Fault Lines

Too many “helping” systems are built to extract knowledge instead of create change. Keara Cormier-Hill breaks down how trauma-informed, equity-centered research can shift power back to the people most affected, and why that changes everything for safety, trust, and real community care. Keara is the founder and principal researcher at South Design Research Studio , where she works with mission-driv...

Trust does not collapse because people disagree. It collapses when people believe the truth was hidden. In this episode,  Dr. Richard Roman shares findings from his dissertation on how state legislators decide whether public universities deserve their trust and continued support. Drawing on 25 interviews with legislators across seven battleground states, Richard explains why outcomes matter, why d...

Higher education is facing a steep decline in public trust Dr. Kathryn A. E. Enke explains why the problem goes beyond public relations, and what colleges and universities can do to rebuild confidence through clearer communication, effective governance, and stronger ties with their communities. As Vice President in the Office for Leadership and Strategy at AAC&U , Dr. Enke supports leaders acr...

Trust can break long before anyone admits it. The real danger is not only a headline-making ban or complaint; instead, it’s the quiet retreat that follows when people start teaching, speaking, and making decisions as if the worst-case scenario has already arrived. In this episode, we explore how restrictive state laws and uncertainty around academic freedom can lead faculty to self-censor beyond w...

The hardest part of a doctorate is not the coursework. It is the moment the cohort disappears, the dissertation begins, and the quiet isolation hits all at once. Madeline Rowe, PhD and Richard unpack what really happens after structured support fades, why so many PhD students experience a shift from belonging to burnout, and how peer relationships can matter more than formal advising when it comes...

Trust is not something you ask for; it is something you prove, one visible act at a time. Dr. Richard Roman breaks down why the fastest way to rebuild trust in a person, team, organization, or institution is often the least flashy one: showing up, following through, and closing the loop. Using Hallie Thompson's real-world experience from a Missouri town, a campaign, and her own consulting work, Ri...

What if the fastest way to rebuild trust in politics, science, and your community was not to persuade harder, but to listen better? Science policy professional and Boonville, Missouri city council member Hallie Thompson shares the deceptively simple approach that helped her win rural counties, launch a science-policy nonprofit, and turn local conversations into real policy ideas. Raised on a cow-c...

Trust is the invisible economy that holds organizations, communities, and even families together, but what happens when it breaks? In this episode, Dr. Richard Roman examines why people stop trusting institutions not because the facts changed, but because the relationship broke down first. Using the autism-vaccine debate as a case study, he separates legitimate trust failures from unsupported caus...

She was told her son would never talk, never live independently, never function without lifelong care. She refused to accept it. In this episode, Tracy Slepcevic , bestselling author of Warrior Mom , founder of the Autism Health Summit , and one of the newest members of the federal Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee, speaks with Richard Roman to trace the fault line between the families who...

In this episode of Fault Lines, Dr. Richard Roman explores why financial struggle is often not a knowledge problem, but a trust problem. Through the story of Holly Morphew , who once carried $67,000 in credit card debt while also managing chronic illness, Richard shows how even highly literate, high-achieving people can avoid looking at their numbers when shame, stress, and survival demands take o...

Holly Morphew built a thriving financial coaching practice and reached early financial independence after spending years unable to look at her own bank statements. In this conversation, Dr. Richard Roman talks with Holly, founder of Financial Impact and accredited financial counselor, about what actually sits between people and their financial lives: not a missing skill, but a missing willingness...

What does trust actually require from a leader? In this solo companion episode following the conversation with Dr. Rae Greiner of Indiana University, Richard unpacks the most under appreciated trust about trust in organizations: it is not a response to evidence, it is an act of imagination.  Drawing on Adam Smith's  Theory of Moral Sentiments and the tradition of the Victorian novel, this episode...

Most leaders treat trust as something earned through track record and verified performance. But what if that model is fundamentally incomplete? Rae Greiner , professor of English literature at Indiana University, argues that sympathy (and by extension, trust) is not a feeling that passes between people. It is an imaginative, speculative act that requires us to reason about another person's situati...

