Chad SilversteinBuilt To Lead · Entrepreneur , Advisor, & Thought Leader

Leaders Set The Tone For Everyone

Name: Leaders Set The Tone For Everyone
Uploaded: 2025-10-24T16:00:11+00:00
Duration: 2 min 7 s
Channel: Chad Silverstein
Description: In this talk, Chad Silverstein explains that every leader has the responsibility to set the "edge"—the daily tone and performance bar for their team’s…

24 Oct 2025 · 2 min

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2:07

In this talk, Chad Silverstein explains that every leader has the responsibility to set the "edge"—the daily tone and performance bar for their team’s culture. He emphasizes that high‑performing, flowing teams rely on strong chemistry and emotional intelligence, especially during tough moments, where leaders must know when to support, challenge, or push their people. Silverstein describes how setting the edge starts with how a leader begins the day and conducts meetings, and how creative variations—such as contests and incentive programs—can keep the team engaged without overwhelming them with constant change. He shares his own experience of using monetary incentives and contests to motivate high performers, defending the approach despite skepticism, and asserts that these accelerators, when tied to clear goals, reliably drive results.

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Every leader gets an opportunity to set the edge. They get to set the bar in their culture, and that's a huge responsibility depending on what kind of a culture you're building, how important it is for your team to be a team that's in flow, that has chemistry, that's a high-performing team that's breaking records, that can be there for each other when it gets tough. And setting the edge has a lot to do with your core, your ability to have emotional intelligence during tough times, and to be able to pick up your team when they need to be picked up, challenge them and hit them when they need to be hit. And setting the edge starts when you walk in the door every single day, how you start your day, how you start your meetings. Sometimes even the way you don't start them, meaning you change the tone, do something different, shake things up, set the edge is a discipline. It is a nuance that you can do different. You don't want to get to a point where you're kind of throwing so much change at people that they're wondering what the next flavor of the month is. But being creative and having fun, you know, we did this in my office with contests. I would set the edge, I would set the bar, I would create, you know, the rules of the game. And as soon as you set that edge and you challenge the high performers and you let people take off, you don't know what you can do. I used to have people so upset in my office because I used to give away a lot of money for incentives, and a lot of the leaders would question why I was doing what I was doing because we're paying people already, they're already making a lot of money. And so they'd say to me, why are you, why are you giving away so much more money for them to do their jobs? They're already getting paid. And I said, because it works. It works. I'm setting the tone. And you put that carrot out there and you give them those accelerators and you say, if you hit X, I'll pay you Y. That's an incentive that people want to go after. And it works. And I proved it worked and I wanted to keep doing it and I wanted to do it bigger and I wanted to do more of it.