The Manager Who Taught Me That Trust Isn’t Built in Meetings — It’s Built in Moments

Early in my career, I worked at Sears Holdings in the Women’s Plus and Petites apparel division. I was an Inventory Manager, leading a small team of analysts and responsible for forecasting, allocation, and making sure our numbers hit—week after week. It was a high-pressure environment. Deliverables didn’t care if you were tired. And this was long before remote work or flexible schedules were common. We worked on desktops. You showed up, or you didn’t.

At the same time, I was a divorced mom with two elementary-aged kids and no local support system. My life ran on a tight schedule: before-school care drop-off at 7:30 a.m., work by 8:00, leave by 5:00 sharp to make it back to after-school care by 5:30. There was no margin. No buffer. Just constant motion.

Then came the lice outbreak.

If you’ve ever dealt with lice, you know it’s not just inconvenient—it’s all-consuming. I was up late at night doing treatments, combing through my daughter’s hair strand by strand. In the mornings, I’d wake up early to do it all over again. And still, the daycare inspections kept turning us away because they found tiny dead white eggs I couldn’t even see.

Day after day, I’d show up, exhausted and defeated, only to be told I couldn’t leave her there. I had no backup plan. No one to call. I was running on fumes—physically and emotionally.

When I finally made it into the office one Thursday, I broke down in my director Mary’s office.

Mary was one of the most collaborative, steady leaders I’ve ever worked for. She was supportive, nurturing, and not afraid to roll-up her sleeves. She’d nominated me for multiple awards and she trusted my judgment. We had different life circumstances - she was married didn’t have kids of her own. Still, on that day, she saw something I couldn’t hide: I was not okay.

I remember crying and trying to talk through what had been happening. And then she did something I didn’t expect.

She sent me home.

I protested. “What about the work?”

She said, “Don’t worry about it. Go take care of yourself. We’ll cover it.”

That moment changed me. At the time, I was in full "prove-yourself" mode. Early 30s. Impostor syndrome simmering under the surface. Self-care wasn’t part of my vocabulary. I believed being strong meant pushing through. But Mary modeled a different kind of strength.

Leadership expert Amy Edmondson talks about psychological safety—the belief that you won’t be punished or humiliated for being human at work. In that moment, Mary created safety. Not through a policy. Not in a meeting. But in a quiet, personal decision. She saw me as a whole person, not just a performer of tasks.

That’s emotional intelligence in action, the kind described by Daniel Goleman—self-awareness, empathy, and social skill applied with good judgment. She didn’t share my life circumstances. She wasn’t a single mom juggling daycare crises. But she recognized distress and responded with compassion instead of control.

That single decision built more loyalty and trust with me than any performance review ever could.

Trust isn’t built in review meetings. It’s built in moments when leaders choose people over pressure.

Years later, when I design manager development workshops, I think about Mary. I teach leaders that empathy is not softness, it’s being a good human and it's strategic. When you create space for people to be human, you earn their discretionary effort. You create resilience inside your team.

People don’t forget how you made them feel when they were at their breaking point. I don’t remember the numbers from that quarter, but I remember being told to go home, and that made all the difference.