Graced to Lead

S2/E12-Friendship in Leadership: Why It Matters and How to Cultivate It with Belinda Gaston

• Belinda Gaston • Season 2 • Episode 12

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In this episode, I’m pulling back the curtain on leadership loneliness and the power of Godly friendship. With more than 60% of leaders reporting feelings of isolation, it’s clear that success doesn’t always come with support. But it can and it should!

We’ll explore how authentic friendships can strengthen your leadership journey. I share how showing up for friends (and letting them show up for me) has brought healing, encouragement, and a safe space to rest from the constant pressure of performance.

If you’ve ever found it hard to build meaningful friendships because of past hurt or the demands of leadership, this episode is for you. You’ll walk away with spiritual and practical steps to help you:
 ✨ Show yourself friendly
 ✨ Embrace vulnerability
 ✨ And build lasting friendships—one intentional moment at a time

This episode is a reminder: your title doesn’t disqualify you from needing people. It’s okay to need safe places. It’s okay to be a leader who also needs love.

As you listen, ask yourself:
 What kind of friend am I to other leaders?
 And… who might God be calling me to build with?

 Purchase my new book now! 

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Speaker 1:

Hey, listen, today's episode is all about friendships. Do you find it hard to make or keep close friendships as a leader? If you do, you're not alone, so let's get into it. Welcome to the Grace to Lead podcast. I'm Belinda Gaston, your host, and listen.

Speaker 1:

Recently, I went to Philadelphia to support a dear friend of mine. Shout out to Pastor Marquisa Williams. For those of you who listen, you know that Pastor Marquisa was a guest on the show this season, so please go back and check her episode out. But she did an event for leaders around execution, strategy and vision for their organizations, and she's really good at it. In fact, she's a few months short of receiving her doctoral degree in this space, and so she is the expert, and she brought in several experts for this event. And so I flew up really to just support her and just show up for my friend right, and I went and I got some great information. It was an amazing thing and I got some great information. It was an amazing thing. It was a couple of days that I spent there with her. There was something that dawned on me, and it's really about friendship. You know, what I learned in this experience is there is something powerful that happens in leaders when they have friendship relationships with other leaders, and so we're going to talk about that.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes leadership can be lonely. Listen, I'll just speak for myself. I know that in some cases leadership has been lonely for me. When you have the responsibility of leading and managing teams and serving others, sometimes you feel like, wait a minute, nobody really sees me, right? The person or maybe you're wondering like is this just how it is? Is this the cost? Is loneliness, is isolation or whatever you want to call it? Is that the cost of leadership? And I'm here to say no, that's not the case, and so I shared this in another episode, but I'll share it again here. In case you are new and if you're new to Grace to Lead, welcome. I'm so glad you're listening. But studies have shown that almost I think it's over 60 percent of leaders report that they feel lonely or isolated in their leadership, and that percentage increases the higher up in level of leadership. Right, and so even CEOs, pastors, community leaders some of them often feel like they have no one they can really confide in, no one they can call friend, and that's not how it's supposed to be. Hear me, listen to me. If you get nothing else if you decide to stop listening right now to this episode.

Speaker 1:

I need you to understand that that is not how it's supposed to be. God designed us for connection, not just to lead others, but to walk with others. And I don't know if you've even been in the situation where you do have friends, because many of us have friends that maybe have been our friends since high school or college. Maybe you've had friends that were childhood friends or friends that you've just cultivated. If you're, at any point in your life, you may have cultivated a friend that's been a friend for a few years and they're great friends, but as it relates to your leadership journey, they can't really understand your leadership journey. They can't really understand. Listen, I'm here to tell you that sometimes you have friends that, when you go into a new season, don't understand the season you're in, and that's because some of the people who are connected to us I heard someone say this that some friends are for a lifetime, Some friends are for a short time, some friends are for just a time to get you where God wants you to be, and so friends come in different types, but sometimes even our closest friends and I'll include family here may not be able to relate to your leadership journey, and so it's important that leaders have friends, and so you know that this.

Speaker 1:

You know I talk a lot about biblical principles here on this show, but if you actually look in the Bible, the Bible shows us what godly friends look like. I mean, there are lots of examples. I think the most famous one, or the most, I don't want to say most famous one, but probably the most well-known when people think about friendship in the Bible, is David and Jonathan. David and Jonathan they had a deep, covenant friendship. It was rooted in love and loyalty. Jonathan, if you don't know the story, jonathan stood by David, even when it cost him everything, when his very own father was chasing after David. And I'm not going to go into those scriptures I might do a study on this a little bit later but yeah, so David and Jonathan was one.

