Toll becomes expensive.

So here’s a question worth asking:

Where are you, your team, or your organization still paying for something that has already happened?

The answer may reveal a trust problem or an accountability problem that needs to be addressed.

But it may also reveal something less obvious.

Someone needs to give grace.

Of course, giving grace while maintaining healthy boundaries, accountability, and appropriate expectations isn’t necessarily simple.

And that sounds like a great topic for my next article.

Summary: How do you build trust on a team or across an organization? In this article, Mark S. Kenny explains why trust isn’t built directly, but accumulated through the small, everyday interactions between people.

 

We all know how important it is to build trust. Without it, teams lose the ability to execute together, unnecessary friction and turbulence become all-consuming, and great ideas and solutions get lost.

But you can’t actually “build trust” directly. What I mean is that you can’t walk out of your office thinking “I’m going to spend time building trust today.”

You can host an offsite. You can conduct a team-building activity. You can create more opportunities for people to connect. Those things can help.

But none of them builds trust on its own. It’s what people give each other while they’re there that matters.

Trust isn’t built directly. Trust is accumulated through thousands of small interactions.

I think of those interactions as passes: small moments when we choose what we will give to one another and what we will withhold.

Trust is built when we give someone our presence, stepping into their world, without trying to fix them.

Trust is built when we are willing to share important truth with healthy candor and courage. It’s built when we invite truth in the form of feedback, and respond to truth with vulnerability instead of defensiveness when it shows up.

Trust is built when we decide not to let past wrongs run future interactions.

Trust is built when we believe in someone by setting clear expectations and giving them room to figure it out themselves, without hovering and overcorrecting too quickly.

All of these are small interactions that happen every day when we choose what we will give to each other and what we will withhold from each other. It’s the result of those choices, in the thousands of interactions we experience, that build trust.

So instead of heading into your day trying to “build trust,” pay attention to the interactions in front of you.

Give someone your presence. Tell an important truth. Extend grace. Show someone you believe in them.

You don’t build trust all at once. You build it one pass at a time.

Even great teams eventually come to an end. This is happening right now here in Tennessee.

Across Tennessee state government, executive leadership teams are preparing for a transition. After this fall’s gubernatorial election, many agencies will welcome entirely new leadership teams.

It’s a unique season, but it’s not unique to government. Every organization eventually experiences the same thing: CEOs retire, organizations merge, leaders move on.

Every leadership team is temporary. Someday, the organization you inherited will become someone else’s responsibility.

The question isn’t whether your team will someday end. The question is what condition you’ll leave the organization in when it does.

The greatest temptation during a known transition is to begin leading for yourself instead of leading for the organization.

It’s natural and completely human. We become more protective. We postpone. We begin thinking about what’s next.

Without even realizing it:

• Tough decisions get postponed for the next team.
• Investing in future leaders becomes less urgent.
• Stewardship slowly gives way to self-preservation.

Without intending to, we stop investing in the people and the organization we’ll eventually leave behind.

Great leaders don’t serve because they’ll be here. They serve because the organization will be here.

Before your team hands the organization to the next leadership team, ask yourselves these six questions:

1. What conversations need to happen before the team disbands?
2. Who in the organization do we need to invest in?
3. Where is grace needed so that the organization doesn’t let the past run the future?
4. What decisions are we putting off just because it’s easier, when the organization needs clarity now?
5. Who needs our encouragement and praise?
6. How could we infuse belief and confidence into others that carries into the next team?

Your legacy isn’t what you accomplish before leaving. It’s the condition of the people and the organization you leave behind. Leave the next leadership team a legacy they can build on.

Every executive wants an organization that keeps performing year after year.

It’s easy to assume that if execution is strong, the organization is in good shape. But results can be deceptive. Current execution is a lagging indicator. The condition of the organization is a leading indicator. Today’s results can hide tomorrow’s risk.

For example, people are delivering, customers are happy, and revenue is good. Meanwhile:

• Trust is declining
• Teams are drifting apart
• Leaders are exhausted
• People are burning out
• Difficult conversations are avoided
• Cross-functional collaboration is waning

Execution can hide fragmentation, allowing even the best teams to become disconnected.

And nothing may look broken until something significant inevitably changes:

• A key leader leaves
• A major initiative fails
• Growth exposes the cracks

And suddenly the organization discovers the condition it was actually in all along.

If you’re wondering if execution is hiding fragmentation, here’s a favorite diagnostic:

Audit what people are withholding.

Simply ask yourself: What are people no longer giving each other?

Fragmentation doesn’t start with process or structure. It starts when people stop giving one another what they need to succeed.

For example: Are people speaking honestly? Asking for help? Sharing information freely? Coaching instead of just solving problems? Encouraging one another? Believing in one another? Giving grace?

It doesn’t require another survey or dashboard. It simply requires leaders to pause, become curious, and notice.

The strongest organizations don’t just measure what gets done. They pay attention to what people are giving one another while the work is getting done.

At least once a quarter ask: “What are we quietly withholding from one another that would help us work better together?”

The answers rarely show up on a dashboard.

But they often determine whether the dashboard still looks good a year from now.

 

Every executive I know is trying to accomplish something bigger than simply delivering results.

They’re trying to create an organization where leaders, departments, teams, and individuals genuinely share ownership of the mission instead of working at cross-purposes or creating unnecessary friction.

Creating shared ownership isn’t something you can assign. It requires something much deeper.

We spend enormous energy improving communication, strengthening processes, running better projects, and developing strong strategic plans. And we should. But far less attention is paid to what people are actually giving one another inside those meetings.

People are constantly giving—or withholding—gifts like attention, honesty, encouragement, confidence, and grace.

Collaboration isn’t primarily what we do together. It’s what we intentionally give one another while we’re doing the work.

The quality of our collaboration is determined less by what’s written on the agenda than by what’s passed between people.

Leaders experience this every day.

Whether you’re a CEO, executive, department leader, manager, or individual contributor, much of your success depends on people you influence as much as people you manage. That’s why what we give one another matters so much.

This simple idea became the foundation for what I call the Four Collaboration Passes.

Here’s one practice you can use immediately.

If collaboration is built by what people give one another, the first step is discovering what people actually need.

Before your next leadership meeting, project kickoff, planning session, team meeting, or when your team feels stuck, try something different.

Before jumping into the agenda, go around the room and ask one simple question:

“What’s one thing you need from this group in order to succeed?”

You might hear:

• “I need people to speak up sooner.”
• “I need more context.”
• “I need data and tools.”
• “I need help.”
• “I need to know it’s okay to disagree.”
• “I need to feel like I’m not carrying this alone.”

Some groups will answer this question immediately. Others may hesitate. That’s natural. People are more willing to answer honestly when they’ve seen that the group genuinely wants to help them succeed.

What you’ve done is shift the conversation from just “What do we need to get done?” to “How can we help each other succeed?”

Shared ownership isn’t built through agendas or assignments. It’s built one interaction at a time, as people intentionally give one another what they need to succeed.

That’s the idea behind Uncommon Collaboration™.