Omnichannel - The Problem With Hidden Agendas: How to Lead and Communicate With Integrity

Episode Date: October 29, 2025

Send us a textHave you ever realized—mid-conversation—that someone wasn’t really listening to you, but simply collecting data to prove a point or sell something? Hidden agendas are subtle, but they quietly erode trust, connection, and humanity in business and beyond.In this video, Dominika Legrand explores:Why hidden agendas feel so uncomfortable (and what’s really happening underneath)How “diagnosing” people or leading conversations toward a pre-decided outcome breaks trustThe difference between inviting vs. pushing — and why leaders respond only to the formerHow to communicate transparently, pre-frame your intentions, and keep your leadership energy cleanWhether you’re a coach, consultant, or service-based entrepreneur, this episode will help you create more honest, agenda-free conversations that build long-term trust and emotional credibility.— Join the waitlist for the Human to Human™ program: https://dominikalegrand.com/programs Facebook: https://facebook.com/dominikalgnd Instagram: https://instagram.com/dominikalegrandListen on the Omnichannel Podcast — available on all major platforms.Get a FREE Copy of the High Converting Online Events Book: https://book.dominikalegrand.com/

That was the last time you were so sure about something in a conversation that all your questions were serving to probe the other person towards an outcome that you already had kind of figured out in your head and all you did was to ask those questions so that you can deliver your diagnosis. Now how do you think that makes other person feel and I'm sure I'm not the only one who has been a receiving end of a diagnosis especially unwanted diagnosis but let me tell you how it feels it makes the other person in hindsight feel a little bit blindsided as if you were not actually listening to them to understand them but you were listening to them and your questions served a purpose so that

you can prove your point and that's all that happened now there's nothing wrong with you using your pattern recognition skills, your expertise to diagnose fast. In fact, the more you know, the more experience you have, the quicker you can get into that diagnostic phase fast. And that's what expertise is really. What I'm talking about is when you are entering into a covered contract with someone who seemingly wants to connect with you, but only to that learn in hindsight that they just had a theory that they wanted to test through you or they had a hidden agenda that they wanted to kind of probe you so that they can say I think that's the diagnosis. Every time that happens there's a little bit of faith that we lose in humanity because everything that happened prior

to that diagnostic or you know sometimes we call them bait and switch but everything that happened prior to that diagnostic is suddenly erased from existence because what you felt was a human connection of someone wanting to understand you, were generally interested in you, was all just serving them to them so that they can fit you inside of a blueprint or fit you inside of a diagnostics that you never actually asked for. And that's the key and that is the problem with hidden agendas. All right, today we're going to talk about agendas and especially what is the issue with them and why they are problematic and how to do a agendas the right way. Welcome back to another episode or if you are listening to this one on

the Omni channel podcast, welcome back to the podcast. Now, there are many reasons why this came up for me, but I'm sure we all had those conversations in which we thought someone was being friendly and genuine, they interested in us, only then to realize, no, no, no, it was just serving an agenda. And I feel like the people who come with hidden agenda, I see how there are some uncertainty behind it because I see, for example, people who I meet through something else, for example, right now I'm doing an improv comedy class, and I could subtly pick up on the lady who just started her coaching business out of nowhere and her giving someone else share an advice that she should hire a coach. So now, because I have a

sophistication of I'm picking up on agendas. What happened is, is I'm able to pick up on agendas that are disguised as advice, you know? So, for example, I was in my improv comedy class and in between breaks, we are sharing some stories about us and, you know, what we do behind the scenes, like, you know, whatever. You make small talk to make sure that you are using the downtime somewhat productively. So I'm just observing, and that's my default. fault functioning in group dynamics. So unless someone comes to engage with me, I just like to scan the field and just silently judge from the corner of what other people are doing and what's happening. So I was just, you know, minding my business in my sandwich, just like my spidey

