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Future-proof your leadership with High Octane Leadership, a place where business leaders—whether by title or aspiration—share cheat codes for unlocking workplace excellence, lessons learned along the way, and insider tips for future generations of next-level professionals. With a career rooted in building people and businesses, Donald Thompson is an award-winning CEO, speaker, and author who empowers leaders to scale with purpose. Over the last 25 years, he has helped startups and enterprises alike drive cultural change, unlock performance, and deliver exceptional results through strategic leadership.
Find him on LinkedIn, and listen here to learn how you can become future-proof too.
High Octane Leadership Ep. 170
Proximity = Power: The Hidden Key to Building Unshakeable Team Trust
With Bianca Freedman
[00:00:04] Donald: Welcome to High Octane Leadership with Donald Thompson. This season, we're diving deeper with more solo episodes, where I'll share the experiences that have led to recognition by Forbes, Fast Company, and others. Not as a boast, but as milestones on my entrepreneurial path. From growing multimillion dollar firms to successful business exits and building high performance teams with a global perspective. I'll reveal the insights and strategies from my journey and share them with you so that we can win together. Alongside these solo episodes, we'll have industry visionaries and thought leaders who will explore effective leadership. Ready to empower your leadership journey with real success stories? Let's embark on this transformational journey together. Hello. My name is Donald Thompson, and welcome to another episode of High Octane Leadership. We have a special instance of our podcast today. This episode is brought to you by Workplace Options Center Organizational Effectiveness. Our guest today, Bianca Freedman, is CEO of Edelman Canada. In her current role, she oversees strategy, operations, and culture across five offices, close to 300 employees. Appointed in 2022, Bianca is the youngest regional CEO in Edelman's global network. During her tenure, Edelman Canada has strong double digit growth, won numerous creative accolades, including top ranking at Cannes Lions twenty twenty four, and earned recognition as a workplace of choice. Named one of the best workplaces in Canada and best workplaces managed by women in 2025. Bianca, thanks for joining us today. We're glad to have you.
[00:01:44] Bianca: Oh, thanks so much for having me.
[00:01:46] Donald: One of the things that we wanna dive into as we talk about really the landscape of business and our current environment is how are we, and you in particular, creating trust and alignment with corporate goals when everything's a little fuzzy out there? When there's a lot of reasons where people are bringing personal struggles to work, there's a crazy political environment as a business leader. I'd love for you to unpack a little bit some of your best practices for keeping trust, well-being, and alignment with your current business goals.
[00:02:18] Bianca: It's a great question, and I wish I had all the answers. But there are a few things that we're doing for sure. For one, we are just always try to communicate with absolute clarity. I've learned in my short tenure as CEO that strategy matters a lot, but what matters, I think, equally, if not more, is how you communicate that strategy and how employees actually connect with what we're doing in as as an organization and what is within our control. So, of course, we are in professional services. And just like every sector, there is a ton of uncertainty around what's happening, where our clients are spending. And with that comes fear, which creates even more unrest in that day to day work environment. And so I just focus on controlling the controllables and communicating as clearly as possible to try to just basically get people almost climatized to the fact that it is going to be a world of uncertainty indefinitely, and we just gotta keep on going as best that we can.
[00:03:20] Donald: Thank you so much for that answer. One of the things as a leader, as we're dealing with employees, clients, unknown economic factors, and you mentioned being a clear communicator. And I wanna unpack that just a little bit and get granular, because I'm a highly practical leader. How does that show up for you in your correspondence? Your one on ones, your team meetings? What are some of the things that you're doing in practice to make sure that your team members are really linking their job value creation to what you see is required as a leader?
[00:03:51] Bianca: So one of the things that we've done in the region within Canada is we've taken the global Edelman strategy, and we've simplified it to four key headlines that really any employee can connect to. So this is not a new concept, but I'm surprised sometimes when speaking to other business leaders and clients how rare it is to just simplify to that degree. It's four really catchy headlines that anyone can rhyme off. And even when we think about new business, because we're an agency, we have 10 client prospects that any employee at any level could rhyme off that they know we are trying to win in the financial year. So the simplicity is in how we structure the strategy deck for employees so that anyone can connect to it. And then to your point about getting granular, our meetings are revolved around these four. Our town halls are revolved around these four priorities. So it's just a really organized way of staying true to what we're trying to achieve together and how every single person in the company contributes to that.
[00:04:55] Donald: That's fantastic. You deal with global clients every day, and people a lot of times in service industries were seeing a pullback. What are you doing to continue to show that business value to the clients that you're working with when everyone's looking for a way to spend less, do less with more, all of these different things?
