Leigh's Leadership Lessons: Turning the Tide on Grievance Culture

In this episode of The Space In Between, Leigh explores the concept of grievance—a mix of resentment and unmet expectations that, when left unresolved, erodes trust and connection. Drawing on sobering data from the 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer, she highlights how widespread grievance is fueling distrust, polarization, and fragmentation across society. Through personal stories and leadership lessons, Leigh offers three powerful practices to help shift this culture: pause before reacting, practice daily gratitude, and seek out other seekers. Listeners are reminded that even in divided times, small, intentional acts of compassion and civility can rebuild trust and plant seeds for healing.

Transcript

0:01

Hello and welcome to the. Space in between podcast. I'm your host Lee Morgan. Again, this podcast is for listeners who are fed up. Up with the hyperpolarized nature of the world today. And who crave. Craves spaces where current events can be discussed in construct. enlightening and delightful ways. Let's get.

Leigh Morgan: 0:29

Today. We're going to talk about grievance, what it is, the role it plays in society, what we can do to rebuild trust and connection in our families, workplaces, and communities. This episode is especially timely for anyone leading a team, being a part of an organization, or engaging in community work because grievance culture as I'll share, is something that permeates all aspects of our society. It's incumbent on all of us to find ways to shift and turn the tide. So let's begin with what grievance actually is and why it matters. Grievance is the lingering residue of feeling wronged. It's a mix of resentment and unmet expectations that when left unaddressed. Slowly erodes trust and connection to ourselves and to others. It turns out we can track levels of grievance over time. One of the most respected tools that does just that is called the Edelman Trust Barometer. Now, I heard an amazing presentation about this at a conference in May. Turns out Edelman, which is a global PR firm for the last 25 years, they have surveyed tens of thousands of people across the world to measure levels of trust and particularly trust levels. In institutions including government, business, media, and nonprofits, and also in leaders. Their 2025 report, and I'll put this in the show notes, draws on more than 30,000 respondents across 28 countries so they can sort data by, country. And the report shows something very alarming. It shows that there is a deepening global crisis of trust. They show that this is a trend that has been building for a few years, but in the last year there has been a statistically significant decline in trust across those sectors and with leaders, and it's such a huge decline that Edelman has named this the crisis of grievance. I'm gonna share some findings from the survey. There's a lot in there, but some really caught my eye. So first, over half of respondents believe their country is more divided than ever. 53% of young people, aged 18 to 34 view hostile activism as a legitimate path to drive change. Take that in. The word hostile is alarming. Another statistic, only 34% of respondents believe the next generation will be better off, and the numbers are worse for high income countries like the US, Canada, and EU countries that were included in the survey. Over 68% of respondents said that leaders in government, business and media, quote, purposefully mislead people by saying things they know is false or are gross exaggerations. And here's a statistic that struck me the most and, and really, hit my heart. More people now see those who disagree with them, not just as wrong, but as bad. Distrust has become personal and personal grievance breeds resentment. It breeds separation, and it fosters blame. Sound familiar. Now, let's be clear. Grievance isn't always misplaced. It often stems from very real pain, injustice, or harm. Again, grievance can be a legitimate response to when bad things happen. What's important is that when grievance is left unresolved, not acknowledged, or if it festers, it becomes fuel for polarization and fragmentation. And as the Edelman survey notes, distrust makes it hard to see others clearly or empathetically because we tend to clinging to what we know and when we feel aggrieved, stress hormones are pulsing through our bodies and it makes it hard to be curious and sometimes it means that we can't be as openhearted as we might otherwise want to be. I have felt this myself and one particular experience, has stuck with me for many years now. I was a senior in high school in the spring and our yearbooks came out. You know, you get the yearbooks that everyone's picture and highlights of things that happened the year prior, or in the year it was published. So our yearbooks came out and usually that's something really fun because you get your yearbooks and at least at my high school, you. Try to get as many people as you can to sign the yearbook. I was flipping through the pages and I noticed something glaring. Our girls tennis team, the state champions from the year before was not featured in the sports section at all. I had been a member of that team and we were really proud. This was the first ever state championship for our high school. In fact, it still remains the only championship we had been left out, and it made me furious and upset. I marched straight up to the teacher who oversaw the yearbook class. There were, just a handful of other