raiders are just scanning the field. And I happen to catch a lady talking about her wanting to finish her PhD, but she never really finds time to sit down with herself and actually focus and concentrate on work. And there is this lady who has this new fun coaching business and what she tells her as she's passing by, she touches her arm and she said, you should hire a coach. And she said, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, and whatever. And she walks past by. And that to me is, I already know that someone who is just starting a business that it's relatively new and also that they kind of you know using any interaction to see if they can plug a little bit in what it is that they do and sometimes that can feel a little bit like a prescriptive agenda way because you could argue that her sharing

was not about hey i should hire a coach and the lady just tapping her telling her that she should entire one. She was just expressing a frustration that is actually related to her not having the time to sit down with herself. So she wasn't asking for people to tell her what to do. She was just sharing the frustration. And this lady obviously kind of smoothly, smoothly coming in with the agenda, it told me all about everything. Like I already knew the character that she is. I already knew that she's a beginner. I already knew that that's how they are. And then I don't know that personally. I don't think the other lady took it personally either, but to me, that's a sign of someone who is listening so that they can insert their own agendas. It's not actually listening to you.

And I remember having this very vivid experience in which I was at a networking event, and I don't do that often because honestly, it's very draining, and I usually just gravitated to one person and I deepen the connection with one person, the entire event. Like, I don't hop around. I just like if I gravitate to someone, I just connect with them the entire time. But we were pushed to do like a round table introduction with ladies who had the same color of wristband. So I was pink, although that's not my color preference, but I had the pink one. So the ladies who had the pink one, we were set at the same table.

So we were doing a very awkward round introduction and I cannot tell you how much I hate round introductions because it just stresses me out and I can. can't really focus on other people because all I'm thinking about is what I'm going to say when it's my turn to speak. So that over-preparation makes me anxious and also I just don't want to think about myself. I want to understand other people more than talk about myself. It's not naturally something I like to do anyway. So we do the awkward round introductions and this lady's like I'm a business coach. I just started my business and okay so here is my business card, a business card, a business card, a business card, a business card,

and she said, I just printed a hundred of these. So I thought I might as well give it to all of your ladies and she was handing it out to all of us. And I'm sure that happened to you too, like when someone is giving a business card that you never asked for, I'm thinking to myself like I don't even feel the need to take the business card because I genuinely don't care about the lady and I genuinely don't see how that I have a need that she can fulfill to me and even if she was really good at what she does the way she came across with her here's my business card type of deal it's killed the vibe for me so I wasn't open nor receptive what she says So immediately I'm like, okay, lady, I'm not even going to have the politeness to take your business card

because I'm thoroughly not interested in what you have to say because you're not doing it right. So that's what actually happens when people have hidden agenda. They can leave you blindsided, confused and clamped up, you know, and even if they have something that is actually useful for you, you ruin your chances of that being heard, really, really heard because you plugged in your agenda really fast and or you hid it from the other person. And so everything that happened prior to the conversation was leading you on to something you never agreed to. So how do we do agendas right? The very first thing that I want you to understand is you have to pre-frame and

arrive to a conversation in which there is clarity about. about your role in the conversation. So don't come to a conversation, making small talk and be friendly, only then to switch into a business context and plug your business right away. That kills everything that happened before because suddenly people feel like,

oh, this wasn't genuine, you were just trying to, oh, okay. It kills it. It kills it instantly. And even if, and I'll tell you this, like sometimes you get into conversations with people and there is no context of agenda because you genuinely just want to connect

which happens to me all the time but in the meantime as you are in the conversation and the more you talk the more you realize okay maybe there's something here that I can help this person with or maybe I know someone who can be of help just by how they express something in the conversation

in that case you pause the conversation and you pre-frame the context. And you can do that very simply by just saying, like, hey, I know that we have been having a connection here. It was a very casual connection. But actually, just by arriving here and just based on what you said, I feel like there's something there. Would you be open to exploring what it is? Because I really don't want you to think that this entire conversation was for me to hide my agenda and come pitch you. I really don't want to do that.

