Building Trust For Your Best Life: Minda Harts On Why & How You Get There
Minda Harts at a recent Trust Catalyst keynote.
You can trust a handful of people in your life—maybe—and they might include your mom, sister, best friend, college roommate, partner. Add Minda Harts to that special list. Trust me on that one.
Award-winning, best-selling author, consultant, filmmaker, global trust keynote speaker, equity specialist and workplace communications expert Harts is building trust everywhere she goes with insights from her latest book, Talk To Me Nice: The Seven Trust Languages For A Better Workplace.
Harts is sharing her trustworthy strategies as a speaker at Take The Lead’s Power Up Conference 2026 August 26 in Washington, D.C.
“The Seven Trust Languages remind us that trust isn't built through assumptions. It's built through understanding,” says Harts, an assistant professor of public service at New York University’s Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.
“The 7 Trust Languages remind us that #trust isn’t built through assumptions. It’s built through understanding,” says Minda Harts, author, speaker, Trust Catalyst founder. #leadership #excellence ”
Read more in Take the Lead on Minda Harts here
“Right now, people are exhausted. They're overwhelmed. They're carrying different life experiences, beliefs, and fears into every conversation,” says Harts, whose first book in 2019, The Memo: What Women Of Color Need To Know To Secure A Seat At The Table, earned her awards and widespread recognition establishing her as a major voice in fairness, inclusion and equity in the workplace.
“Minda is a truth seeker and truthteller about how to make the workplace work for everyone,” says Gloria Feldt, co-founder and president of Take The Lead, who has worked with Harts for several years at conferences, on podcasts and more. “We’re honored to have her grace our stage at the Power Up Conference to share her vision of trust-centered leadership.”
“Minda Harts is a truth seeker and truthteller about how to make the workplace work for everyone,” says Gloria Feldt, co-founder and president of @TakeLeadwomen #PowerUp2026 #leadership #trust ”
Read more in Take The Lead on Black women leaders
Trust is crucial in this current economic landscape.
“Black women have been the group most heavily affected by the whittling of the federal sector, with their unemployment rate up more than half a percentage point since January 2025. In March, 2026, it stood at 6.1%, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, compared to the country’s overall rate of 4.3%,” American Prospect reports.
Essence reports, “According to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR), Black women have lost more than three times as many jobs compared to all women across 2025’s job cuts. These losses span professional and service roles, like health care, education, social work, and more. Black women ended 2025 with 113,000 fewer jobs than at the year’s start.”
“Black women have lost more than three times as many jobs compared to all women across 2025’s job cuts: @Essence #Jobloss #Blackwomen @takeleadwomen”
Read more in Take The Lead on stress for Black women
The realities of job cuts, as well as gaps in pay and promotion along race, identity and gender lines erase trust in systems, leaders and organizations.
At this precarious cultural time, Harts says, “The Seven Trust Languages help us slow down and ask, ‘What does trust look like for the person across from me?’"
Named by Business Insider in 2022 as one of 100 People Transforming Business, Harts explains what individuals need in order to trust a manager, leader, colleague, client or customer varies. “Maybe they need transparency. Maybe they need acknowledgment. Maybe they need security.”
Read more in Take The Lead on trust
She adds, “We don't have to agree on everything to build trust. But we do have to understand that people have different needs and experiences. That's true at work, at home, and in our communities.”
Read more in Take The Lead on Minda Harts here
The 2024 PWC Trust Survey shows an expanding erosion of trust in businesses and the workplace and a gap in perceptions. A total of “86% of business executives think employee trust is high, compared to 67% of employees who say they highly trust their employer. This employee trust gap of 18 points is higher than in the past,” the report shows.
“@PWC Trust Survey: 86% of business executives think employee #trust is high, compared to 67% of employees who say they highly trust their employer. This employee trust gap of 18 points is higher than in the past.” #workplace #culture ”
A lack of trust is damaging to not only the individual worker, but to the management and the entire organization. The survey reports, “42% of executives cite productivity as the biggest risk if employees don’t trust their employer, along with the quality of products and services (41%), operational efficiencies (40%) and — again — profitability (38%).”
Read more in Take The Lead on trust
And while trust is historically seen as a reason for employees to stay, it is now seen as a reason employees leave if there is a lack of trust.
“This data shows that lower trust among employees has an immediate impact on everyday operations. The risk is not that people leave — it’s that they stay and work half-heartedly. In addition, 60% of employees say they have recommended a company to friends or family as a place to work because they trusted the company. Conversely, 22% of employees say that they have left a company because of trust issues,” according to the PWC survey.
Read more in Take The Lead on Black women leaders
Offering the interactive experience, The Trust Catalyst™, for keynotes and trainings, Harts says, “I help organizations transform how they communicate so trust becomes something teams can actually build, maintain, and repair in real time.”
