The Learning To Lead Show with Mark J. Cundiff

"The Speed of Trust: Insights on Leadership and Influence" My Conversation With Steve Veale Part 2

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"The Speed of Trust: Insight on Leadership and Influence." My Conversation with Steve Veale Part 2

In this episode of the Learning to Lead Show, host Mark Cundiff continues his conversation with Steve Veale, Executive Pastor of Westridge Church in Dallas, Georgia. They discuss the critical role trust plays in organizational success, leadership, and team building. Steve emphasizes the importance of having a diverse team and how different perspectives contribute to a healthy organizational culture. He also touches on the significance of self-leadership, seeking mentors, and leveraging those relationships for personal growth. Listeners are encouraged to download Mark's book, 'The Trust Gap,' to further explore the principles discussed. The episode concludes with valuable book recommendations for both leadership and personal development.


00:00 Introduction: The Speed of Trust

00:20 Welcome to the Learning to Lead Show

00:40 Diving into Trust and Leadership

01:41 Building a Results-Oriented Culture

08:25 The Importance of Diverse Leadership

11:12 Self-Leadership and Personal Growth

12:42 The Value of Mentorship

19:25 Book Recommendations and Final Thoughts

21:35 Conclusion and Call to Action

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LeaderNotes is a quick-hit companion to each episode of The Learning to Lead Show. In just 5–10 minutes, Mark Cundiff recaps the top leadership insights, frameworks, and action steps from each interview, designed for busy, growth-minded leaders who want to review and apply the episode’s biggest takeaways on the go.

It’s like the highlight reel + playbook—all in one.

