Kerry has been making high-stakes decisions and leading people through difficult situations for years. And even when she considers herself open to feedback and emotionally grounded, there are still moments when something hits a nerve and she can feel herself defending against things that have not even been said.

That moment happened the same day Kerry recorded this episode. And it became the starting point for a deeper conversation about what emotional intelligence actually looks like under pressure. Not as an abstract leadership concept, but in the seconds after something triggers you.

Kerry explores what happens when leaders misread comments, react to stories they have created, or let their emotions take over the conversation. Because when a leader cannot manage themselves, their team starts managing them instead.

Kerry’s new book, Talk With Trust, is now available: https://a.co/d/05mNRnJH

To learn more, visit http://kerrysiggins.com

Let’s connect on LinkedIn, Instagram, or TikTok!

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kerry-siggins-166b66/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kerry.siggins/

TikTok:https://www.tiktok.com/@kerry.siggins

Something I keep seeing in my own company, in conversations with leaders I know, and honestly in my own life is that almost every conflict has the same thing underneath it. Someone needs to be right. Not because the facts require it. Because something in their identity requires it.

I had an employee recently who was frustrated that he was not being heard. And the more I watched how he showed up in meetings, the more I could see that his need to be right was the very thing making people stop listening to him. He would get angry, people would pull back, he would get disinvited to meetings, and then feel even less heard. A loop. Not caused by the people around him. Caused by the question he was never asking himself: do I want to be right, or do I want influence?

That question is what this episode is about. Not as a simple call to be agreeable or let things go. There are facts worth defending, values worth holding, positions worth taking. But before any of that, there is a more honest question: what am I actually trying to accomplish here?

Kerry’s new book, Talk With Trust, is now available: https://a.co/d/05mNRnJH

To learn more, visit http://kerrysiggins.com

Let’s connect on LinkedIn, Instagram, or TikTok!

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kerry-siggins-166b66/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kerry.siggins/

TikTok:https://www.tiktok.com/@kerry.siggins

Something I keep seeing in my company, in the situations leaders bring to me, and honestly in my own life, is that the argument on the surface is almost never the actual conflict. Someone gets left out of a meeting and suddenly they are furious. Someone's idea gets overruled and now there is tension that feels personal. Someone misses a commitment and now they cannot be trusted with anything.

None of those responses are really about the original event. They are about what the person decided the event meant.

I caught myself in this not long ago. Someone questioned a decision I made, and I had a thought I would not say out loud: I'm the CEO. Just do what I say. I did not act on it. But that instinct was real, and it was useful information, not about the other person, but about me. About what I was afraid would happen if I lost control of that situation.

That is what this episode is about. Not conflict resolution as a skill set, but conflict as information. What does it reveal about what you are protecting? Underneath most emotionally charged conflict, I have found a threat to one of three things, control, trust, or respect. Sometimes all three at once, stacking on top of each other until what started as a simple disagreement feels like a personal attack.

My new book, Talk With Trust, is now available: https://a.co/d/05mNRnJH

To learn more, visit http://kerrysiggins.com

Let’s connect on LinkedIn, Instagram, or TikTok!

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kerry-siggins-166b66/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kerry.siggins/

TikTok:https://www.tiktok.com/@kerry.siggins

My company is being hit right now. A war in Iran is affecting oil prices, customer behavior is shifting, and my employees are asking me questions I do not have answers to. How long will this last? Are there going to be more changes? Am I going to be okay?

That last one is the one underneath all the others. And as the CEO, people expect me to have the answer.

What I keep wrestling with is how easy it is to slide from optimism into false reassurance. You want your people to sleep at night. You want them focused on their work, not sitting in anxiety. And so you say things you are not fully certain of, and eventually you have made a promise reality may not allow you to keep.

I have done this. I am talking about it because I think most leaders have, and the pressure to perform certainty is real and almost never discussed honestly.

What has helped me is a distinction I keep coming back to. Certainty says I know what is going to happen. Confidence says whatever happens, we will face reality and respond to it. The first one I cannot offer my team right now. The second one I can.

And that, I think, is what talking with trust actually looks like when there is no clean answer. Just telling the truth about what you know, what you do not know, and what you will do when things change.

My new book, Talk With Trust, is now available: https://a.co/d/05mNRnJH

To learn more, visit http://kerrysiggins.com

Let’s connect on LinkedIn, Instagram, or TikTok!

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kerry-siggins-166b66/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kerry.siggins/

TikTok:https://www.tiktok.com/@kerry.siggins

In 2025, Kerry Siggins was going through a divorce, navigating a company under economic pressure, managing her son's health issues across two households, finishing a book, and trying to hire a VP of sales who turned out not to work. She woke up overwhelmed every day. There was a constant noise in her head: am I doing enough, how am I going to get it all done, what happens if I fall behind.

