The Culture Audit: Are You Leading with Clarity or Just Being Nice?

We've all heard the complaint, nobody wants to work anymore.

Honestly, Josh, I'm tired of hearing it because the truth is usually a lot tougher to swallow. People do want to work. They just might not want to work for you.

Ouch. That hurts. But that's exactly why we are taking the stage at the Cozy Big Summit on October 15th, right here in Cleveland.

We're leaning into the uncomfortable stuff. We're talking about how to find the right people and more importantly, how to manage today's workforce without losing your sanity or your culture.

If you're a business owner or leader looking to innovate and grow, you can't afford to miss this. We're going to help you move past the excuses and start building a team that actually wants to be there.

It's time to think big. Join us at the BIG Summit on October 15th. Let's fix the leadership gap and get your business back on track.

Head over to cozy.org for more information and to grab your tickets.

We'll see you in Cleveland.

Typically, when someone is the nice leader, Do they have any idea? No, none whatsoever.

They just don't understand why no one respects them.

Correct, correct. I just, I just want your respect, guys. Oh, how was that? Was that good?

I just don't know why anybody doesn't listen to me, right?

Yeah, no, I hear it, I hear it. Um, in most cases though too, people don't even realize it at that They just don't have the— so we are going to show you how to audit if you are the nice leader. And if you think you're not, you should still pay attention to this episode because we're going to give you some tweaks on how to make sure that you don't fall into any of those traps. Stay tuned. She's the CEO.

He's the marketing and operations guy.

If it's broken, you need The Business Fix. We went back and looked at some numbers.

Yeah.

The Nice Leader Trap is like one of our top episodes.

It is.

And I was, I was blown away by this because I was like, oh yeah, no, this is like—

it makes sense.

It really does. It really does. And most people don't always realize when it's them or when they're just to have some nice leader tendencies, how conflict avoidant they truly are.

Yes, it speaks to our culture.

It does. And I, I've done it too when I'm like, there was a point I knew I needed to get rid of someone and I'm like, okay, well, they still have the same problem next week.

They do.

Yeah, let me tell you, still had the same problem. I was like, oh, now you need to do it. Um, but I, it took me a while to put that timeline to it. So yeah, if you haven't listened to, to really the, the piece of that You should go back and listen to the Nice Leader Trap. Um, we're going to make sure that you aren't falling back into nice mode. We're not going to—

you can still be nice, you just can't be the quote-unquote nice leader that doesn't have accountability, right?

We should— the, the spineless leader.

Yes.

Um, yeah, no, so we are going to talk about that. Um, to me, this is the audit, this is the— and I, I— this is bringing in the number crunchers. Um, and I, as soon as I say that, I picture the old guy wearing the green visor.

Yeah, uh, with the abacus, right?

With the abacus. Just the one light over the— a dark office, just the one light hanging over top of it, and him wearing that green visor, um, probably smoking an old cigarette in an office that smells like, like one of the other auditors died a number of years back. Yes. Um, today we're going to talk about like that carbon monoxide of your culture, that invisible gas that is killing your efficiency, possibly your employees It's definitely your culture because nice leadership doesn't often look like a disaster.

Oh, not at all.

No, it's happy people. Hey, how's it going today, Bob? Yeah, great.

Bob doing their work? Nope. Right.

Nope. Bob wants to burn the building down?

Yep. Quiet quit 6 weeks ago?

Correct. Correct. So being that nice leader is actually a form of selfish— selfishness.

Mhm.

I can't say that word.

Selfishness.

Thank you.

I can.

Thank you, I appreciate that. Um, I, I've always struggled with that one, so I don't know why I put it in our notes here. Uh, it's really— and we, we've talked about this— you're protecting your own feelings at the expense of your team's clarity, the company's return on investment, your own dignity, because everyone sees through it and it's like, oh, So I feel bad that they were born an invertebrate.

Yeah. It's okay.

You have the same spine as a jellyfish. Congratulations.

Congratulations. No one respects you. That's great.

You've heard this title. Congratulations. Come on down. Walk us through the interpretation game. I love the title of this. I'm excited to hear about it. Why do employees start interpreting the boss's mood? Instead of following the SOP, because I have seen this happen.

Yeah, this is when the emotional environment becomes more important than the operational environment, right? Ooh. Yeah.

That hurts me.

I'm sure it does.

That hurts me to hear.

I'm sure it does, but it's true. And leaders rarely realize they're creating it. They do, because it starts really innocently. A leader changes their mind depending on the stress, what's going on in the organization. Everybody's stressed. We just won't do that. They give vague feedback. You're doing okay. "Thank you for doing a good job." What did I do a good job on? Right?

I feel like this pains you to say these even. It does.

It does. Another one is they'll avoid those hard conversations. We talked about this in multiple episodes. We don't want to give feedback. We don't want to feel icky because it might be uncomfortable to have a sweaty 10-minute conversation.

Bob is sitting at his desk with his feet up. Scrolling on his phone.

Yes. And the phone is ringing, right?

The phone is ringing and you make sure you don't walk down the aisle that Bob's cubicle is in. Yes. That way you don't have to deal with it.

Exactly. Or they'll— or sometimes a leader will say yes in the moment to avoid discomfort.

We've all done that.

We've all done that, right? And when you do those things, you change your mind depending on stress, you give vague feedback, you avoid those hard conversations, or you say yes just because you want to delay having to do something hard. The team's going to learn that the real rules aren't in the SOPs, they're in the boss's mood. Ooh. Yeah.