but none of the said that, I think there is something there. Would you be open to exploring what it is? When you do that, you immediately put all the cards in the table and you give the other person the choice and the option than to engage with you and let you enter into a pre-frame context with you. That you weren't before. So first of all, just to recap, let's make sure we are clear on what are we doing in this conversation.

and also if the intention changes from a casual to a business context, make sure you pre-framed that so the other person has the choice to choose to engage with you further on the route of the business or say no and then you just stay cash. Okay, so let's not confuse people because that confusion is the very thing that can undermine a genuine connection and or if it comes like at the end of the conversation as a diagnostic or diagnosis, it will just erase everything that happened and your trust will be broken.

So let's just be sure we preface the conversation or we ask permission to pivot if there is something else that comes in mind. Okay, remove the pressure, preface really well, or let's make sure we enter into the conversation knowing where we both stand. Okay? The second thing is to invite people instead of pushing them. So I always like to invite when it comes to anything, whether it's a podcast engagement or whether I think we should have a call. It's always invitation, which means I give the person the chance to say yes or no. And in that scenario, we are not trying to push them into something that they don't want. And I know we all have met the pushy salespeople who are very prescriptive who tell you all about you without actually you know spending time to get to know you and

honestly I think there are certain category of people who like to take that almost like authority expert positioning versus you who is now the authority and expert like there is a hierarchy between the expert and you and there are some people who actually like that they like to be dictated They like when you tell them what to do, they like when you reveal all of the next steps and almost like directive in the way you approach them and that dynamic can work really well and even pushing them is almost like doing them a favor and they react well to that. There are some people like that who are a little bit clueless, they need guidance, basically tell me what to do, they tend to outsource their powers.

So that works. The author each I'll tell you what to do and you follow. That works, except It doesn't work with leaders because leaders, they don't like to be told what to do, especially from people that they don't respect, especially from people who's coming off with hierarchy. Leaders, I mean, if I can call myself one, leaders, we equalize the field. There is no one below or above. That is recognition of expertise on both ends, and there's mutual respect. So equalizing is one of the most important. tread off a leader and leaders don't like to be told what to do they don't like when you're speaking

down on them and they don't enjoy when you're trying to push them down and almost like you're the leader they are the followers they don't react to that well they don't do well when that happens and i don't like that directive approach leaders want invitation they want option they want mutual respect and they don't want to feel that, that there is this. And I had someone I work with until we managed to equalize the field, but I had someone I worked with for a while. But it was like on and off, so we didn't have a direct relationship. I had work with him through a client up until we actually started to work directly together. And the thing is with leaders that we have self-agency. So leadership is not just leadership as in leading people.

Leadership is something that it's embodied in terms of I lead myself as well. So I have self-agency. We don't need to be micromanaged. We already know what to do. And we want to be left alone in that as well. And of course, we don't react well to pushy approach. We react well when there is invitation. So if you are someone in the business of leading leaders, your approach invitation and giving

them the option to say yes or no is going to be extremely helpful. even if you have an agenda. Now, another important, I guess, mindset part when it comes to agendas is to be emotionally detached from the outcome. Now, this means that you don't collapse when someone says yes or no. So not charged, that there is no charge in what the decision is. So it's not like you are like, well, I don't care. But you are in this energy of, it's fine either way, I'm good.

let me see if this comes back to me so I'm not trying to control the outcome so much I can put that intention out there and I can get detached from whatever is a yes or no to you so I can invite and let you decide if it's a yes or no and I'm okay with a no and I'm not charging it and not collapsing into myself if you didn't like my proposition that's fine all right you guys that's it for this video we do talk about leadership equalizing agenda is a little bit more in depth inside of the human-to-human program because I feel like this the mindset of how do we show up in conversations especially when it comes to leaders is very very important if you're interested in the program you can come to sign out for the waitlist so

whenever we launch you'll be the first to be notified I'm going to make sure to put the wait this link in the description of this video and thank you so much for watching listening to this one I'll see you in the next one fun. Bye guys. Fun.