[00:05:16] Bianca: It's a really important question and something that I think about a lot. First of all, it's listening and staying really connected to our clients. So the most value I get in my day to day is when I actually get to speak to our clients and hear from them directly around what they're experiencing working with us, what they're experiencing in their own business, what they need more of, what they need less of. Because I think in this time, as you say, Donald, when people can when people are pulling back, when people are shifting their spend, it's so easy as an agency partner to kinda make excuses and say, oh, well, we're no longer doing that type of work because they're holding on to their purse strings. But actually, so much of the time, it's about the quality and the value of the work that we're delivering. We need to make sure that every dollar spent with us is really a dollar well spent, and that's where I focus. Versus on obsessing over the fact that overall industry wide spends are changing. It's more about really ensuring value for every dollar that's spent with us, and that's where I spend my energy.
[00:06:21] Donald: Fantastic. One of the things that Edelman globally is well known for, and as a business leader, I've read up on it for many years, and it's the annual trust index. And I have a little bit different question on the trust index, and it's really about thought leadership more broadly because Edelman is really invested in, has become an expert in, and now a cited resource in so many business periodicals. What is the thought process of Edelman in that investment in thought leadership? Why do you think it's important and what is the business value you've seen back? So if other companies are saying we need to do thought leadership, but they don't know why in the ROI, how would you help them and understand its value?
[00:07:04] Bianca: Great question. Just so that in case anyone's not familiar, I'll just give a quick primer on what the trust prompter is.
[00:07:09] Donald: Yep, please.
[00:07:10] Bianca: So this is a global study that Edelman's been doing for twenty five years. It's a key index that looks at trust in business, media, government, and NGOs. And it started in 1999 when there was just a really big pushback from NGOs against businesses, and we were trying to really just understand it and figure out the impact of this pushback and this tension for our clients' day to day. And so it started from a place of curiosity. So I think to your point, Donald, going back to the value, whatever you're doing for thought leadership, it has to come from an authentic place. It cannot just come from a place of wanting to spit out content because lord knows we don't need more. I just like endless content right now. It has to be value driven content. That's number one. So the report itself, I'm glad you've read it. And for anyone who hasn't, it definitely is helpful to business leaders because it really helps you think about trust as a forward looking indicator. As a leader, I'm trusted or if my company is trusted, it's easier for us to weather storms. It's easier for us to have advocacy from our clients or from our employees. So there are so many pieces of trust that are critical to business value, but also connected to reputation. So going back to your original question, for us, it is a worthwhile investment because it really delivers value. And so because of that, it's an amazing door opener. It doesn't mean that we go out and do a protest presentation and it equals dollars immediately. It has opened the door to so many spaces that Edelman can be part of conversations where we can add true value and also learn back from different business communities, nonprofit communities, etcetera. So it really is two way street of us being able to offer something to the world, but then very much have doors open for us to be able to explore new business opportunities.
[00:09:01] Donald: That is really, really powerful. And I think that what I've seen in my own personal branding and the work that we're doing at Workplace Options is when you give people relevant information that can make their job better, then they start to look back to you the next time they have a question. And I try to keep it really almost that simple, because for the clients that we serve in the health and well-being space, we want to be that first call when organizations really need that support. I want to now switch to your growth and career arc, and now becoming a CEO. There are folks that are listening that have goals and aspirations to continue to grow their career. What are some of the things that you did, cheat codes, if you will, little nooks of nuggets of advice that you would pass on to others as they were looking to grow their career and eventually knock on and then open that door to the c suite?
[00:09:53] Bianca: Thank you so much. I was just as surprised as everyone at the beginning because it definitely did happen sooner than I would have thought. And there's a lot of learning in that alone, so maybe that's a whole separate podcast. But I would say I might be unique in that I've never been one of those people to have a really strong five year plan or ten year plan or really capture long term career goals. Now I'm trying to work on that now because I've been enlightened with all of this amazing executive learning at this level that has shown me that having a plan is a really good way to be more deliberate about your choices. But what I have always done, and this is probably what's led me here, is every role that I've had and even going back to high school jobs, lifeguarding, being a camp counselor, whatever it was, I just try to do the best possible job in that role. And I do think there's something powerful in just being so present in what you're in. Sometimes I speak to people who are obsessed about the next step before the just as they're getting into the one step. And I think if you do that, you kind of miss the real learning opportunities that happen in that place that you're at. So for me, that's number one. It's, like, just really trying to be excellent at what you're currently doing. Connected to that is I've always been very self reflective in my learning. So feedback is great. I truly believe feedback is a gift. But if you are ever shocked by feedback, it's because you haven't really reflected on those things yourself. I think to grow quickly, which is certainly something I've done in various roles, especially at Edelman over my eleven years, you can exploit that learning by constantly being reflecting and being curious about how you can get better. That is a bit of a double edged sword. Sometimes that can end up in you being really overly critical on yourself, and I've certainly made that mistake in the past and, you know, have veered down that path and have had to bring myself back to say, okay, you're still doing great, but there's always things we can improve on.