And she kept avoiding things. The difficult conversation she needed to have with someone on her team. The decision she knew she needed to make. The boundary she needed to set with her ex-husband. She told herself she was just waiting for the right moment, that things might resolve on their own. What she eventually understood is that she was spending more energy worrying about and avoiding those things than it would have taken to just face them.

This episode came out of that realization. Not the challenges themselves, but the weight of carrying everything unaddressed, was what was creating the suffering. And the moment she started doing things one at a time, one conversation, one decision, one boundary, the anxiety lifted. Not because her life got easier. Because she stopped accumulating what she had not yet faced.

Kerry also draws a distinction that runs through the whole episode: some stress is a calling, and some stress is a burden. Learning to tell the difference, and asking whether a given stress is worth carrying because of what it is helping you become, is the actual skill. Not eliminating stress. Becoming someone who can carry more of it without losing themselves in it.

To learn more, visit http://kerrysiggins.com Her new book, Talk With Trust, comes out August 4th and is available for pre-order now.

Let’s connect on LinkedIn, Instagram, or TikTok!

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kerry-siggins-166b66/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kerry.siggins/

TikTok:https://www.tiktok.com/@kerry.siggins

Kerry Siggins ran one company for twenty years. She grew up inside it, ran every department, and built it into something that reflected her personality and her instinct to fix whatever was broken. For most of that time, she thought that being the person who held everything together was evidence of great leadership.

What she eventually had to face is that it was not. Every problem she solved was one less chance for someone else to own their work. Every time she stepped in, she was teaching her team that ownership was optional. And the culture she was trying to build could not take root as long as she was the one holding the ground together.

This episode stays inside that realization and the harder question it forced. Not whether her team needed her. Whether she needed her team to need her.

To learn more, visit http://kerrysiggins.com Her new book, Talk With Trust, comes out August 4th and is available for pre-order now.

Let’s connect on LinkedIn, Instagram, or TikTok!

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kerry-siggins-166b66/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kerry.siggins/

TikTok:https://www.tiktok.com/@kerry.siggins

Kerry has given a lot of difficult feedback over the years. And the conversations that went sideways almost never fell apart because she said the wrong thing. They fell apart because she stopped managing herself. The moment emotion entered the room, she started explaining too much or softening the message or rushing through because she just wanted it to be over.

This episode is the final one in the SHARES model series, and it covers the last S: stay emotionally grounded. Kerry almost called it stay emotionally regulated when she was writing the book, because that is the language psychologists use. But she chose grounded because everyone knows what it feels like to lose their footing. And grounded does not mean you stop feeling things. It means you do not let those feelings run the conversation.

The thing Kerry keeps coming back to is this: emotions do not always tell us the truth. When you are activated, you stop listening, you misinterpret, you react. The tiny pause, the moment before you respond, is the only thing that gives you enough space to choose differently. And that choice is where trust is actually built.

Kerry’s new book, Talk With Trust, is now available: https://a.co/d/05mNRnJH

To learn more, visit http://kerrysiggins.com

Let’s connect on LinkedIn, Instagram, or TikTok!

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kerry-siggins-166b66/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kerry.siggins/

TikTok:https://www.tiktok.com/@kerry.siggins

In her twenties, Kerry was struggling in a sales role when her manager sat her down and told her she was not getting in front of the right people. He asked her to come back with a plan. Her immediate reaction was: she already knew that was the problem. What she did not know was how to solve it.

Rather than asking questions, understanding what she had already tried, or offering support, her manager handed the problem back to her without helping her build the skills or confidence to work through it.

Already navigating a difficult period in her life, Kerry left that conversation feeling more discouraged than before, and eventually decided to leave the company. Years later, she found herself repeating that same pattern with the person who is now her COO.

When he came to her with questions, she responded by asking why he was asking her to do his job for him. He had the experience to find his way, but Kerry realized she had not helped him think through the challenge. She had simply handed the problem back instead of creating a path forward.

In this episode, the fifth installment of a six-part series on the SHARES model, Kerry explores the “E”: Endorse a Path Forward. Endorsing a path forward is not about solving someone else’s problem or giving them an answer disguised as collaboration. It is about creating enough clarity and support for someone to take ownership of the next step.

To learn more, visit http://kerrysiggins.com Her new book, Talk With Trust, is available for pre-order now.

Let’s connect on LinkedIn, Instagram, or TikTok!

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kerry-siggins-166b66/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kerry.siggins/

TikTok:https://www.tiktok.com/@kerry.siggins