students, maybe eight or 10. And this is older teacher, mostly known for being kindhearted and a good guy. I went right up said, you can take this and I threw it in the trash. I told him through tears. No one cared about girls' sports and that he should be ashamed that this egregious omission had happened. So the story didn't end well. I was called to the principal's office and nearly got written up there at the end of my senior year. But in the moment, I remember feeling very justified. I had a legitimate reason to be upset. But in hindsight, well, my outbursts didn't actually help. I shamed someone in front of others. I responded with heat rather than taking a clearheaded principled stand, and I ended up showcasing the public shaming that I now know contributes to grievance culture. That experience has stayed with me, and it taught me how easily grievance can undermine trust, and that happens even if there's good reason behind it. So what I wanna offer today, to counteract and mitigate those crappy statistics I mentioned before, is not a fix per se, but a practice. We can shift the culture of grievance. I know that we can, in fact, I'm around a lot of people who do that every day. You're listening to this podcast because you care about that. So we can't shift everything all at once. It'll never be perfect. But with small, consistent acts that keep us open-hearted, open-minded, we can actually begin to shift things. One of those practices is highlighted in the Edelman study and there was a question given to respondents of what could turn the tide and what leaders can do. Most people believe that leaders and workplaces that model civility and compassion can help navigate contentious issues more effectively. This really matters because when there's contentious issues, we're, more charged up like I was back in the day. And it also matters because innovation and productivity thrive when we're able to resolve tensions constructively. Now, one of the best leaders I've worked with is Sue Esmond Helman, and, she a great role model for how to resolve potential tensions quickly. She and I work together at Genentech, at the University of California San Francisco and at the Gates Foundation. One of the things she does that's so unique is she invites constructive, civil debate on complex business challenges, she makes it clear that she wants dissenting of views because she knows that diversity of perspective when harnessed well, can lead to better decisions and impact. And equally important, she's known for being compassionate and also very down to earth. And so when you combine this invitation for dissenting views plus kindness and approachability. Well, those, qualities can ripple across entire organizations. You probably have someone in mind who models these qualities as well. But maybe like me, you're still learning how to work with your own sense of grievance, how to stand firmly for what matters, while also remaining open hearted and able to see humanity in folks who actually have different views. What practices can we do to turn the tide in an era where grievance is easy to find? Here's three simple practices that I've found to be very, very helpful. The first practice is pause before reacting when you feel charged. You may have heard my episode on boiling points. If not, this is kind of the same theme and the idea is. When we get near or we reach our boiling point. This is a time when you're just, you're just upset, right? You are right to feel aggrieved and to express that, But that's not the best time to try to engage in civil discourse. So it's a good time to have self-awareness, which leads to agency. Agency leads to choices about how to best channel our strong views. So pause before reacting before you feel charged. Number two, carve out a minute a day to practice gratitude. There's been so much research about how powerful a gratitude practice is on our mood, on our self-esteem, and our ability to connect with others. So two ways you can do this. Start by writing down three things you're grateful for. Do it in the morning when you have 15 seconds, write it down and three things you're grateful for, and make sure one of those three is something you appreciate about yourself. The other thing you can do is just give compliments to others. Give two compliments a day. Drop it in a Zoom chat, or tell the person who's checking you out at the grocery store, Hey, I really appreciate, you know how fast you did that. If it's true, it makes a difference. Make sure to save one compliment for yourself. The third practice also very powerful, is seek other seekers. Grievance culture can SAP energy. So the antidote to that is to connect with people who give you energy, who are good listeners, folks who can handle it when you just need to vent. And we all hit those moments. Or you might wanna just seek someone who has a different view, but models an open-minded approach to whatever topic. You can listen to more about how to do this on an episode I did on seek other seekers as well. And so these are practical ways that we can all turn the tide on the grievance crisis that we are in the middle of. We can practice something different every day. We can be bridge builders, we can stay open and in doing so, we can plant seeds of understanding. And the crisis of grievance will become the celebration of trust. Thanks for walking this path with me, and until next time, keep listening, keep seeking and keep showing up in the space in between. Bye for now.

12:57

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