Most leaders treat trust as something earned through track record and verified performance. But what if that model is fundamentally incomplete? Rae Greiner, professor of English literature at Indiana University, argues that sympathy (and by extension, trust) is not a feeling that passes between people. It is an imaginative, speculative act that requires us to reason about another person's situation without ever fully confirming what they feel.

Drawing on Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments and two centuries of the novel form, Greiner reframes what it means to read people, extend trust, and build belief under conditions of genuine uncertainty.

For leaders managing teams, navigating organizational culture, or rebuilding trust after disruption, her argument carries a practical edge: the problem is not that we cannot know what others feel; the problem is that we behave as though we can.

In this conversation, Greiner and Roman explore the roots of the collapse of institutional trust in the Enlightenment, why the 18th-century novel was essentially a trust-training machine, what it means that we can sympathize with the dead, and why the capacity to change your mind may be the most underrated leadership competency of all.

Taking the pioneering work of Dan Doty as his cue, Richard Roman, PhD, examines the collapse of initiation structures in American culture through peer-reviewed research: normative male alexithymia (Levant), gender role conflict and suicide risk (JAMA Psychiatry 2020), rites of passage program outcomes, and the RAND male mentorship deficit data.

What does the science say about what boys and men actually need, and what is the evidence base for getting it right?

Keywords: masculinity research, male initiation, rites of passage, normative male alexithymia, male loneliness, boys' mental health, gender role conflict, leadership, trust, CHRO, men's work, wilderness therapy

Further Reading:

What does it cost an organization (or a family) when the men inside it were never given a threshold to cross?

Dan Doty has spent over two decades asking that question. As a wilderness therapy guide, high school teacher in the Bronx, executive coach, and now the creator of a training program for male initiators, Dan has worked with thousands of men across a range of contexts. What he keeps finding is that the crisis isn't in the men. It's in the absence of the infrastructure that was supposed to shape them.

In this episode, Dan and Richard explore why American culture quietly dismantled its rites of passage for boys, and what that erosion looks like inside adult men, adult teams, and adult organizations. They get into the difference between conditional and unconditional confidence, why men's retreats can become a form of "depth cosplay," and Dan's deceptively simple trust equation: vulnerability multiplied by time equals connection.

If you work with men, lead men, or are one, this episode will reframe something you thought you already understood.

Topics covered: male initiation, rites of passage, men's mental health, self-trust, organizational trust, psychological safety, leadership development, fatherhood, men's groups, wilderness therapy, emotional intelligence in men

Most trust-building strategies assume everyone starts from the same baseline. Liberation psychology says that assumption is the problem.

In this episode, we explore how liberation psychology reshapes the way leaders understand organizational trust, psychological safety, racial trauma, institutional repair, and collective healing. Drawing on Ignacio Martín-Baró and Amy Edmondson, this episode examines why trust cannot be rebuilt through communication strategies alone.

Trust is structural. It is shaped by history, power, design, and unequal access to safety. So we ask: Who was this organization designed to serve? Who has been asked to adapt or absorb harm? And what would it mean to move from designed extraction toward designed service?

This conversation offers a liberation lens for rebuilding trust at four levels: self-trust, interpersonal trust, team-level trust, and organizational trust. It is a practical and provocative episode for leaders, educators, managers, DEI practitioners, and anyone working to build more honest, humane, and trustworthy institutions. Thanks for listening!

A young medical interpreter picks up the phone at 3 AM in a rural Nebraska hospital and hears a parent learn their child is gone. That moment changed everything for Dr. Ayli Carrero Pinedo.

Now a trauma psychologist, founder and CEO of In Alignment Wellness Services, and recipient of the 2022 APA Presidential Citation, she joins Dr. Richard Roman to discuss building trust within systems never designed for the communities they serve, from therapy rooms to veteran groups to institutions dismantling their own equity work.

They explore liberation psychology as a diagnostic framework, why coalition-building matters more than ever, and what it costs leaders when asked to act against their values.

