Tony Martignetti: The Best Way to Build Trust With Your Team

June 18, 2025·26 min·2 clips

Tony Martignetti reveals how his artistic side and 25 years in biotech finance shaped his unique leadership approach.

Vulnerability opens the door here. Tony treats it less like a dramatic confession and more like a way to make connection possible. When a leader shows a little more of themselves, other people often feel safer doing the same. Adam keeps the conversation warm and steady. He introduces Tony as a leadership advisor, coach, and author with more than 25 years of business and leadership experience, especially in life sciences and tech. Tony is also the host of the Virtual Campfire podcast and the author of Climbing the Right Mountain and Campfire Lessons for Leaders. The episode spends most of its time on human connection. Tony's main point is that leadership cannot stay on the surface forever. People need to be willing to reveal something real, not in a forced way, but enough for trust to have somewhere to start. Compassion gets tied directly to emotional intelligence. Tony talks about the inner work of self-awareness and stress management, then the outer work of solving problems with other people and creating relationships that can hold a real conversation. Curiosity becomes the third C. Tony describes it as the discipline of keeping things open, especially when leaders want to cling to what they already believe. Adam Grant comes up naturally, with Think Again serving as shorthand for questioning certainty and staying available to new information. The advice stays practical: ask the next question, listen for why someone is sharing something, and let the conversation become more useful than your first assumption. The close gets personal in a good way. When Adam asks how Tony starts his day with a win, Tony says he walks his two dogs while listening to an audiobook. Simple, but it tells you plenty. Movement, learning, and time with his dogs give him a win before the day starts asking for things.

As heard by us

Vulnerability, curiosity, and compassion turn a familiar leadership conversation into practical trust-building advice.

Tony Martinetti makes a grounded case that trust is built through vulnerability, compassion, and curiosity. Adam Kontos frames the conversation around leadership and growth, and the discussion stays close to language leaders actually use: emotional intelligence, self-awareness,…

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Why you'd press play

If trust feels brittle, this gives you a clearer way to reopen the door.

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