Speaker 1:

We also see Elisha and Elisha. That is what I call a prophetic partnership. It shows how God uses friendship to transfer wisdom and anointing and listen. Even though this is in the Bible, this happens in corporate spaces. There are people who are called to be in friendship relationships with you in corporate spaces, in your businesses, in your jobs, wherever you are leading in spaces that God will use to help transfer wisdom. We sometimes call that mentorship right. And then you can even look at Jesus and his disciples. He didn't just call them servants. I think there's a scripture that says I don't just call you servants, I call you friends.

Speaker 1:

So friendship is not, it's central to how God moved through people, even in the Bible, and so we know that there are lots of scriptures about it. You know, a friend loves at all times and a brother is born for adversity, like. I think that is in Proverbs 17, 17. Faithful are the wounds of a friend. Two are better than one. We've heard these things and I think that if you are a leader of faith, then you're like yeah, I understand that.

Speaker 1:

So then the question becomes why don't we cultivate friendships Right? Here's the hard part. Many of us are not cultivating deep friendships, and I know that there's a reason for that. There's lots of reasons for that. Some of us have been hurt Again. I've talked about this before. Some of us have been hurt. Some of us are too busy trying to lead well that we forget we also need to live well.

Speaker 1:

Can I just say that again, you can't be so busy leading well that you forget to live well. Some of us don't even want to be vulnerable enough to open ourselves up to a friend, because leadership has taught us to keep our walls up. Yes, in our leadership spaces, things can be competitive. Yes, in our leadership spaces, some of us, to get to those places of leadership, had to work hard, had to do things that in isolation, had to burn the midnight oil, had to, but that doesn't mean that we have to keep a wall up right? Here's the truth. The reality is friendship is a spiritual need. It's a need, it is a essential need for a leader.

Speaker 1:

Let me say that again Friendship is an essential need for a leader. And listen, I know we've talked about I think I often hear in leadership spaces that you need a mentor, you need an ally and you need a sponsor. Right? The mentor is someone who's pouring in wisdom to you and showing you how things are done. The ally is someone who supports you. They might be on the same level, but they support you. Who supports you? They might be on the same level, but they support you. And then that sponsor is someone who has the influence and the authority to speak your name in rooms or at tables that you're not in and really sponsor you and your growth. I think that is all important, but what I'm talking about here is a deeper connection.

Speaker 1:

Why does friendship matter for leaders? Here's what I've learned and here's some of the things that came to me as I was traveling. So remember, I said I went to Philadelphia to the Elevate Leadership Summit to support my friend, marquisa right. What I realized in her presence as I was supporting her and there were some other leaders there there was our friend Candace was a speaker, and there were other leaders in the room but what I realized for specifically for Marquisa and myself, and also for Candace, as I was supporting them, something began to happen in me and so I want to talk about that. So if you're listening to me, leader, and you're like, okay, I hear you, but I really don't need friends, I'm good, I'm growing, I'm developing without having these deeper connections. I have a mentor, I have a sponsor, I have an ally.

Speaker 1:

Let me tell you what can happen when you start to cultivate friendships as a leader. First is friendships real friends begin to strengthen your gifts. Here's what happened for me this weekend as I was being a friend to Marquisa, as I was being a friend to Candice and supporting what they were doing. So Candice was a speaker at this event. As I was doing that, I noticed that something inside of me began to change my gifts, the gift that I had of facilitating, of prayer, of even giving prophetic words. Those things became strengthened just because I was being a good friend, just because I was in their presence, supporting them and being there for no other reason but to just be a friend.

Speaker 1:

The Bible tells us in Proverbs that as iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. This is a thing as I was operating in the role of friend, of friend. The reciprocation from my friend Marquisa right, was a level of encouragement that really honestly brought out some new things in me. A real friend can call out your greatness. She even prayed for me some things that I just didn't expect, right. So as you develop these friendship relationships, you'd be surprised a real friend, particularly in leadership spaces, can help call out some things in you, can help call out some gifts and you can say, hey, you know what? You may not see this in you, but here's what I see. They can also help you stay aligned in purpose, the entire experience of being a friend in that situation.