Every AI tool that observes you is built on a choice: does it serve you, or does it serve someone else? In this solo companion episode, Richard unpacks the trust architecture behind AI systems across three domains: organizational leadership, higher education, and public institutions.

Most managers get feedback once or twice a year if they're lucky. Ben Perreau is the founder of Parafoil, an AI-powered leadership intelligence tool that gives managers a real-time mirror after every one-on-one. I

In this episode, Ben and Richard dig into the feedback vacuum that stalls most leadership development, why the IC-to-manager transition is where trust breaks down, and what it actually looks like to design an AI tool that serves managers rather than surveilling them. If you lead people or develop the people who do, this one's for you.

Find Ben's work at Parafoil.co and connect with him on LinkedIn. 

What happens in a leader's brain in the moment between a trigger and a response? Why does that moment determine whether teams trust each other or fall apart?

In this solo follow-up to the conversation with Andrew McNeill of LX Leaders, Richard examines the neuroscience behind reactive vs. responsive leadership, what Google's Project Aristotle and Amy Edmondson's research reveal about psychological safety as a driver of performance, and why vulnerability in leadership isn't about oversharing; it's about calculated courage. The episode also explores fierce compassion (why avoiding hard conversations isn't kindness), research on team charters as a form of trust infrastructure, and why one-off workshops fail where sustained interventions succeed.

Includes a five-part Monday Morning Test with actionable steps for individual leaders, teams, and organizations.

Guest episode reference: Andrew McNeill, LX Leaders (LXleaders.com)

Andrew McNeill is a leadership coach, mindfulness teacher, and co-founder of LX Leaders, a partnership helping leaders and teams thrive under pressure. A veteran of UK central government, Andrew served as one of the directors leading the national response to the Grenfell Tower tragedy. This experience crystallized how mindfulness practice directly sustains leadership performance in crisis.

In this episode, Andrew and Richard explore the fault line between well-being and performance, and why treating them as separate priorities is one of the most damaging assumptions in organizational leadership today.

Andrew shares how burnout drove him to a mindfulness practice that unlocked a promotion he'd been chasing for 7 years, why compassion in leadership requires more courage than aggression, and a powerful team exercise that consistently generates authentic human connection in corporate environments.

They also discuss how to measure the impact of mindfulness on team trust and retention, the post-COVID backlash against well-being conversations, and why the next decade will demand leaders who can build genuine human connections rather than manage performance.

Whether you're a CHRO navigating return-to-office tensions, a senior consultant working with fractured teams, or a leader questioning whether "soft skills" are actually the hardest ones, this conversation offers a practical framework for leading with both presence and accountability.

Find Andrew's work at LXleaders.com and connect with him on LinkedIn.

Burnout isn't just about being tired. It's a trust crisis, and the most serious damage happens inside.

New research shows 55% of the U.S. workforce is experiencing burnout, a six-year high. But the statistics miss something critical: burnout doesn't just exhaust you. It erodes your confidence in your own judgment. Nearly one in four employees reports that workplace stress has significantly reduced their ability to trust their own decisions.

In this solo episode, Richard explores the hidden relationship between chronic workplace stress and erosion of self-trust, drawing on insights from his recent conversation with talent development leader Jeremy Hannah and the latest research on burnout, organizational trust, and recovery.

In this episode, you'll learn:

Plus: The Monday Morning Test with specific action steps for CHROs, COOs, and individual contributors.

Whether you're a senior leader trying to understand why your high performers are quietly disengaging, or a professional who's lost confidence in your own judgment without knowing why, this episode names what's happening and offers a path forward.

Research cited: Eagle Hill Consulting Workforce Burnout Survey 2025, Aflac WorkForces Report, Microsoft Work Trend Index, Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, Academy of Management sabbatical research, and more.

Companion episode: Interview with Jeremy Hannah, Viante Talent Solutions

Connect with Richard: LinkedIn | Substack