Having People is Not the Same as Being Known
Estimated Reading Time: 6-8 Minutes
Who do you call when you really need someone, and what are you seeking? Who knows your origin story, and how your past continues to show up in your present? Who challenges you to be better or think more deeply, and has stayed with you through that discomfort?
If those questions give you pause, you are not alone. And if you are leading in a school right now, they are not just personal questions, they are leadership questions. The same conditions that make us feel known and supported as individuals are the conditions that make institutions capable of doing hard things together.
I recently told a friend I wasn't sure I'd ever felt lonely, then immediately wondered whether that was true, or whether I'd simply become very good at building a social architecture that kept loneliness at bay? My signature presence, built over time, seeks connection and makes sure I always have someone to reach out to at every level. But having people isn't the same as being known by them. That distinction matters because trust is not passive. It's both an internal and external construct that people approach with different definitions, history, enabling conditions, and manifestations. It's built, and therefore it makes sense as a leader to design intentionally around who you build it with and for what purpose.
Map Your River
In her memoir All the Way to the River, Elizabeth Gilbert shares a metaphor that her partner Rayya Elias used to describe relationships. Imagine a map of New York City. Fifth Avenue is bright and busy, full of people who know you in the way that public life allows, important, real, but surface-level. The further east you walk, the quieter it gets, the fewer people stay with you. If you are lucky, Rayya said, you might find one person who will walk all the way to the East River with you. Not the version of you that shows up on Fifth Avenue, but the real one. That is the person who knows everything, the one you call when you really need someone, the one who knows why you are the way you are.
Try it yourself. Picture your own river, wherever that is for you. Think about the people in your life and where they fall on the walk toward it. Some are at the trailhead, warm and real but surface level. Others are somewhere in the middle, they know parts of your story, trust is present but partial. Then there are the people at the water's edge, the ones who have seen you without the performance. For each one, get curious. What is the best part of that relationship and what need does it meet? What do you give them? How much do they actually know about you? Ask yourself honestly: who at work is close to the river, and who have you never actually let past Fifth Avenue?
Not every relationship needs to be close to the river. Some connections are intentionally lighter, a mentor you sought out, a colleague whose experience you need, someone who opens a door you couldn't open alone. Those relationships have real value. The question is whether they are chosen or just accumulated, and whether they are balanced by people who truly see and know you.
Designing for social connection and working to build trust can feel uncomfortable at first, like you are being strategic about something that should be natural. Instead, suspend judgment and get up on your balcony to see your own relational landscape and be curious about what's happening. Doing so is about increasing your self-awareness, and awareness is always where good leadership begins.
Conditions for Trust
In my experience, and in the work we do with school and leadership teams, trust doesn't form on its own. It needs time, repeated vulnerability, and someone willing to go first. It also requires understanding that people build trust differently. They define it through the lens of their past and identity, and many carry conscious and subconscious work around trust that shapes how and whether they let others in.
Signature presence opens trust because letting people see who you actually are, not the version shaped by role or expectation, requires believing they can hold it. Many of us never get to share our true signature presence because we don't slow down enough to know what that version even looks like, let alone share it.
Play opens trust in ways that almost nothing else does. Six months ago, I signed up for improv classes. Partly because I wanted to learn new activities to use in our leadership programs, but also because I wanted to experience more joy. I wanted to put myself back in a learning space where there was only one goal: to make each other look brilliant. Each week, I show up with people I didn't know six months ago and, for two hours, act silly, creative, and real. I have shown these people a side of myself that not many others have seen, and in that shared vulnerability, something shifts. Play creates the conditions to show up as yourself, and when you do, trust becomes possible.
Being knownfeels easy. When you are with someone who truly knows you there is a presence and a stillness, nothing to prove. It is worth noticing the relationships where that calm is absent, where you are still waiting to be seen. We are not a single person. We show up differently in different contexts, but there are throughlines you cannot hide. The people who see those parts of you are the ones closest to the river.
Doing hard things together deepens trust. One of the schools in our recent L+D Expedition described their design process as full of collaborative friction, moments where the team struggled, disagreed, and had to find their way through. They also described their team as stronger for it. I have felt this myself, stuck in a group project at a conference, emotions running high among people who had only just met. When we found a way through and finished together, something shifted. I still remember the bond that formed, even though I cannot remember their names. Shared difficulty, honestly processed, is what turns connection into something that holds.
Extend This Outward
The enabling conditions for trust in your school start with you. You cannot lead people you don't know and who don't know you. We ask people to trust each other constantly, in teams, in faculty meetings, in strategic planning, without ever dedicating adequate time to actually being human together or understanding what trust looks and feels like to each individual. It is why at Leadership+Design our values center on people, collaboration, transformation, action, and joy, and why we are driven by a desire to create more time and space for humanness in the organizations we serve. If you lead others, the question is not just whether you feel known, it is whether you are creating the conditions for others to be known too. That means modeling vulnerability, making space for people to show up as themselves, and being willing to try again.
Schools now face pressures both common and unique. Many of these challenges are complex and adaptive and cannot be solved by one person with a good plan. They require people who can come together, listen deeply, and stay in difficulty together without fracturing. Social capital is not a byproduct of a healthy school, it's a prerequisite for one. Building trust should be a strategic ingredient for leading and sustaining change in a community.
Where Do You Start?
Getting curious about your own map is the first step. Not because your relationships and their depth need fixing, but because awareness is where intention begins. If you lead others, you get to model what it looks like to live that question out loud. Who in your school is creating space for people to be known, not just capable?
You get to decide what kind of connections you want, where you are strongest and where there is an imbalance. You get to decide how much of yourself you are willing to share and with whom. You get to ask what you need and what you are able to give. You could choose to stay closed off, but choosing authenticity and humanity with intention will strengthen your leadership, your relationships, and the future of your school.