[00:11:59] Donald: That is really powerful. And I think that to your point on the planning, I don't know that I ever had a five year plan, but I certainly had outcomes that I wanted to achieve. And mine were really built early in my career. The thing that I share with folks was really about capacity building and skill building. In any job that I had, I wanted to get as much learning out of that job. I wanna do a good job like you mentioned. I wanna do an excellent job. But I always did have my eye on the future. But I had to figure out how to do both. How can I make my current manager a superstar? How can I do well for them? But how am I getting assignments to where I'm learning new skills that make you valuable in the future? And that was something that was really important to me for anybody that was leading me. And if they gave me that skill building, then they got the best out of me because I was doing what they need, and then I was skill building for the future.
[00:12:49] Bianca: 100%. I've used those exact words to various amazing managers I've had at Edelman to say, for me, what's most important is that I'm learning as much as humanly possible in this role. Put me on the biggest and toughest account. Give me the client that wants to fire us. Like, whatever it is, when you crave that and you want that, it really does help you develop. So I couldn't agree more on that. But the planning is it's kind of coming in more into my life now because I realized, hey. I haven't done a lot of financial planning either. I haven't done it. Like, there's just I'm not a planner. I am at work, but for my personal self, I'm not enough. So I'm I'm definitely working on that now to have a little more structure.
[00:13:28] Donald: That is good stuff. I'm gonna go back to the trust index, and I'm gonna read something from the 2025 and just want your feedback on that piece. And so the 2025 Edelman Trust Barometer for Canada. So it shows a fragile trust landscape. Businesses remain the most trusted institution, 55 score, 55, yet there's growing grievance. 73% believe the wealthy don't pay their fair share. 62% think business leaders mislead the public. And so I wanna go to the 62% on misleading the public. What do you think are some of the contributors in that downward trajectory of people looking at leaders across the landscape and that trustworthy being even more fragile than ever before?
[00:14:15] Bianca: So the two things are connected, the grievance and then the mistrust of leaders are very much connected because there's this through line if you look at all of the data in Canada, but even globally. There's a through line of this financial insecurity that so many people are feeling. And so that puts you in a place, and you know this better than anyone, it puts you in that place of fear, and so it makes you less trusting of the system at large, including business leaders or government, etcetera. In true Canadian style, we're technically in the neutral category, but we're distrusting of CEOs, and we're distrusting of leaders. And it's because it's the combination of people feeling so stretched individually that they they can't even do the things that the generation before us were able to do, buy a house, things like that. And then they're also feeling like leaders don't necessarily understand us and are not connected. Now why is a good question. I think that you don't have to look very far without getting political. But in the news, you see certain leaders that are celebrities, whether they're in Canada or in other parts of the world, who are using misinformation. They're getting that it's the overall feeling of I'm being lied to, but it's also happening right here in Canada. And we do like to think we're sort of on a high horse in Canada, but there's a lot of stuff. You see those dark tones in the trust research this year of things that are happening right here in our backyard, like, even around activism, you'll see where people are basically saying they're okay with people turning to extreme levels of activism. That is right here in Canada, and it's all connected to this place of fear and uncertainty that many Canadian households are in. On CEOs, though, specifically, it's interesting because people trust my CEO, so they'll trust their own CEO, but they don't trust CEOs in general.
[00:16:10] Donald: That's a powerful slice.
[00:16:11] Bianca: It is because and if you think about it, proximity is so important to trust. So if you have regular connection points with your CEOs and this is why, you know, in our business, we tell so many clients, like, internal audiences are so critical to stay connected, for employees to feel heard, um, because there is that trust in your own company, and you definitely wanna trust that your leader will act in your best interest. But most Canadians can't name a CEO externally, and the ones that they do see, celebrity type CEOs, they don't necessarily believe are connected, again, back to the grievance point, to what we're experiencing. So there's a disconnect.