Speaker 1:

Leader to leader not only began to help me see some things in myself, but reinforced some things. So, leader, if you put some time into cultivating friendships, then it can strengthen your gifts, right? I'll tell you another thing that friendships for leaders do. Friendships for leaders can help you heal. Remember, we talked about these walls that we have up sometimes as leaders. We can't let people in Friendships real friendships can help you heal.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to give you another example. We're going to move away from this weekend's experience. I'm going to talk and I'm just calling. I feel like I'm calling my friends out here. I don't know if they're going to appreciate this, but I have two friends in particular that I love dearly Michelle and Nina. And Michelle and Nina are leaders in their own right. They are amazing women. They are incredibly gifted leaders. Michelle has the ability to see strategy. She's an amazing teacher, an instructor, a trainer. She's worked at a Fortune 500 company. Nina has a very high emotional intelligence. She's high EQ. She has the ability to encourage and inspire within corporate settings. She sees beyond the surface of things. Listen, I feel like I'm giving their bio, but I'm just trying to give you an idea of who these two women are right.

Speaker 1:

And so when we first became friends, I still had a wall up. If you have read my book by now, you know I talk about this in the book. I still had a bit of a wall. Why? Because I had been friends in friendship relationships that I thought were deep friendships and been hurt in those spaces Right, and so I wasn't quite sure how to handle being in first friendship relationships with people who I admired and thought, oh my gosh, these women are amazing.

Speaker 1:

And and allow myself to be vulnerable enough to have this friendship relationship because in order for us to be friends, that means there's some, there's some characteristics of a friendship, that friendships that have to happen. You know, characteristics of friendship means that we have deeper connections, we have a deeper conversations, and I'm not going to go again, I'm not going to go into the biblical stuff here, but I think those are great examples. I really think I might need to do a video just talking about this and breaking this down a bit more. But when you are a friend, that means that you know intimate things about each other. It means that you tell each other the truth. It means that when you see your friend doing something or saying something that's not appropriate, you call them on it, right? That's a deeper level of just an acquaintance where you might let something slide because, well, you know, I don't want to offend them. A friend is not afraid to offend because they act out of love, right?

Speaker 1:

But in order for me to receive that, I had to let my guard down. But I had been hurt. I had been hurt by women who were in leadership spaces Now I'm not talking about. I have some great friends that I grew up with, some friends that I've known all the time. I'm talking about friendships in leadership spaces, where I have been hurt. But what I've learned in my relationship with Michelle and Nina is that they have created safe spaces for me to share what I feel. And so, you know, both of them are really good at asking the question what's that about? Where do you think that's coming from? Right? What's going on there and really kind of helps me be reflective of where is that coming from? Why am I responding that way? Right, and over the course of the years of our conversations, what's happened is that the mere relationship, hear me, the friendship between the three of us has helped me to heal, and sometimes that has been through conversation. Sometimes that's just been us laughing, sometimes it's been prayer, sometimes it feels like you can.

Speaker 1:

I believe that if I were going through something, I could call either of them and not say a word. I feel this way about all of my friends, but I cannot say a word and the silence would be healing. You understand what I'm saying. Friendships, leaders, help you heal, so friendships, they strengthen your gifts. They also help you heal, but friendships also they empower you, right? You know we all have that. One friend that's like a cheerleader, right A cheerleader I have. I actually have a friend, my's like a cheerleader, right A cheerleader I have. I actually have a friend, my goodness.

Speaker 1:

I'm calling all my friends, not all of my friends, because I do have many friends, but I don't call everybody a friend. That's a whole other conversation, because let me just talk about the differences between acquaintances and friends. There are people that you are friendly with. There are people that you know well. Those are acquaintances and friends. There are people that you are friendly with. There are people that you know well. Those are acquaintances, but the people that you call your friends are the ones that you would go through with. You understand what I'm saying.

Speaker 1:

And so, while I say I have a lot of friends, I don't have a lot of friends. I have a lot of acquaintances, but I'm pretty sure, going through this episode, I'm not going to be able to call all of my friends out, but I want to give you an idea of what I mean by friends. Empower you, and so I have a friend. I actually have a couple of friends, but one of them I have these friends that I call my cheerleaders, like they're the ones who I can say you know what? I have this idea in my business and this is what I'm thinking, and they'll be like they'll. They'll tell me the truth if they think it's a bad idea or, you know, if it's a, if they think, oh, you know, let's think about this in a different way. But if they feel like this is a thing that I am called to do, if they feel, god, confidence in what I said, they will hype me up. Let's go, let's do it. When you're going to do it, you got this. Those are the cheerleaders, right?