Having built her speaking and consulting platforms over the past decade for clients that include Citi, Indeed, Novartis, Visa, JP Morgan, Oracle, Intel, McDonald’s, Nike, Merck, LinkedIn, Baster, Zoom, Microsoft and more, Harts offers keen insight into what type of communication, process and experiences can create the best possible workplaces for women of color as well as all women and men. The goal is to honor the value of every individual.
Her tremendous success is even beyond what she dreamed, Harts says.
“I hoped my work would find the people who needed it, but I couldn't have imagined the journey. When The Memo came out (in 2019), I was focused on helping women—especially women of color—feel less alone in their workplace experiences. I wasn't thinking about bestseller lists, global audiences, or speaking on stages around the world.”
Read more in Take The Lead on Black women at top
The way she communicates, writes, speaks and interacts invites trust.
“What I've learned is that when you tell the truth about your experiences, people often see themselves in it. That's what has happened with all four books. The impact has exceeded anything I could have planned, and I'm deeply grateful for that,” says Harts, whose second book, Right Within: How To Heal From Racial Trauma in the Workplace, came out in 2022. She published her third book, the young adult book, You Are More Than Magic: The Black and Brown Girls’ Guide To Finding Your Voice, that same year.
“What I’ve learned is that when you tell the truth about your experiences, people often see themselves in it. The impact has exceeded anything I could have planned, and I’m deeply grateful for that,” says Minda Harts, speaker @takeleadwomen #PowerUp2026 ”
Read more in Take The Lead on race, gender pay gap
Her first book was made into a short film in 2024, The Memo. She has more films to come.
Having reached the #1 spot in book sales on Amazon, Harts says she is gratified by the reach of her ideas, but also grasps the continued urgency for confronting bias and discrimination in the workplace—both overt and covert.
“I'm grateful when someone tells me, ‘I thought I was the only one.’ There is tremendous power in naming an experience. Sometimes people spend years thinking the problem is them when in reality, they're navigating systems and cultures that were never designed with them in mind,” says Harts, who established a scholarship for Black women named after her mother, Marchel Harts, at her alma Mater, Western Illinois University.
“Sometimes people spend years thinking the problem is them when in reality, they’re navigating systems and cultures that were never designed with them in mind,” says Minda Harts, who established a scholarship for Black women at her alma mater @WesternILUniv”
There is progress, but the gender and race gaps across systems in pay, leadership roles, access and opportunity is persistent and critical.
Even as 600,000 Black women are unemployed today in the U.S., “More Black women are earning college degrees, making them among the most educated groups in this country. Black women are also the fastest-growing group of entrepreneurs, with business ownership growing by more than 50% in recent years. Despite economic and systemic barriers, homeownership rates among Black women are rising,” Amsterdam News reports.
“I wish some of these conversations were no longer necessary,” says Harts. “I wish we had solved more of these issues by now. But because they still exist, I feel a responsibility to continue creating tools, language, and frameworks that help people navigate them. My work has always been about moving people from awareness to action.”
Read more in Take The Lead on Black women leaders
Speaking at the Power Up Conference 2026 with the theme, “Audacity: Leadership in Action,” Harts will offer strategies to clear communication, projecting value and earning trust. She has culled insight from top tier leaders and managers in scores of different industries. She shares her immense knowledge and even how some leaders have good intentions, but not a clue how to improve the workplace culture.
“At #PowerUp2026 Audacity: Leadership in Action, Minda Harts offers strategies to clear communication, and projecting value and building #trust. @takeleadwomen”
Learn more about The Power Up Conference 2026 here
“What surprises me most is how often leaders want to do the right thing but don't always know how,” Harts says. “Many leaders aren't waking up trying to create distrust or dysfunction. What I find is that there are often communication gaps, expectation gaps, and blind spots.”
It seems everyone has trust issues.
“That's one of the reasons I created the Seven Trust Languages®,” Harts says. “Leaders finally have a vocabulary for conversations they've been struggling to have. I've also been pleasantly surprised by how many executives tell me they are applying these concepts at home with their spouses, children, and friends.”
She adds, “Trust doesn't stop at the office door.”
“Trust doesn’t stop at the office door,” says #author #speaker #consuiltant #founder Minda Harts @takeleadwomen. #leadership”
Take The Lead’s Power Up Conference 2026, Audacity: Leadership In Action, features a diverse group of speakers and experts speaking on the importance of inclusive leadership and strategies to solve systemic and historical barriers across all sectors. Minda Harts is a speaker and part of the interactive day of panels of experts who will detail the latest developments and strategies for fair pay and inclusion in multiple sectors, multigenerational collaboration, women’s health and wellness, plus adapting to the future of tech and AI. Learn more and register here.