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Everything happens at the speed of trust, doesn't it? Everything moves at the speed of trust if I lose faith in the product, I'm not buying it anymore. If I've ordered it, on Amazon and I get it, and it's just not a good product then I'm gonna very quickly go to somebody else who I think has a better product than you, and you've lost my trust. And then the chances are of getting it back is in incredibly difficult. Hello, welcome to the Learning to Lead Show. I'm your host, Mark Cundiff, and today we're going to dive into part two of my conversation with Steve Veale Steve Veale is executive pastor of Westridge Church in Dallas, Georgia, in the northwest part of Atlanta where he's been for the last 28 years. We are going to dive into more conversations about trust. Leadership and how to build a strong team. If you mess the first part of this interview, make sure you go back and listen to the previous episode. To go with that theme of trust, I'd like to offer my book the Trust Gap as a free offering to you to help you dive into how trust can help build your leadership strength and. Accelerate your team success. As Steve said in the opening here, the speed of trust improves everything in your organization. So go to the show notes and look for the link where you can get the book, the Trust Gap, a little short ebook that will help you understand how building stronger trust in your organization can drive results, accelerate performance, and enhance your leadership influence across your organization. And now we're gonna dive into part two of my conversation with Steve Veale I'd like you to bridge for the person that's sitting out there and is results driven, a personality. And says, man, I don't have time for all this soft stuff, this culture stuff, I'm all about results. You and Brian and the other leaders that have led this church are very results oriented. Very driven. You've had BAG goals, for the business people out there. And y'all have incorporated a lot of those business principles into. The way you run that organization to drive it to be successful. So bridge that for people that we're not all about just having a good time and feeling good. The results are the reason. For culture.. I mean it, that's, at the end of the day we, our mission is, which would be our ultimate result, is to see people, to become fully devoted followers of Christ. That's why we're here. Is to do that. I can't do that. We're a team member driven organization, so I can do it with a few, but I can't do it with the 10,000 or more. Who would call Westridge their home? We had over 10,000 people here a few weeks ago for Easter on our campus. Plus everybody that didn't make it, that we're watching online. I don't even remember what that number was. But that's a lot of people, and and a little old Pauling County. We've got things that we do poorly and. And things that we, that we're just not very good at and immature at, and, all those other things. But at the end of the day, our mission is to is to reach north west Atlanta for Christ to see people devoted to Christ and living that out wherever they live, work and play. Every Monday morning we're looking at. We're evaluating, the day and the week before. We're looking at, we're looking at our giving. We're looking at our attendance. We're looking at the number of people who were in groups, we're looking at the number of people who served. All of the metrics we're looking at all of those things, and we're talking about it every week. Because that's, that is an indicator of our, of the success for what we believe God has called us to do. Where I think that connects to culture is the fact that I would say in the non-profit world, it's the only way you can get results. But I would say that even in the for-profit world, it is still the best way to get results because you're getting buy-in. Who wouldn't want buy-in from their employees?. Who wouldn't want somebody. Who is working on the production line to really care about, to ultimately care about the organization to feel as though they're not just a number, they're a name, and that they're gonna show up and they're not gonna call off and lie about it because this is their company, it's never wrong to invest in your people, ever. And I think that there are organizations, and I know it's not the, the biggest organization, but man, again I just come back to Chick-fil-A. Yes. I wanna say they're like, what are they, like 13 billion, billion? Pretty big organization. They are. And they are tenacious about culture, tenacious about it, what is it they say? Raving fans. Is their thing. What's really so inspiring about them is the they have taken so much of their profits.. I believe that they are completely debt-free as a business I think so. So they are virtually, from what I understand, virtually recession proof because they can operate so incredibly lean that even like COVID, i'm not sure what result it had on them, but I didn't see a single source close. Yeah, if anything, I just saw it, expand even more. And what I was wanting to say is the fact that this whole Win shape organization that I get a chance to see and be a part of in different ways. They are investing a ton of money into things that gain them nothing as an organization other than investment in the lives of other people does it. Bring value to them in the long run. Of course it does. Yeah. But they are seeing their influence way beyond themselves and out into the world. But I think it's connected. I. I think when you operate and lead like that, I think that it makes everybody, who's facing outward, start turning around and facing, and facing inward and looking and caring. And I just don't think that there's a substitute, for that. I don't care what kind of business organization you've got. That's some great stuff. One of the things I think sometimes when we look, when I think the word nonprofit really a lot of times isn't accurate because if you're not profitable from the standpoint of having enough revenue to come in to continue to run your operation, then you're gonna go out. And so you were talking about volunteers there for time, but also. People investing in what you're doing. And so there has to be a credibility there, a trust there that like you've built up over 28 years, but it can be gone in a minute what's so powerful about what you have it's the talk about the trust aspect. Everything happens at the speed of trust, doesn't it? Everything moves at the speed of trust and again I'm not the for-profit guy. You would be much more than that, but I think, if I don't, if I lose faith in the product, I'm not buying it anymore. If I've ordered it, on Amazon and I get it, and it's just not a good product then I'm gonna very quickly go to somebody else who I think has a better product than you, and you've lost my trust. And then the chances are of getting it back is in incredibly difficult. In the nonprofit world maybe it's an all of it, man you've gotta, you gotta believe what you're saying. You've gotta, you've gotta, you've gotta live out the, what you're what you're telling other people to live out, and you gotta lead from a place of of experience yourself and what you're asking them to do. I think that is a spiritual thing. In other words, I can't lead where I won't go, but I also think it's an organizational thing. I can't say one thing and do another at any level, I have to help our leaders see, because sometimes we'll have a person in leadership on our staff they're more of a shepherd at heart than a leader. So they have the hardest time getting themselves outta the weeds and leading at a higher