Running on empty

What happens to trust when you have nothing left to give

I’ve been thinking about a pattern I keep seeing in the people around me.

Someone makes a decision, genuinely believing they’re doing the right thing by others. But it’s experienced as the opposite. Not because the intention was wrong, but because the accumulated weight of smaller moments had already made its verdict. So, by the time the gesture arrived, there was no trust left to receive it.

That gap between what we intend and what people around us actually feel is almost never created in a single moment. It builds quietly, in the ordinary interactions most of us don’t even register as significant.

Because that’s where trust actually lives. And right now, I think a lot of people have lost sight of that.

Today’s corporate environment is asking a great deal of leaders. More change, more uncertainty, more pressure to deliver with less clarity on what the future holds. And when people are operating under that kind of sustained pressure, something predictable happens.

They contract.

Not deliberately. Not because they stop caring about their teams. But because survival mode has a very narrow field of vision.

When you’re overwhelmed, the instinct is to focus on what’s immediately in front of you - your deliverables, your reputation, your own stability. The team becomes something to manage, rather than people to lead.

And that shift is immediately felt by your team. They might not be able to name it, but they sense it. The check-ins that get shorter. The decisions that seem to skip consultation. The leader who is physically present but clearly somewhere else. Each of those moments is a withdrawal from the trust account…small, subtle, yet cumulative.

I recognise this pattern because I’ve lived a version of it myself. But not in the way you might expect. I was never cold or withholding. If anything, I was the opposite.

On the surface, my relationships looked healthy. I showed up, I listened, I cared. But underneath that was a habit that I didn’t recognise for a long time.

I told people what I thought they wanted to hear. I went with the flow, avoided conflict, and shaped myself around what I sensed others needed from me. In my friendships, I was the one who never had a preference, never asked for anything, never pushed back. Easy to be around. Low maintenance. Always agreeable.

What I didn’t understand was that being consistent in your warmth isn’t the same as being consistent in your character.

People can feel the difference between someone who is genuinely present with them and someone who is managing them, even when they can’t articulate it. My warmth was real. But the version of me that people were getting shifted depending on who I was with and what I thought they needed. And that inconsistency, even though it was never intentional, quietly undermined the trust in those relationships.

The shift came gradually, through the inner work of getting clearer on who I actually am and what I stand for. Learning to prioritise my own needs. Setting boundaries that had never existed before. And something unexpected happened…

Saying no to things that weren’t aligned with who I was becoming started to feel less like a loss, and more like an act of self-respect. I actually love saying no now, because every time I do, it’s evidence that I know myself well enough to mean it.

And when you know yourself that clearly, something changes in how others experience you. The warmth is still there, but it’s now consistent with everything else. What people get from you is the same, regardless of the context, the audience or the pressure. That’s what makes you trustworthy - not grand gestures or perfectly handled conversations, but the reliable consistency of being the same person every time.

I’ve always thought about trust as a bank account. The idea that every interaction is either a deposit or withdrawal, accumulating or depleting over time.

It turns out Stephen Covey had the same instinct. He called it the Emotional Bank Account, and I’ve never found a more honest description of how trust actually works in practice.

The deposits are rarely dramatic - remembering what matters to someone, following up on something they mentioned in passing, being honest when a vague answer would have been easier. Small things. Ordinary things. But they add up.

And so do the withdrawals.

Most of the time it’s not indifference that drains the account. It’s overwhelm. When we’re running on empty, we can’t pour into others, and the people around us feel that absence.

What I’ve learned through my own journey, and what I think gets overlooked in most conversations about trust, is that the trust bank doesn’t start with the people around you. It starts with you.

When I was telling people what they wanted to hear, shaping myself around what others needed and going along with things that weren’t aligned with who I was, I wasn’t just being inauthentic. I was slowly eroding my own sense of self. And that showed up in my relationships, whether I was aware of it or not.

But this doesn’t happen because of a lack of skill or capability. It’s about something more fundamental. Do you know who you are clearly enough to show up as that person consistently? Not on a good day, not when things are going well - but when everything is pulling you in different directions and the pressure is at its highest?

Trust isn’t built in grand gestures or perfectly handled conversations. It’s built in the small, everyday moments of being exactly who you say you are - with the people around you, and with yourself.

So, before you look at the balance in your relationships, consider this question first.

When did you last make a deposit into your own account? Not a grand gesture, just a small and honest moment of giving yourself what you need.

That’s where trust begins.

If this resonated, tomorrow night I’d love to continue the conversation in real time.

From Authority to Influence is the first session in Rewriting the Playbook, a free three-part masterclass series for leaders who are ready to trade in the old rules for a new way of leading. Trust is one of the foundations we’ll be exploring, and what it actually takes to build it in practice.

Thursday 28 May | 6:30pm AEST | Free | Virtual

We won’t be recording this session, so if you’d like to be in the room, there’s still time to reserve your spot HERE.