Speaker 1:

And so you know, I have a friend, naquana, that will do that. I think she's been on the show too. That'll be like cheering me on. Oh my goodness, dr Nedra Buckmark. She is the same way that just like, cheers you on, just like, okay, let's do it, let's go for it, let's go, push you forward.

Speaker 1:

Like that is what friends do. They empower you, right, they empower you. They empower you, my friend Christine. If I call her and say you know what I want to do? X, y and Z After she is, now, she's strategic, so think about it. It's like, okay, so this is what you want to do, she will let's go, let's do it, and that's what friends are for, right. And so friends empower you.

Speaker 1:

You know, if you think about Jonathan and David again, if you want to read the story of Jonathan and David, you can read the book of First Samuel in the Bible Jonathan and David. Jonathan did this really well. He wasn't. He encouraged David, often reminding him of who he was, in case you forget, right, is that identity? Well, you know, if you're feeling like, oh, I can't do this, a good friend as a leader will say listen, remember who you are. You are X, y and Z. You're a leader in this space. You've done this before. God's brought you here before. Like it's that kind of of leadership, right, friendship, leaders.

Speaker 1:

And the last thing I'll just say is that friends provide rest for you. Now, listen, I have, I have friends that are my resting place. All of my friends I feel like I can rest with, and I'll use my cousin Yolanda as an example here. Oh gosh, so here I am calling names, oh my goodness. But like there's some people who I am friends with, just their presence allows me to rest. They give me space to be without performance. Let me just say that again, because, as leaders, we're often performing not in a bad way. We're performing our leadership responsibilities, but sometimes we need to not be the CEO, the VP, the AVP, the minister, the prophet or whatever your leadership role is, the head of this organization, the entrepreneur, the whatever and just be. It's rest, and God will allow your friends to be that place if you let them. And my cousin Yolanda can come to my house right now and just enter into a room and not say a word, and I can feel her rest. I can feel rest. I feel the same way with Cheryl. There are times I could just sit. There are people you can literally just sit with.

Speaker 1:

This is, hear me, leaders. I am. I'm sure I'm not telling you something you don't know already and this is not meant to be a call out to my friends, it really isn't. I just I kind of went down this path and didn't expect it, because this is not a scripted conversation, but what I'm saying is ultimately, leaders, if you don't have friends, if you don't have friendships, you are missing out on the value of those friendship relationships that can improve your leadership journey. Hear me, it can make you a better leader. You were not meant to lead alone.

Speaker 1:

So how do we cultivate these friendships? Right, let's talk about what it actually takes, and I'm going to give you three things that I think it takes, that I've learned in my own personal journey and I would love to hear from you what you think. But the first thing that I think I had to realize is that, in order to be a friend, I have to show myself friendly. Now let me tell you something, as I am telling you this, I am working through this when I am right now, in July of 2025, is very different than where I was in July of 2023. And there are still people that I know I am to be connected to that have reached out that I've rejected and I'm correcting that it is a behavior.

Speaker 1:

So the first thing I'll say is, in order to cultivate these friendships, as a leader, you have to show yourself friendly, which means you have to be intentional. You have to be intentional, you have to reach out, sometimes first. You don't always wait for someone to get you, but you invite them in. This takes a level of boldness and bravery to do. The old me has a tendency to only really talk to people when they talk to me. I will smile, right, which makes it seem as if I'm open and I can do small talk. I would do small talk, but I wouldn't really go any deeper than that, right, and so I had to show myself friendly. I had to push past that in order to have these relationships. And that goes to.

Speaker 1:

The second thing is being open and willing. Listen, you cannot build connection without vulnerability. I will say that again. You cannot build connection and friendship without vulnerability vulnerability. You have to be willing to let people see the real you, not the you with the title no-transcript. And I will tell you that this is probably the hardest part, especially if you've been hurt before, if you felt rejected before I grew up, I'll just say this I grew up wanting friendships and not really being accepted in friendship circles. So I had groups of people that I associated with, but no real friends. And so what begins to happen is you don't show people the real you for fear of rejection. So, hear me, this is I'm saying this to you because I think it's important but also to acknowledge that this is not easy. And for me, what I've had to adopt over the last three years is Lord, show me who this person is supposed to be in my life. So when I meet somebody, I think, oh, that person, that leader, I would really like to get to know them better. Who is this person to me, god, and how should I respond? Right, you have to be willing to be vulnerable.