[00:16:54] Donald: No. I appreciate that answer, and I wanna extend on one component of it, which is your internal audiences. There's a lot of business leaders that will listen to this podcast with us, and they wanna learn from you and I, and they want to to understand. And one of the things as I work and I had the opportunity to do some training for an entire marketing team of a firm, and we talked about leadership. And they used our LeaderView tool that we talked about offline and different things to help grow and scale that leadership team. But one of the things that they were very light on was their focus on internal communication. They had all of the tools, all of the messaging, all the things they were doing to grow market share, to get their share of voice, all the different things. But then when it came to internal comms, there wasn't those similar set of tools. And so I wonder if you have some thoughts and some perspective to offer folks about how they can get more serious, more committed in their internal audience communication just like they'd be for their external brand.
[00:17:51] Bianca: I cannot stress enough how important internal comms are. And this is for the big moments, you know, town halls where we're celebrating things or when we're sharing difficult news. All of those key moments are important, but what I actually believe is it's the day to day micro communications that are equally, if not more, important. So if somebody leaves, do employees hear about it from their direct line manager so that you know this person left and that the work will be going to someone else or whatever needs to happen to maintain business continuity? There's an empathy and a care around communication for everything that's happening in the company. That is super important. And you have to find a rhythm that works for the organization. I always think about WestJet as a great example. They have always prioritized internal communication. Their former CEO, Ed Sims, is kind of a pioneer in the space where he was one of the early CEOs to write his own daily blog, and he would send may I can't remember if it was daily or weekly. It was a regular blog that he would send out typos and all, and people felt gory connected to him. Right? And they understood him. And when I was at Walmart, we did the same thing for our CEO at the time, Shelley Broder. The rhythm worked for these companies. It's a really great way to build that trust, but then it's also critically important that day to day managers are equipped to be able to communicate clearly. And sometimes it's difficult stuff, but you communicate clearly and we move on, and there's that trust that's built over time. So I cannot stress enough the importance of internal comms. And one way to just get started on the journey is to take note of what you have in play, kind of sounds like what you were doing with this group, and figure out where we can insert more or better communication touch points internally. And then once you do that, it's like, how can we make these amazing and personable? Instead of just a basic straight ahead, top down town hall, can we involve employees at all levels? One of the things we do at ours is we celebrate personal moments. So with the employee's approval, you know, we do weddings, babies, whatever's going on, marathon completions. These people love it, and it's such a small way to just help us feel more connected and ultimately build trust in our leadership team.
[00:20:07] Donald: No. I love that. I am and very appreciative, and especially the point where you talked about the micro communication moments, because I wanna be really specific. These are where trust is built and lost so many times. If someone's leaving or someone gets promoted or different things, people wanna know why, and people wanna know what it means to them on almost anything that changes in the business. Why did this happen? And then, what does that mean to me? And to the degree that you can address that question is a degree that we can keep focus on the things that matter. Otherwise, left to their own devices, team members are typically think negatively about things that they don't have a lot of information on, and that's something that I've seen over the years. One of the things that we do at Workplace Options is a psychological safety study across over 15 geographies. And one of the things that's a through line, and we saw this in Canada, is tension with one's direct manager being one of the most critical workplace concerns. And so as a CEO and a business leader, I would love for you to give some thoughts on how do you advise people to deal with that day to day contact that might not be the best, where they're having a challenge with that manager and it's really affecting, you know, their ability to perform.
[00:21:23] Bianca: It's such a good data point because I think everyone who hears it can automatically relate to it because we've all felt that way at one time or another. So as a CEO, the way I'm thinking about this is how I model psychological safety and then reinforce that different areas in all levels. And so I think when we think about psychological safety, we think more about the positive aspects, setting making sure that when you have a meeting, you speak last as the leader or you invite open criticism. So these things are important. But what is the real test, I think, is when something goes wrong and something is messed up or off the rails, how do we respond? And this is where leaders will forget to model the behavior, and it is so important. And I think it's especially top of mind for me because in the professional services industry, this happens. Right? Mistakes happen on our side, on our client's side. Team members leave, and we need to recast the account. There's little bumps in the road that happen along client relationships, and I'm a huge believer in great true partnerships, client and agency side. And for that, actually, the ultimate goal is to have psychological safety across the whole group, client and agency. Very difficult to achieve, but amazing when it when it happens. But yeah. So one of the ways that you have to reflect is what happens when something does go wrong and a client is not happy. As a CEO, I'm not gonna blame someone. I don't care whose fault it is. All I care is that we fix it for the client and we move forward. And so modeling that and ensuring that at every level we're doing that, it's a daily practice, I would say. And this is what helps reduce those friction points for people at more junior levels so that they know they can make a mistake or if something goes wrong, they can come to their manager and figure it out together.
