How Leaders Earn (or Erode) Reputation with Their Teams

This is part 3 of a 4-part series on reputation management with Charlotte Otter, author of We Need New Leaders. Each episode explores a different theme—clarity, self-awareness, team dynamics, and workplace culture.

Reputation isn’t built behind closed doors—it’s forged in everyday moments with your team. In this episode, Charlotte Otter shares how leaders gain or lose trust through their behavior, and how a bad reputation can create a fear-based culture that kills innovation. Together with Russel Lolacher, she breaks down how psychological safety, vulnerability, and honest feedback are essential for leadership success.

✅ How fear damages culture
 ✅ Why vulnerability is key to recovery
 ✅ Leading with consistency and empathy
 ✅ What your team actually remembers

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Transcript

Russel Lolacher: I wanna pull back a bit because you've been focusing on the individual. I'm curious now to get a little deeper into that team conversation. What kind of reputation should we be targeting to have with our teams versus a larger organization? Because those are two very different things is how you're perceived by other work areas and executive versus those you are responsible for and work with every day.

Are they two different reputations or is it kind of the same thing?

Charlotte Otter: You know, I love that you asked that question because I do think that those peer to peer relationships across teams are sometimes neglected in the reputation conversation. And what I do see is that, say an organization is very command and control, very top down, I do see leaders creating their own little cultures.

And I think I did that. So I was working in an organization that was quite top down, so I created in my team the sense of psychological safety. But the challenge then for my team was once they stepped outside the doors of our team, they also had to have resilience because they were back in command and control, and this is how you have to act.

So I do think leaders have to think about not just this beautiful little world that we are making of our own, but how does that world exist when we open the door and step out into the broader culture of the organization.

Russel Lolacher: Yeah, I mean I've... similar experience 'cause you can only control what you can control and I have no control of the goodness or badness of another leader and how they treat. However, I can be very focused on the growth and the support and the, to your point, psychological safety of that. So the reputation I have, but here's the thing, how that could impact though, Charlotte, is that I could have the most amazing reputation with my team doing all that, but that reputation might not be great outside that team. 'cause they're like, oh, they don't know how to manage a team. They're too soft on them. They're way too easy. Oh, you know what? They really don't blah blahs, fill in the dot. So it could actually be hurting your reputation within that organization to go down that path.

Charlotte Otter: Yeah, absolutely. And I think those leaders have to think a lot about team performance as well. Team productivity, and this is where data comes in. I mean, just keep great data because nobody can argue with that. So that was another thing that we did in our team. We might have been, we might have had wonderful psychological safety, but we were also renowned for being the team with the best data.

So if anyone ever came and argued, I'd be like read the stats. Read it. We are performing.

Russel Lolacher: Because stats tell stories as well. Stats, the data tells the story of like, you may not agree with me, but guess what? It works. It is. This is the, and I think a lot of hr, I just came from a huge HR conference recently and. It was over and over about your data is the thing that you can use to push back.

You can't do the touchy feelies and say it works. You have to prove that it works before you can start having the conversations to move forward. So I thank you for bringing up data. I don't think, I think we talk about AI too much. I don't think we talk about data enough.

Charlotte Otter: Yeah, for sure.

Russel Lolacher: I'm kind of curious as well as 'cause change is happening all the time and reputation management kind of has to go hand in hand with that. So, for instance, see you are new on a team, you're brand new on a team, or you're stepping into a new role you've never had before or an unfamiliar team environment... how do you handle change when it's worked so well here, but it might not work so well into a new team that you're now in charge of?

Charlotte Otter: Yeah, I think it's worth having some discussions around change, especially if you're coming in as a new leader. Understand the change. Relationships or facility within your team. So what I see often, particularly in very large companies, when leaders come in from smaller organizations into large companies, they start issuing orders.

And I think it's really healthy to recognize, particularly in bigger companies, that the relationships in the connective tissue are absolutely critical. So I think leaders really need to consider spending a lot more time listening. Ask about the change facility. Ask about the levels of comfort with change on an individual level, on a team level, on a department level, and really get some sophisticated understanding of where people are with change before you come in and just go, how are we doing this?

Russel Lolacher: Fair. I've been in situations where I've shut up for two weeks and just attended meetings and been really vulnerable and go, I don't know. So I'm gonna sit here and I'm gonna listen because you are the experts. I'm still learning. But there are circumstances where some leaders are put in situations where they're demanding something right away, and I think that transparency still needs to come to your team going, I'm still learning, but this is the direction we're gonna go. We'll figure it out as we go through it. 

Charlotte Otter: The transparency is beautiful.

Russel Lolacher: I think and I think that helps with reputation. Is that transparency going because I mean, how often do we use the sentence, I'm probably not supposed to tell you this, but dot, dot, dot. But that helps your reputation.

So how do you manage it when there are difficult decisions you have to make? Maybe it's straight outta the gate and it might actually damage the team's perception of you in that moment. You know, they're going to not like this. You know, it might reflect on you even though it wasn't your decision, or maybe it was, how do you in that moment make sure that you're minimizing damage or at least managing your reputation in those tough times?

Charlotte Otter: I think there's no jumping around or avoiding the thing that has to be done, you can't pretend it's not happening. So do it with empathy. Do it with kindness, do it with thoughtfulness. Be honest. You know, I think people can smell politics and rumors and change, so there is absolutely no point avoiding it or trying to skirt it.

I think being direct but kind is the best way to handle those kinds of situations.

Russel Lolacher: And reputation management is a long game. As much as we, I mean, we're talking about the micro here, but we also have to look at the macro, especially as we look to move up into the organization. So how do we keep consistent as leaders in making sure that we are managing it? That's not going off in different directions, so easily but we're consistent in our efforts.

Charlotte Otter: Yeah, consistency is absolutely crucial. One of the things that I say to leaders is, you might be bored after saying that message twice, but people need to hear it between seven and 10 times for, to even begin to land. So allow yourself to get bored. Saying the same thing over and over again. And one of the issues with leaders is that they are a type personalities and they wanna have a new story to tell.

So my role always in executive communications was, no, stick with the old story. Don't keep telling new stories. And, you know, observationally, the leaders who kept consistent had the best results in the end. But it's a tension for leaders. It's a tension between those personalities that want to drive towards something new. But the fact that they've just gotta be rep repetitive in order to get the organization with them.

Russel Lolacher: No, I completely agree. I've only come to the realization lately and I'm, as a comms guy, I've always defaulted to the, you can't over communicate. But then I started talking to a lot of neurodivergent people. And they're like, if you tell me this thing one more time do you think I'm stupid? Like I've heard this a hundred times already because they're so detail oriented.

That, so it's a balancing act to your point is that we have to repeat these stories, but also understand that our organizations are not homogenous, our teams are not homogenous. And you may need to cater or craft personal ways of doing that. I mean, there's obviously every communication interaction is different, but Yeah, I came to that recently where I'm like, well, there are some people you don't wanna overcommunicate to. 'Cause then they take it personally that you're, you think they're stupid that they're not gonna remember.

Charlotte Otter: Yeah, that's such a good point. And you know, in my podcast, I'm talking a lot to leaders who are neurodivergent, but it's also really good to think about the audiences who are just as diverse as the leaders are.

Russel Lolacher: Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. Especially when it comes to your reputation, because there will be people that will feel like you're talking down to them or you know, they'll receive the message differently. However, we're one person, so we're communicating in one way that feels most comfortable to us.