Speaker 1:

And even earlier this year, I connected in a group, I connected in a mentoring group earlier this year and around January I think it was early this year or last year, end of last year and I started to feel connections with some of the ladies and I tell you, I got scared. I'm not, I'm just going to be real with y'all. I got scared because I was like, oh, we are connecting, but what if I'm rejected? What if I fail at something? What if this doesn't work out and then it's going to be all awkward and I began to pull away and I literally removed myself from that group because I didn't want to take the risk and God had to deal with me about that. God told me listen, I put these people here for a reason and you have now forfeited that for a moment Now, whether I come back to those people, some of those people I'm still in connection with.

Speaker 1:

But I'm telling you this and I'm being transparent because I know it's not easy, particularly for women. I don't know what it is about. Men, men just be like, hey, how you doing, and then all of a sudden they're the best friends they like, got a bromance going. Women, it's a little more complicated and I acknowledge that. But what I'm telling you is you need it as a woman who leads. So show yourself friendly, be open and willing. And the last thing I'd like to share with you is that I'd like you to understand that friendships are built over time. The relationships I have did not happen overnight. Now there are a couple of people I just clicked with immediately. We finished each other's sentences.

Speaker 1:

But even with that, to go from acquaintance to friend, meaning I'm showing up for you, I can tell you some things that are not pretty about myself, and you not judge me. We can create safe space for one another. It's mutually beneficial. Like all of that, it takes time and it's hard because we live in this kind of fast world. Everything is quick and we get confused because some of us even think that we have friendships but all we have are social media connections, right? Or text message. That is not a friendship and that's another conversation. I'm not going to go there, but you have to invest time, you have to follow up, you have to keep showing up, because trust is earned and deep connection is formed from consistency, right?

Speaker 1:

I just if I had to end this because I really am trying to keep my these episodes a little shorter. That was some of the feedback I got from the first season. But let me just say this I want you to know that you were not meant to lead alone. Jesus had friends, david had friends, paul had friends, so why would you think that you would have to go through it alone? I want you, at the end of this episode, to ask God to show you who he's placed in your life for friendship. Maybe it's someone you already know, maybe you overlooked them. Maybe it's someone you need to reach out to again.

Speaker 1:

And then here's the hard part. Here's what I've been doing lately. I'm telling y'all all my business once again, but I've been asking myself what kind of friend am I? I have a group of I have two friends from college that one of them reaches out consistently and I'm usually never available. What kind of friendship is that? Me never being available? What kind of friend is that? I have a friend that's going through something and I've tried to be there for her and be a good friend for her, but I'm sure I've fallen short in some cases. Right, what kind of friend am I? Ooh, ask yourself that question, because we don't want just connections.

Speaker 1:

I believe that, leaders, god has called us to have some covenant relationships, relationships that stretch us, relationships that challenge us, relationships that protect us, relationships that comfort us, relationships that are example of God's love. And so if you are in the place right now, leader, where you're like I don't have friends, not even one, as a leader Again, we're talking about other leaders Are you in relationship with other leaders? If you say I can't name one, then I want you to pray and ask God to show you who he's placed in your life. For this reason, what may be hindering you from that? And I want you to be intentional about being open, because there is a blessing in friendship Friendship.

Speaker 1:

Your leadership is better when you have other leaders that you call friends. And let me just say this While you're praying for friends, don't forget to be the kind of friend that you're praying for. That's what God's been showing me, is all about me, right? You pray for things, god, send me a friend who understands. Send me a friend who won't judge. Send me a friend who gets me. But like, are you that kind of friend to someone else? Be the kind of friend that you're praying for. So that's it, I'm done. I just wanted to share with you the power of friendship for leaders.

Speaker 1:

I personally believe that the friends I have, the other leaders that I am in friendship relationships with, they have proven to help me strengthen my gifts. They've proven to help me strengthen my gifts. They've proven to help me see myself in ways I didn't imagine, help me change my perspective on how I lead, and they've been safe spaces for me, and I, for one, am grateful for those people and I am excited about what God is going to continue to do through those friendship relationships and shout out to my friends If I didn't call your name and you know that, you know that you, my girl I did not mean to start calling names at all. I did not mean to start calling names at all. That was not what I intended. But to my friends, I love you so very much.

Speaker 1:

And to those of you who have listened to the Grace to Lead podcast, thank you for listening. Thank you for continuing to show up with me. I've had some technical difficulties over the last couple of weeks. There's some weeks that I couldn't put out a podcast, but I thank you for listening and I'd love to hear your feedback. Give me some feedback. Text comment wherever you're hearing this, let me know what you think. And until we meet each other next week, remember you are indeed graced to lead Bye-bye.

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Belinda Gaston

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