From the Client’s Mouth: Inheriting a Team in Turmoil — Leading Through Trust Deficits and Organizational Change
- lou ionis
- May 14
- 5 min read
This story comes from a real coaching session. Names and details have been changed to maintain confidentiality.
“We’re in the thick of it.”
That’s how Daniel opened our session.
Daniel is a high-performing leader in a fast-growing organization. He built his current team from the ground up. Strong culture. High trust. Clear collaboration. Results.
But now he’s being asked to step into something very different.
A struggling adjacent team.
A recent firing.
Two direct reports already leaving.
An SVP who openly admits he’s “not great at people management.”
And the possibility of inheriting a fractured organization with a trust deficit.
Oh — and while learning an entirely new functional area at the same time.
A minefield of Organizational Change
This is what real leadership expansion looks like.
Not clean promotions.
Not polished succession plans.
But messy inheritances.
When You Inherit a Team You Didn’t Build
Daniel’s counterpart had been fired months earlier. One of the leaders under that organization had:
Imposed a rigid system immediately
Changed roles without discussion
Implemented new tools without buy-in
Built process before building trust
The result?
One direct report quit.
Another was actively trying to transfer out.
Morale was unstable.
Daniel observed something powerful:
“She took a lot of trust out of the relationship before building any trust deposits.”
That language — trust deposits — became the anchor of the session.
Because when you inherit a team in distress, you’re not just inheriting a structure.
You’re inheriting the emotional residue of previous leadership.
The System vs. The People with Organizational Change
One of Daniel’s analogies was telling:
“There are NFL coaches who bring the same system everywhere they go, no matter who’s on the roster. And there are coaches who adapt the system to the players they have.”
He doesn’t believe in installing a Ferrari playbook when you have Toyota parts.
The previous leader came in with:
“This is my system.”
“This is how we’ll operate.”
“This is your role now.”
Without relational groundwork.
Without listening.
Without context.
Daniel’s instinct is different.
He wants to understand people before designing the structure.
And that instinct is mature leadership.
The Career Opportunity Hidden in the Chaos
Here’s what made this moment especially interesting:
Taking over this combined team is the cleanest next step in Daniel’s career progression.
It expands his scope.
It exposes him to a new function.
It positions him for senior leadership.
But it also guarantees:
Rolling up his sleeves
Rebuilding trust
Managing performance
Clarifying structure
Influencing upward
He said it best:
“I’m cautiously optimistic. It’s right for my career. But it’s going to be tough sledding.”
Growth rarely comes packaged in stability.
The Trust Deficit Reality
When you step into a broken team, you don’t start at zero.
You often start at negative.
People are watching:
Will he show up consistently?
Will he cancel 1:1s?
Will he impose change immediately?
Will this just be another leadership experiment?
Teams in turmoil go through predictable emotional stages:
Hope
Skepticism
Testing
Guarded engagement
Trust — if earned
Daniel recognized that if he moves into this role, his first job won’t be restructuring.
It will be stabilization.
Structure Before or After Listening?
The SVP asked Daniel to propose a new structure.
Daniel resisted the urge to design prematurely.
“I want to get to know these people before I write anyone off.”
This is the difference between:
Transactional restructuring
and
Adaptive leadership
Yes, structure matters.
But in organizations under strain, structure without relational groundwork creates further disengagement.
Daniel understands:
Ideal org charts don’t matter if the talent alignment isn’t there.
Sometimes you operate in a “non-ideal structure” temporarily while you assess:
Capability
Willingness
Cultural fit
Leadership potential
Performance management may come later.
But trust must come first.
Scaling Community From 10 to 20+
One of Daniel’s concerns was expansion.
His current team of ten had strong cohesion. Moving to twenty or more changes dynamics.
As he said:
“Going to dinner with five people is different than going to dinner with twenty.”
The question becomes:
How do you build intimacy at scale?
Daniel admired something his mentor once did:
He gathered his team informally and said:
“Let’s take an hour. Grab a drink. Talk about how we got here. The struggles we’ve faced. I want us to trust each other.”
Simple.
Human.
Powerful.
Daniel wants to recreate that community across multiple functions — sales enablement, customer success enablement, operations — without silos.
That’s not structural work.
That’s cultural architecture.
The Hidden Advantage of a Broken Team
Here’s the part most leaders miss.
When you inherit a high-functioning team, you manage.
When you inherit a struggling team, you build.
Daniel will have to:
Re-establish 1:1 cadence
Model consistency
Listen deeply
Clarify expectations
Repair fractured relationships
But because the bar is currently low, his presence alone can shift the environment.
In distressed teams, stability is oxygen.
Consistency builds safety.
And safety rebuilds trust.
The Leaders Who Check Out
One important nuance we discussed:
Not everyone will respond the same way.
Some employees in prolonged dysfunction become:
Jaded
Disengaged
Emotionally withdrawn
Quietly job searching
Those individuals require different attention.
Sometimes they just need proof that leadership has changed.
Sometimes they’re already gone — mentally.
Strong leaders observe the difference.
From Builder to Inheritor
Daniel built his current team from scratch.
Hiring.
Shaping culture.
Designing processes.
But most senior roles don’t offer that luxury.
Most executives inherit.
This is rehearsal for future leadership.
Because the higher you rise, the less often you build cleanly.
You fix.
You merge.
You stabilize.
You adapt.
And Daniel knows this.
The Bigger Leadership Shift
The most powerful line of the session was this:
“I want people to do things because they believe it’s the right thing to do — not because I told them to.”
That’s the difference between authority and influence.
And in inherited teams, influence is everything.
Who This Coaching Is For
This work is for:
Leaders inheriting struggling teams
High performers stepping into broader scope
Managers navigating reorganizations
Leaders repairing trust after poor management
Growth-oriented professionals preparing for executive roles
If you’re stepping into a team you didn’t build — especially one under strain — this coaching helps you:
Stabilize culture
Rebuild trust
Design structure strategically
Scale community
Expand executive presence
The Real Opportunity
When Daniel looks at this situation, he could see:
“This is a mess.”
Instead, he’s choosing to see:
“This is a playground I get to build.”
That shift — from burden to build — is the mindset that separates managers from executives.
And that’s the work.
Ready to Strengthen Your Leadership Through Complex Transitions?
If you’re inheriting dysfunction, navigating reorganization, or preparing for broader scope, explore:
Because the higher you rise, the more often you’ll be asked to lead where trust is already broken.
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