level. They feel a sense of guilt, and part of my job with them is to help them trust their gift., And their role. You do what only you can do you'll build trust with people. Because there are things that they need you to do that they can't do. And they need you to do it. And I think building trust like that all the way down the organization is really key and really important. And I think no matter what organization you've got, if you don't have trust, then you are working exponentially harder to get anywhere. That's good. I wanna jump into something that you just brought up there about the different strengths and weaknesses that we all have. And I know you went through Lencioni's book on working types, and I know you've been through some, StrengthFinders and stuff and talk about the importance of not having a bunch of Steve v's on your team, but that you have people that. Talk about how you approach that. It's the beauty of the body, right? The scripture calls it the body of Christ, and it says, does the ear say the eye? I don't need you. Or, or the, I say to the ear that I don't need you, whatever it is. Can't remember exactly how the scripture says, but but that's the principle of it that every part of the body works together so that the body stays healthy and strong. And so I think that in, in ministry or in life or in leadership. You need people of all types. I think you need those who are introverted because I think that they see and feel and respond with the way that an introvert would. Then you have your ex. Extroverts and you need them because they're gonna be in, in your organization, they're gonna play a specific role. I think, it's really valuable to have female leadership at all, all various levels because they're gonna bring perspective. And, but I also think you need, you need the dudes too, to bring their perspective. Yeah. I just think that you everybody is going to speak into, and gonna bring their value of what, not only what they do but their perspective that they have. That is gonna be essentially in many ways a blind spot for you. You have to trust and so on. On our lead team, I. Just recently, I shifted some things around and brought some people who you wouldn't think of them as and they don't have the responsibility of of leadership over a lot of people. But they had a perspective that I felt like I. We didn't have on the team because everybody else was those PE were those people. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yes it does. So I needed to hear when we're eval,'cause remember we said we, every week we come and we, when we gather together, we're evaluating and wrestling with what, how it worked and what didn't work and all those other things. And if we have all of these type A leaders, who are just like, charge the hill. Charge the hill. Charge the hill, yeah. We need some people who are like, hang on. Wait just a minute and let's slow down and did you ever think about this and'cause none of us would've, all of us type A people would not have thought that way. I just think it's, and by the way, that's also how you gain trust. Is when you put different people of all different types in leadership and you guys can work, figure out how to work as a team, even though you think very differently I think that builds trust across the organization because they see that you're purposely putting somebody that represents them. That's really good. Let's shift over. We talked about a lot about leading the team and the culture. Let's talk a little bit about self-leadership. How has Steve. Transitioned over the last three decades of moving through different roles.'cause you're obviously, and me and you've had a lot of conversations about leadership and challenges that we've each had. You're not the same person that you were then. And hopefully that's true of all of us as we grow over time, but that has to be intentional. So what things have you put into your life and what do you seek out in order? To continue to grow so that you can be the kind of leader that your people need. If you're not self-lead, then you can't lead others. So talk to us a little bit about how you approach that. We're having this conversation with a, an executive leader. Cohort that I was in a couple of weeks ago, and we're talking about a practice that each one of us had that, that we feel would, has been really valuable. I'm, I've always been I'm not the reader. I should be. You've always helped me, you've always pushed me along in that. But I listen to the podcast I read the books, all those things. But what has meant a lot to me and really helped me a lot because if I'm leading from a place of health. I'm leading much better than if I'm leading from a place of hurt and pain and dysfunction and all of that. That takes up so much bandwidth emotional bandwidth and mental bandwidth if I'm dealing with all this stuff. Versus having, being somewhat free. I don't think you ever get completely free of it, but when you're. You're really free. And obviously I think having a relationship with God is key. It is the most important thing, but God also gives us one another. And so in the last couple of years, I've developed a relationship with a guy that's, almost 20 years my elder. And we talk, there'll be seasons when we talk every day, we'll text and back and forth. It depends on what he's going through and what I'm going through. I minister to him, but the point of this relationship is really him ministering to me, him really mentoring me. But I try to really reciprocate by really caring about him and loving him and being mindful of what he's experiencing, as a nearly 80-year-old guy. And I try to, do that. But he's got access to me. And what I mean by that is he can ask any question if he senses that there's something. But I also feel like I can tell him anything. I would say he's, in one regard, he's a safe place for me. I. He is a conduit of truth. What I've always loved about what I feel like every leader needs is a conduit of truth. And that language, I don't even know where I heard that. I heard it years and years ago, but what I love about that language is a conduit protects what's flowing through it, right? So if you've got, if you're if you don't have, if that conduit can't protect what's running through it, then then you're not gonna put very much, you're not gonna put anything important through it. Yeah, that's right. You're gonna hold back, so if it's a family member or a boss or somebody, like in my case, if there's somebody in your church that you don't feel like you can tr really trust, you're gonna hold back, from some things that you're, that you might say and process with them because you're just afraid of how it could hurt you if they shared it. So I would I tell people, and this is a tricky language, but I tell people he's a safe place. But he's not a safe place. And what I mean by that, so he's safe as far as I can tell him anything. But where he's not safe is he's not gonna agree. With everything that I say and just tell me that I'm okay and that I'm a good boy and you know that I'm leading well and that I've, treated my family right. And I've, been the loving husband that I should be. He's not safe in that way. In other words. In other words he has the freedom and he takes it to tell me the hard thing that's gonna hurt. It's, and that's why I say it, it's not safe.'cause because he can bring me some pain, yeah. In that moment. In that moment, he, his discipline, his words of correction can hurt and sting. And but I've given him that, that permission, to do that. And that has been really valuable to me.'cause I don't know that I need as much. I need help. I don't know if