Leadership lives or dies in how other people experience you. This conversation between Brandon Mergard and Alex Culley reframes leadership as a social process, where one recurring behavior can quietly erode trust and frustrate teams. The key shift is moving from abstract self-improvement to actively understanding the “rubric” others use to judge your effectiveness and then working with it, not guessing at it.

A central idea is the power of feedforward. Instead of looking backward and risking defensiveness, feedforward asks: 

“Here’s how I want to show up. But what should I do to get there?” 

It’s a simple but uncomfortable habit. You go directly to your stakeholders, be that your team, peers, or boss, and ask for specific, actionable input. Vague praise isn’t enough, and conflicting advice is to be expected. It’s all relevant data. Your job is to synthesize it into better judgment. Leadership becomes a dialogue, not a declaration. 

Where most leaders fall short is failing to follow up. Consistency is what turns good intentions into visible change. When people see you listening, trying, and improving over time, trust builds. That’s because leadership is a social process. It requires showing up in people’s lives, making them feel heard, and aligning expectations continuously. The takeaway is practical and immediate. Step one, ask for feedforward. Step two, say “thank you”. And step three, close the loop. Done consistently, these small actions compound into stronger relationships, better performance, and leadership that people feel and see.