[00:23:18] Donald: Really appreciate that comment, and I wanna be specific of the point that I wrote down is as leaders, when we take accountability, because you talked about what we model, that has such leverage throughout the rest of the organization. And I think a lot of times as business leaders, we forget how much amplification our voice has in almost every situation. And so when we talk about missteps that we made, learnings that we've had, things that we're working on, that creates space through the organization to think and model that thought process also. But a lot of times as business leaders, we're so outcome focused that we don't necessarily think about the complete packaging. And that's back to that internal communication that people are really, really listening. They're reading every word we write, and they're listening to every word we say. And so within that power structure that we have, we can also talk about the humility of what we're learning and then also what we're trying to model. So I really appreciate the way you frame that and package that.
[00:24:17] Bianca: Accountability is the number one thing that I look for when hiring someone who's going to do well in an agency environment. You have to have that strong sense of accountability. Every move we make, every call we have with the client needs to be great. We need to be prepared. So that whole idea of really showing up with a strong sense of accountability in good times, but also in bad. When something goes wrong, it's owning it, fixing it, solving. Less spin, more solve is something I say a lot to clients.
[00:24:45] Donald: Love that.
[00:24:47] Bianca: But it's so important, you know, because you're also in professional services. It's like, it truly is a fool's errand. It's a huge waste of time to be spending five calls and figuring out whose fault it is. It doesn't matter. We are accountable as an agency, and we've gotta fix it, and we're gonna do that together. Yeah. So I just wanted to double click on that point.
[00:25:06] Donald: I love that. I wanna repeat that for the audience. Right? Less spin, more solve. Because if we're in the business of trust across whatever industry we're in, people know in their businesses that things make mistakes. But when you own it, fix it, and then put in the framework so it doesn't happen again, I've had clients give me grace throughout my career.
[00:25:25] Bianca: Absolutely. And you know what? They make mistakes too. And then we don't say, hey. You did this. What value how would that help us? It wouldn't. So absolutely.
[00:25:34] Donald: As we wind our time together and and when we talked and and I know how busy you are, so I'm super thankful. If you had a magic wand, I'm gonna zoom out because we're not gonna get political on the show, but I'm gonna give you this magic wand. What would you change in the world if you had that magic wand? As we start to land the plane for this discussion, what would you do with that magic wand?
[00:25:55] Bianca: It's a good question. I would wish that everyone could just have more empathy for the person next to them. And that could be someone who thinks completely different politically than New York, just comes from a completely different lived experience than you. But I think where we're losing the plot right now is when is when we just put blinders on and people are saying, I don't care anymore. I'm just gonna do what's best for me. And that sort of individual mindset. I think that's dangerous, and I think it is showing up in the trust results. People are scared of that mentality. People are rejecting, at least in the Canadian results, you know, they're rejecting this really decisive way of life. And I think that if people had a little more empathy for what someone else might be going through or what their perspective might be and just listened, then the world would be a better place. So that's probably how I would use my magic wand.
[00:26:51] Donald: Bianca, thank you so much for joining us today, spending time with us. The time went super fast as I knew that it would. The thing that I would leave for our audience last is just to really double click on something Bianca said earlier is that proximity is important to trust. And so as business leaders, we need to make sure that we're visible, that we're staying connected with our teams because that allows them to increase that trust barometer in our own organization because we work really hard to stay connected with folks. And that bleeds into or in that opportunity within that internal marketing and comms and, again, those micro communications that Bianca talked about. And so, again, thank you so much for spending time with us and look forward to continuing to stay connected with you and partnering with you and, uh, just being a resource for one another wherever we can be helpful and support one another.
[00:27:42] Bianca: Absolutely. So good to see you, and thank you for having me on. Talk to you soon.
[00:27:51] Donald: Thank you for joining us on High Octane Leadership with Donald Thompson. Today's episode is a step in our collective journey towards leadership excellence. Remember, every story we share and every insight we gain is a piece in the puzzle of our leadership journey. For more insight and detail, hit the subscribe button so that we can stay connected. For deeper information and more episodes, go to donaldthompson.com. Continue to lead with vision and purpose. And until we meet again, embrace your role as a high octane leader in the ever evolving world of business.