I need as much help in knowing what to do to steward the vision. I don't think that's, at least at my stage in life I don't feel like that's the biggest question I have in life. It's runs a whole lot deeper than that. It's about, I'm in that I'm just really getting into that legacy season. You, I'll be 60. I'll be 60 this year. Yeah. I was, he, I was listening to Crawford Leitz, and I hope I can remember this. And he was saying that, from 20 to 40, those are your years of foundation. And then 40 to 60 is your years of production. It's when you can produce the most. You have the most you had the most of both energy and experience at the same time. I'm about to get where I've got the experience, but I don't have the energy. Yeah. And there's a lot of fears that, you know, for senior leaders like myself, going into that legacy, fears of being irrelevant, not having the energy, feeling tired a lot faster than I ever used to, wondering if man is what I'm doing. Really worth it. So I just think that at, in my stage of life there's a lot more going on emotionally and, dealing with that than there is, than what I don't know how to do anything, deal Now. I have, I think I could make a great case, at least in my own mind for guys in their twenties and thirties. To have a relationship like this for possibly different reasons. Yes. But boy, I think, man if I would've had a relationship like this when I was, 25 or 30, gosh, what a difference. Would've saved myself and a lot of people around me and my wife. Yeah. A lot of pain, I think. Yeah. I really admire you being so transparent there, because that, to have that type of relationship, one requires humility. And you have to humble yourself to learn from somebody else and to take those hard to listen to those hard truths. And so I think that's a great lesson for all of us as leaders, is that, if we're going to be a great leader, if we're going to move. Forward and grow. We've gotta be humble and curious about what we don't know and be willing to take on new things. Can I just interject one more thing into that? For anybody that might be listening and wondering about this? Is that I had to seek that out and what I mean by I had to seek it out is I tried it with a couple of other people that didn't really work and lemme tell you how it didn't work., I didn't feel like they were asking me the hard questions. Yeah. And I didn't, I was struggling to have the courage to say the final 5%. This is what I'm really dealing with. This is what I'm really feeling, yeah. And I think that they were just afraid of hurting me, afraid of, of challenging me at that level. And so it just became, it just wasn't good. It wasn't great. Yeah. And so I went through a couple of different relationships and I was really praying for God to give me, because. Because you know that's just not anybody. No. That's gotta be a very special person. And so I think a lot of guys don't have that or women don't have that because they can't think of who would fit that. And I'm just saying first of all, if you're a man of faith or woman of faith, you gotta pray for, you gotta ask the Lord for it. Yeah. Ask God to give it to you. He wants it for you more than you want it for you. And then I would say is be tenacious. Don't stop. Don't give up. Un until you find that relationship, they're out there. You just have to be willing to do the tenacious thing and the hard work to find it. Man. I'm glad you added that because so many times we'll go and we'll have a mentor or a coach and it just doesn't work. And so we say that's not for me. But like you said, it's like a lot of different things. You have to try like the word you used there, be tenacious. You have to seek that out and be intentional if you really want to have the right person. Look how many. Golf coaches that Tigers had and look at, Jordan went through different personal coaches and stuff, they kept seeking to find the right person that was gonna push their buttons to, to make them successful. Those are things that we have to do as well. If we, you might need a different person in a different season. Yes. Different season. Yes. As we wrap up today, is there a parting shot a recommendation that you would like to just leave with the folks that are listening today that's, that stayed with us through this, to this point? I was thinking about this when you had I knew we were gonna talk about books.'Cause you're such a book guy and I love that. You've always been challenging me on that. And I remember one of the first books that you and I discussed together was Good to Great. Jim Cols the Old Standard, right? Yes. And I would just say if anybody hasn't read that book, who's in leadership, they owe it to themselves to do that. I have come back to that book so many times in conversations with. Young leaders or younger leaders, so many times. Here's an example. I can't remember. Is it the you might remember it. The something of the flywheel the tyranny of the fly. The flywheel effect. The flywheel effect. Is that what he called it? The flywheel effect? Yeah. Yeah. But it was just I put it in my own words, but essentially that, you know what you're gonna put up, you're gonna put in a ton of work on the front end. But if you do the right thing in the right way, then all you've gotta do is just come back and visit occasionally and just make sure that it's staying on course. And all that momentum will take you places with little effort. And so anyway, I think that's a great, there, there's so many principles I. Pulled outta that book. So I just think that's a great book. If you're a person of faith, then I would say the Awe of God is a very challenging book by John Bevere super challenging book. A good thing for somebody, I think to work through privately and personally is the Secrets of the Secret Place by Bob Sorge,, his last name's spelled S-O-R-G-E. It's just a daily devotion time, but it will challenge you at the depths that he goes and takes you to at least for me. And those that I've gone through it with, it's challenged all of us. To experience God at the kind of levels that he's taken you to? I appreciate your time. This has been gold. There's a lot of different things that you've shared with us from culture to self-leadership, to the person's relationship with God. All those different aspects play into us moving from being a good leader to a great leader. And I appreciate your time today, Steve. Absolutely. Mark, thank you so much. Appreciate what you're doing for us leaders. Thank you for joining the Learning to Lead Show. We got some great content from Steve Veale on how to develop a team, how to build trust, how to develop influence with your organization, and some really good tips on how to. Work with volunteers in your organization. If you're working in a nonprofit, make sure that you download our leader notes. It will give you a summary of all the topics that we discussed. It will also give you the book recommendations that we have with links to go and get those if you're interested. The links to get the leader notes is in the show notes of this episode, so make sure you click on that, go and get the leader notes so that you have all the content that we discussed today. Make sure if you haven't listened to the first episode, that you go back and listen so you can get the full context of everything we've talked about. If you got value from this, please share with a friend. Please subscribe, and then also go to your favorite podcast player and give us a five rating so we can help spread the word about the Learning to Lead. Show to the people out there who haven't heard of us yet. Thanks for joining The Learning the Lead Show.