Taking the pioneering work of Dan Doty as his cue, Richard Roman, PhD, examines the collapse of initiation structures in American culture through peer-reviewed research: normative male alexithymia (Levant), gender role conflict and suicide risk (JAMA Psychiatry 2020), rites of passage program outcomes, and the RAND male mentorship deficit data. What does the science say about what boys and men act...

What does it cost an organization (or a family) when the men inside it were never given a threshold to cross? Dan Doty has spent over two decades asking that question. As a wilderness therapy guide, high school teacher in the Bronx, executive coach, and now the creator of a training program for male initiators, Dan has worked with thousands of men across a range of contexts. What he keeps finding...

Most trust-building strategies assume everyone starts from the same baseline. Liberation psychology says that assumption is the problem. In this episode, we explore how liberation psychology reshapes the way leaders understand organizational trust, psychological safety, racial trauma, institutional repair, and collective healing. Drawing on Ignacio Martín-Baró and Amy Edmondson, this episode exami...

A young medical interpreter picks up the phone at 3 AM in a rural Nebraska hospital and hears a parent learn their child is gone. That moment changed everything for Dr. Ayli Carrero Pinedo . Now a trauma psychologist, founder and CEO of In Alignment Wellness Services, and recipient of the 2022 APA Presidential Citation, she joins Dr. Richard Roman to discuss building trust within systems never des...

Every AI tool that observes you is built on a choice: does it serve you, or does it serve someone else? In this solo companion episode, Richard unpacks the trust architecture behind AI systems across three domains: organizational leadership, higher education, and public institutions. Drawing on Gallup's 2025 data showing manager engagement at historic lows, the 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer's findi...

Most managers get feedback once or twice a year if they're lucky. Ben Perreau is the founder of Parafoil , an AI-powered leadership intelligence tool that gives managers a real-time mirror after every one-on-one. I In this episode, Ben and Richard dig into the feedback vacuum that stalls most leadership development, why the IC-to-manager transition is where trust breaks down, and what it actually...

What happens in a leader's brain in the moment between a trigger and a response? Why does that moment determine whether teams trust each other or fall apart? In this solo follow-up to the conversation with Andrew McNeill of LX Leaders , Richard examines the neuroscience behind reactive vs. responsive leadership, what Google's Project Aristotle and Amy Edmondson's research reveal about psychologica...

Andrew McNeill is a leadership coach, mindfulness teacher, and co-founder of LX Leaders , a partnership helping leaders and teams thrive under pressure. A veteran of UK central government, Andrew served as one of the directors leading the national response to the Grenfell Tower tragedy. This experience crystallized how mindfulness practice directly sustains leadership performance in crisis. In thi...

Burnout isn't just about being tired. It's a trust crisis, and the most serious damage happens inside. New research shows 55% of the U.S. workforce is experiencing burnout, a six-year high. But the statistics miss something critical: burnout doesn't just exhaust you. It erodes your confidence in your own judgment. Nearly one in four employees reports that workplace stress has significantly reduced...

What happens when a successful career starts to feel hollow, and you actually do something about it? Jeremy Hannah spent 20 years in talent management and leadership development, advising Fortune 500 companies on culture transformation, talent strategy, and building people-centered organizations. Then burnout caught up with him. Instead of pushing through, he and his wife, Valerie, made an unconve...

Why do leaders invest in training and change nothing on Monday morning? The knowing-doing gap (the distance between what leaders know about good leadership and what they actually practice) is one of the most persistent problems in organizational life. In this solo deep-dive, Richard argues the gap isn't a training problem. It's a trust problem. Building on last week's Season 3 premiere with leader...

Why do managers struggle to lead change even when they have authority? In this episode, leadership consultant Marcy Levy Shankman explains the critical difference between positional power and relational trust, and why confusing the two is the most common mistake new leaders make. You'll learn the confidence-comfort framework for closing the knowing-doing gap, how to build trust with remote teams,...