In this solo episode of the No Days Off podcast, host Brian Gubernick tackles a common leadership dilemma: how to support team members who have lost momentum while still holding them accountable. He introduces a four‑step conversational framework for navigating such tough conversations. First, he advises starting with genuine empathy to validate the person’s frustration without reinforcing a victim mindset. Second, he suggests redirecting the dialogue toward what the individual can control, helping them regain agency. Third, he recommends delivering “tough love” – acknowledging that setbacks are inevitable but must not become excuses, often illustrated with examples of resilient figures. Finally, he urges the leader to prompt the person to take ownership by defining the next concrete step and setting clear expectations. Throughout, Gubernick emphasizes that effective leaders must balance listening with challenging, delivering what people need to hear while ensuring they feel supported. He closes with a call to action for listeners to apply this framework with someone in their own sphere.
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Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to the No Days Off podcast, where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. Today we are going to spend some time talking about leadership because so many of you are entrepreneurs out there. You are building companies. You have employees, you have partners, you have people in your world that are obviously important to you, both in terms of the relationship, but also the success of the company. And every so often, one of your people struggles. Maybe this is all the time, but your people struggle. Sometimes they're building momentum and life happens and they look to you for leadership, for guidance, for support. So, how do you then go about balancing the empathy that you have to display but also holding line and providing what I like to call tough love? See, this subject came about for me because recently, a partner of mine had reached out and she had explained that, you know, life's been a little challenging as of late. She, um, she's had some tough situations. She feels like she lost momentum, like she gained the momentum, but then something happened and it just threw her off and she lost momentum. And she was frustrated and she was disappointed, disappointed, and she was discouraged. And she wanted to chat with me about kind of where her head was at. And of course, I said, let's, let's talk. And so before going into that conversation, though, I really gave it some thought around how should we approach this? How do we talk through what she's experiencing, of course, and how do I display a degree of empathy? But how do I also hold the line and, and, and provide the accountability? And again, the tough love. See, I think as leaders, one of the toughest challenges we face in helping our people, our employees, our partners, whoever it may be, One of the challenges we face in helping them when they feel stuck, especially when life keeps knocking them down, is what I'm describing here. It's one of the toughest challenges. See, many people get derailed by setbacks, and those setbacks might be health issues or personal problems or just unexpected disruptions. I mean, it's, it's life, right? And it's frustrating for them. And I also think it's probably frustrating for you as a leader. I think your job as a leader, and this is a key point, is to support your people while also helping them take ownership and helping them push forward. This requires, in my opinion, this balance of empathy and accountability. Now, quick point, if you're listening and you're not leading, others just yet. I'm going to guess because you live, because you're alive, because you're in business and you're looking to build a big world, I'm going to guess things set you back from time to time. So, today's lesson, yes, it's about leadership, but I also want you to look through the lens of maybe this is something you're experiencing right now or have experienced in the past and how maybe you can think around your specific scenario. So, I mentioned this leadership dilemma, this empathy versus tough love. Tough love. And I think that empathy, empathy alone isn't enough. If you only sympathize, then your person that you're talking to may stay in a cycle of feeling like a victim. So you can tell them, you know, I understand where you— how you feel. I feel for you. I've been there before. You know, I've lived through something like this. But if you just stay with that and say, I feel for you, It doesn't necessarily help them get out of the cycle, and the cycle may be of one where they're feeling like a victim. Now, on the flip side, tough love alone doesn't work because if you're harsh or too harsh, especially too soon, they may totally shut down on you and disengage. I think great leaders then do both. Again, they display empathy. But they also provide some tough love. They acknowledge the challenge, but they redirect focus to what the individual, the partner, employee, whoever it may be, they redirect focus to what that person can, can control. Let's talk about maybe how we'd approach a conversation like this. I think when you jump into the conversation, and the conversation I had went just like this, I wrote out my structure so as to be as valuable as possible, so as to, you know, do things what I thought would be the right way versus going off script. This was an important conversation. You're messing with someone's feelings and emotion. And I didn't wanna screw that one up. So, I jotted down kind of my framework here as to how to approach the conversation. And I think step 1 is to actually start with the empathy. Kind of goes without saying, you don't wanna come out of the gate with tough love. Start with empathy. So, what does that look like? I think it looks like validating their frustration, understanding where they're coming from. Now, a key point here, you're not reinforcing this, you know, a victim mindset that may exist, right? You are validating the frustration. So, the example may be, or maybe a script, if you will, that you could leverage here. It might be something like, hey, I can see how frustrating this situation is for you. I know you've been working really hard, and I know that this setback probably feels like it's slowing you down. Now, once you start with that empathy, I think you could shift the focus to what they can then control. So step 2 would be to shift the focus to what they can control. So you have to kind of help them regain a sense of control over their actions. So an example might be, I've seen people face setbacks just like this. I mean, again, if you live life long enough, you're going to have setbacks. And I've seen people face setbacks like this. I know I face setbacks like this. And, and those individuals and, and myself, I think we find ways to move forward. So, let's talk about what's within your control right now. What can you control? I want to shift the focus to what they can control. And then, step 3, of this framework is to deliver some tough love. Here, you know, here's the scoop. Setbacks are inevitable, but they don't have to be excuses. So the example might be like, here's the reality. There's always going to be obstacles. There's always going to be obstacles. So you really have two choices. You could either let those obstacles define you, or you decide how you'll respond. And I think you can at this point maybe give some examples of people you may both know who pushed through major setbacks. Or if you don't both know someone on a personal level, maybe there's someone famous that we may all know, like, like an athlete that overcame something, or individuals like— I was reading about him today, so he's top of mind— Michael J. Fox. The guy's had a few setbacks, yet he continues to persevere and be an amazing person on this planet. She could share examples of successful people who pushed through major setbacks. And then lastly, step 4, help them take ownership and move forward. And that's as simple as saying, hey, what do you think's the next best step you can take? So, you set some clear expectations and you create this accountability moving forward. I think you could offer support, but you got to make it clear that they have to take action. They have to take action. So in summary, I think there's a few takeaways here. I think number one, the key lesson is that people don't need, partners don't need, employees don't need leaders who just listen, right? Sure, they want their leaders to listen, but they don't just need leaders who listen. They need leaders who are going to challenge them to grow. See, great leaders don't just tell people what they want to hear. Great leaders tell them what they need to hear while making sure that they still feel supported. Great leaders don't tell people necessarily what they want to hear. They tell them what they need to hear and they just make sure that they feel supported. So, my challenge for all the leaders out there for today, I want you to think about a person in your world who might need this conversation. Maybe they're facing some odds and maybe they've lost their momentum or maybe they're playing a victim right now. And they need this conversation that we had here today. My question for you as the leader, what's one way you can help them take ownership of their situation today or this week? What's one way you can help them take ownership? So, in conclusion, as we start to wrap up, I want to reinforce to our No Days Off Nation the importance of leading with both empathy and accountability and tough love. I also want you to remember that leadership isn't about making people feel comfortable all the time. It's about making people better. So, there's a real opportunity here if you coach and lead properly. To help someone not just persevere, build resilience, and grow, but ultimately make them even better in the long term. That's all we have for you today in the No Days Off Podcast. Thank you so much for listening. And remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get after it.
