Sep 8, 2026 · 20 min · 14 segments
In this episode of the Hidden Currents Podcast, Paraic Mac Donnchadha speaks with Matt Cochrane, COO of Fairlo, about why trust is fundamental to leadership, teamwork, partnerships, and delivering…
Matt CochraneGuestPádraig McDonaghyHostI feel like we could be talking for another half an hour easily here, Matthew.
If you had a couple of words of wisdom for somebody who's in an executive role or in some role of significance, leadership or whatever, when it comes to building trust and building relationships to deliver results, any insights you'd care to offer based on your experience to date?
And I think the takeaway there would be that if you pretend to have all the answers, people see right through that, and then it undermines any trust that you could have built.
If you're very clear in what you do know and what you don't know, Well, people respect that.
It doesn't mean that they'll be happy with the answer, but at least they'll respect, okay, well, you know what you don't know.
This is now where we need to go and explore and investigate to bridge our knowledge gap.
Whereas if you try and make up and fake your way through it, you're going to get found out.
And then once that's found out, then anything you say in the future is going to be like, well, is this a scenario where did you know it or is this a scenario where they're just making it up? So then even if you do know something in the future, it's like, you know, the boy who cried wolf, it's exactly the same sort of, uh, uh, story, even when you actually do know it, people wouldn't trust it.
You, but you don't actually need to have all the answers as the, as, as a leader.
I feel like we could be talking for another half an hour easily here, Matthew.
If you had a couple of words of wisdom for somebody who's in an executive role or in some role of significance, leadership or whatever, when it comes to building trust and building relationships to deliver results, any insights you'd care to offer based on your experience to date?
And I think the takeaway there would be that if you pretend to have all the answers, people see right through that, and then it undermines any trust that you could have built.
If you're very clear in what you do know and what you don't know, Well, people respect that.
It doesn't mean that they'll be happy with the answer, but at least they'll respect, okay, well, you know what you don't know.
This is now where we need to go and explore and investigate to bridge our knowledge gap.
Whereas if you try and make up and fake your way through it, you're going to get found out.
And then once that's found out, then anything you say in the future is going to be like, well, is this a scenario where did you know it or is this a scenario where they're just making it up? So then even if you do know something in the future, it's like, you know, the boy who cried wolf, it's exactly the same sort of, uh, uh, story, even when you actually do know it, people wouldn't trust it.
You, but you don't actually need to have all the answers as the, as, as a leader.
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