In the first episode of our new series on Trust, Julia speaks with Samar Ali, a lifelong peacebuilder, about how leaders can build trust in environments where it feels most fragile. Drawing on years of experience leading peacebuilding efforts, Samar explains why trust isn’t created once and for all, but built step by step through curiosity, careful listening, and naming what others may hesitate to say. She reflects how leaders can acknowledge their own struggles without losing credibility, and why this honesty helps teams do the same.
The conversation also explores what happens when trust is absent inside organisations. Samar outlines the practical consequences: fewer ideas, missed opportunities, reputational harm, high stress, lawsuits, and teams unable to withstand crises. She contrasts this with what becomes possible when leaders put trust at the centre more innovation, healthier workplaces, and stronger resilience in moments of crisis. Listen to this episode to learn why building trust is not just a moral choice but a practical necessity and how peacebuilding lessons can reshape the way we lead.
About the Guest:
Samar Ali
Samar S. Ali is a skilled mediator, a careful listener, and a compassionate teacher. Pulling up a chair to tables around the world, Ali engages in some of the most entrenched conflicts of our time, always with the intent of finding positive resolution through common ground. In this pursuit, Ali is a Research Professor of Political Science and Law at Vanderbilt University, the founding President and CEO of Millions of Conversations, and co-chair of the Vanderbilt Project on Unity & American Democracy. This work places Ali right at the intersection of national security, human rights and economic development.
About the Host
Julia Middleton
Julia Middleton is the host of the Women Emerging podcast and a best-selling author of “If that’s leading, I’m in” as well as two previous books: “Leading beyond Authority” and “Cultural Intelligence”. She is deeply committed to helping people from all backgrounds to find their own approach to leading.
In 2020, Julia launched Women Emerging and in 2022 she lead an expedition of 24 women to find ‘an approach to leading that resonates with women’. She now leads expeditions with women all over the world based on 4Es methodology, discovered in the first expedition.
Prior to that, Julia was founder and, for over thirty years, Chief Executive of Common Purpose, which grew to become one of the biggest leadership development organisations in the world.
Julia is also an Ambassador for the Aurora Prize based in Armenia, on the boards of Alfanar Venture Philanthropy in the Arab World and Equality Now, which operates globally, and on the Advisory Councils of Fundacao Dom Cabral in Brazil and Synapse in Pakistan.
Born in London and brought up in New York, Julia was educated at French Lycées and graduated from the London School of Economics. She is married, with five children and lots of grandchildren.
An invitation to be a part of the global shift in leadership and influence generations to come.
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