I watched a senior leader do something unintentionally trust-diminishing the other day. The hardest part about it was seeing myself in him. I wonder if you might see yourself as well.

A colleague recently sent me a photograph of an ad from a magazine in India (thank you, Sumesh). It’s for a cellular carrier. I was floored by it because it’s rife with compelling trust-building lessons.

“Tough love” is a phrase that comes to mind when I think about trusted advisorship. There’s the love part: traits like compassion, sensitivity, understanding, curiosity, empathy. And there’s bringing a certain toughness, too: a willingness to ask a really provocative question, put a stake in the ground, or put hard truths on the table. Today’s tip focuses on how to do the latter in a way that actually builds trust, rather than breaks it.

I lead workshops to a lot of really smart subject matter experts, most of whom are right a lot of the time—and like others to see it that way. I help them begin to see why this is a problem, which I’ll bottom-line for you with a favorite quote from my co-author Charlie Green: “Being right is vastly overrated. Being right too soon just pisses people off.”

Charlie and I got to share a lot of great stories in The Fieldbook. In fact, for me it was the best part of writing the book. One of my favorite stories is a reprise from The Trusted Advisor. It tells the tale that’s part cautionary, part inspirational, all business. And worth repeating.