284. Your Face is Losing Trust (And How to Fix It Fast)

Show Notes:

In this episode of The Kathie Owen Perspective, Kathie breaks down one of the most overlooked drivers of trust, culture, and performance inside organizations:

👉 Your presence

After a major shift—like layoffs, restructuring, or leadership changes—trust doesn’t usually break because of what leaders say.

It breaks because of what people feel.

And most of that happens through subtle, unconscious signals:

•  facial expressions 
•  body language 
•  tone and energy 
•  presence under pressure 

Kathie walks through a real-world case where trust collapsed silently after a leadership decision—and how an assessment revealed the truth leaders couldn’t see.

From there, she explains how she identifies these patterns through human diligence, and how something as simple as a leader’s facial expression can shift an entire organization’s behavior.

You’ll also learn the powerful framework from The Charisma Myth—Presence, Power, and Warmth—and how it applies not just in business, but in relationships, families, and everyday life.

✨ This episode will help you understand:

•  Why psychological safety disappears faster than you think 
•  How micro-expressions and body language shape trust 
•  Why your team reacts before they think 
•  How to rebuild trust without over-explaining or over-correcting 
•  What leaders unintentionally signal under pressure 

If something feels “off” in your team or organization… this episode will help you finally see why.

🔗 Resources & Next Steps

📖 Read the full blog (with deeper insights + tools):
www.kathieowen.com/blog/face-costing-you-trust

📕 The Book The Charisma Myth
📅 Book a Human Diligence Call with Kathie

🔑 Key Takeaway

Trust doesn’t break in one big moment.

It erodes through the signals leaders don’t realize they’re sending.

Transcript

Kathie (2) 0:00

Today I'm gonna start with a moment. A moment you've probably seen in your own workplace. A leadership team walks the floor after a major change that happens in the business. No announcement, no clear explanation, just silence, and then you see it. Tight faces, closed posture, quick steps, no eye contact, no interaction. No one says anything, but the entire building feels it. People get quieter. They stop sharing ideas. They start watching instead of contributing. And here's what's happening. Your face is speaking before you do. Welcome to the Kathie Owen Perspective podcast. My name is Kathie Owen. I am a private consultant and I specialize in identifying human patterns under pressure inside organizations, especially during high stakes moments like transition, growth, and even disruption. I don't come in to motivate teams. I come in to observe what's already happening. That no one has put words to yet. Because the problem always shows up in the room before it shows up in the numbers. And today we're gonna talk about how it shows up in your presence, in your facial expressions. Let me walk you through how this actually plays out. When I enter a company, I don't start with assumptions. I start with an assessment, anonymous, direct, honest, and in this case, the signal was clear. The team did not trust leadership and psychological safety was gone. People didn't feel safe speaking up. They didn't feel safe asking questions. And when that happens, performance doesn't improve, It contracts. So once I saw that in the assessment, I went to the next layer observation. How are leaders actually showing up? Not what they say, not what they intend. What are they signaling? And it became obvious very quickly. Leaders were walking through the building with angry looks on their faces. They weren't intentionally doing it, but they were consistently doing it. Tight expressions, closed body language, no eye contact, avoiding interaction, and staying removed from the team. They thought they were focused. The team felt something very different. They felt the tension, they felt the pressure, they felt the uncertainty, and they felt the threat. And here's the truth, when trust is already fragile, your nonverbal signals carry more weight than anything you say. And this doesn't just happen in business. This happens in real life, in relationships, in families, in everyday conversations. You walk into a room with a certain energy and people feel it instantly before you explain yourself. Before you say a word, people feel you. And this happens subconsciously. Your brain is wired to scan for safety in milliseconds. It decides safe or unsafe, open or closed, trust or protect. So when your face is tight. You know, they call it resting bitch face when your posture is closed. You know that stance that looks angry all the time, or when your presence just feels off. People don't sit there and analyze it. They react to it. This is one of the first things I correct when I'm brought into an organization, not because it's the only issue, but because it is the fastest lever to shift how people feel, and when people feel different, they behave differently. The framework I use to teach this comes from the book, the Charisma Myth. I'll have a link to that book in the show notes and description below, and it's simple, but it's powerful. There's three words, presence, power, and warmth. Let me give you a quick story from the book. Marilyn Monroe was once sitting on a subway with her photographer. No one noticed her. No one recognized her. She looked like anyone else. Then she turned to her photographer and said, do you wanna see her? And in that moment, she shifted. Her posture changed, her face changed, her energy changed. She turned on presence, power, and warmth, and suddenly people recognized her instantly. That's influence. So let me break this down simply. Presence is the foundation of all of it. This is the most important one. Presence means you are fully here, not distracted, not in your head, not rushing past people. When you are present, people feel seen, people feel acknowledged, and people feel safe. And they do this subconsciously. They can also tell when you're not being present. This is key, because when you're not, they feel that too, and safety disappears quickly. Power. It's stability under pressure. Power is not authority. It is steadiness. It is calm, and it's your ability to hold the moment without reacting emotionally. When you have power, your voice is steady, your posture is grounded, your decisions feel clear and your team feels someone is holding this. Warmth is human connection. This is where trust gets built, especially after something disruptive like a merger or an acquisition. So you wanna build that trust. What does warmth look like? It looks like genuine eye contact, using someone's name when you're speaking to them, a real genuine smile, and small human interactions. And under pressure this is the first things most leaders lose. I've seen it so many times. But it's the thing people need the most. Now, here's what matters you don't need a perfect speech. You don't need the perfect message because your team is not just listening to your words, they're reading your signals. So what did we do when we changed this? We didn't start with strategy. We didn't start with messaging. We started with behavior because we wanted to build that trust, that influence, that perspective right away. So we changed how the leaders showed up. We softened their facial expressions. We made that intentional. We opened up their posture, we slowed their pace. We made eye contact again. We spoke to people by name and we reengaged with the team. Simple changes, but powerful ones. Because now when leadership walked into a room, the signal changed. And when the signal changed, the environment changed. People started speaking again. Energy shifted. Trust began to rebuild. Because leadership is not just what you say, it's what people feel in your presence. So here's a question I want you to sit with. What does it feel like when you walk into a room? Not what you intend, not what you think you're projecting? What do people actually feel? Because that answer is shaping your leadership, your relationships and your organization. And if you're a leader, a founder, or part of a team going through high stakes change, this is exactly where I come in. I don't guess. I observe, I assess, and I identify the patterns that are quietly impacting trust, performance, and most importantly, enterprise value. I call it human diligence. If you wanna go deeper into this, I've linked the full blog post in the description. And there are additional resources there to help you apply this immediately. That book, the Charisma Myth is very, very helpful. In fact, she helps leaders do exactly what I'm talking about here, and she has plenty of examples inside this book. And if you're looking for someone to come into your organization and assess what's really happening, you can visit my website and my speaking page. In fact, I speak on presence, power, and warmth inside one of my keynotes. That's where you'll see exactly how I work with leadership teams in high stakes environments. So until next time, remember, the problem shows up in the room before it shows up in the numbers, and more importantly, your presence is shaping that room, whether you realize it or not. All right, that's my episode for today. I trust that you found it helpful, and if you know someone who could benefit from this, please share it with them, and I will see you next time on the Kathie Owen perspective Podcast.