That sounds scary.

It absolutely is. So we've got 3 C's. We talked about the 3 C's of leadership, clarity, consistency, and care. Well, we convert these in The Nice Leader to clarity, consistency, and courage. Because you're not going to— care is not an excuse to wimp out on doing the hard things. So that's why we say courage. All right.

I feel— and now suddenly I am thinking of the lion from The Wizard of Oz. Yes. Is that what you had in mind too?

No, it's not. But—

Is now?

Don't be that lion. Okay? We're not going to be the cowardly lion. We're going to be courageous. So let's talk about clarity first. So when expectations are unclear, employees start trying to interpret emotion instead of process. And that's where the mood watch begins, right? If your team's checking with your assistant before they're bringing you bad news, like, how's Chrissy doing today? Is this a good time? Should we wait until tomorrow? You've accidentally trained emotional risk assessment into the culture. So you don't want to do that.

No.

No. And then there's consistency. And this is exhausting for teams because now instead of following the machine, you're trying to manage reaction stress unpredictability. And because you want to be the nice leader, you are consistent at avoiding anything difficult. Right? And that creates anxiety. People are going to stop focusing on work, on customer and process, and they're really going to start focusing on emotional survival. And because you're avoiding having a hard conversation, it's this cycle. It doesn't get better.

I don't know why I keep jumping to these analogies, but as soon as you said emotional survival, I think of like suddenly your workplace is the worst game of Survivor.

Well, it is, 'cause I don't wanna disappoint anybody and they don't wanna bring me any hard information 'cause they're either afraid I'm gonna freak out or I'm just gonna ignore it. 'Cause that's the other part. If you're a pendulum in your business emotionally, that's not the nice leader trap, but that just makes it difficult for your employees to deal with you. —so, and then courage. I know we usually say care is the last C of leadership, but when it comes to nice leaders, we change it to courage because their care can become an excuse to not have to have a hard conversation. So nice leaders can create friction avoidance and eventually lead to destabilization and chaos because they avoid the directness. They think, I'm being flexible and I'm being understanding, right? And what employees actually experience is inconsistency, and inconsistent leadership creates hypervigilant teams.

Yeah, they're trying to manage you instead of the work.

Exactly. So I mean, as a personal reflection, I've had moments as a leader where I've realized people were trying to interpret my emotional state instead of simply bringing me an issue. We don't want to stress her out. That's a culture signal.

Chrissy's having a bad day.

We're going to work from home. Or, ah, that bad. It's, or we don't know how she is going to react in a way that is going to, like, because when I am in reaction mode, I will make very precise decisions and they may not be ready for those precise decisions. So I'll just avoid— I have the opposite issue of the nice leader trap. I tend to do surgery. Chrissy turns into Josh when she's upset. But I mean, if they're not bringing you the issue, that's a culture signal. Yes. Right? Because healthy organizations run on process. Unhealthy ones run on mood. And if you're always like, no one respects me, I mean, if your team has to read your emotions to understand the rules, the culture's already unstable. And I mean, I don't— we talk about it being a nice leader, but I don't think— you're not being nice when you're not being direct about the business, when you're avoiding the uncomfortable conversations.

So. Your culture isn't what's printed on a poster in your lobby. It's what your team does when you aren't in the room.

And for larger organizations, that culture is usually the first thing to fracture during high growth. If your mission statement feels like a ghost town, you have a culture problem.

That's where where The Business Fix on the Road can help. We help leaders fix the people stuff so they can get back to the business stuff.

From keynotes to culture consulting, we bring practical, fluff-free strategies to your leadership team that drive real clarity, accountability, and results.

Stop managing by hope.

Book us for your next event, conference, or team meeting at businessfixpodcast.com.

Makes sense. Yeah. What I, I feel like there's a, there's a sublet that we need to go on to here in terms of like gossip culture, because yeah, what, like when you see that, that develops out of something. Gossip culture isn't there on its own, it's a symptom of something. No. What, what makes that so?

I will say that Gossip is usually unresolved truth looking for someplace to land. Ooh. Yeah.

I feel like once again, that needs to be another Chrissy needlepoint thing.

It probably could be. And I really like that one too, because it's just, it's, there is always a little bit of truth in what's going on. And I think it's easy to say that it's gossip, but a lot of times it is, it's unresolved truth that doesn't have a space to live yet. So I think, I don't think that gossip culture starts with bad people. I think that gossip culture usually starts with unresolved leadership. So let's talk about clarity. If employees don't believe concerns can be addressed directly and safely, they're going to stop bringing them upward. So instead of direct conversations and clear accountability, you're getting those hallway meetings, you're getting the Slack channel venting, you're getting the private texting in the middle of the Zoom meeting, you're getting the meeting after the meeting. And that's where leaders need to hear something difficult, because gossip is often— Josh, it's a symptom that people don't trust direct communication. Wholeheartedly agree.

They want to talk to someone about it. They do. But they're going to talk to their buddy about it instead of someone that can do something about it.

Well, they do, because they don't believe that any type of direct communication is going to lead to meaningful change. Sure. So if you don't think that anything's going to change, you're just going to continue to gossip about it. And so then there's also this vague feedback loop. Remember when, like, people will say, I hear rumblings, I've heard some thoughts, right? So there's this like vague feedback loop.

So I only laugh this hard because you hear it. You remember the number of times that I have heard that. We've heard ramblings of this, that, and the other. Yeah, yeah, you have.

Yeah. And the, but the ramblings come from leaders who have consistently and constantly softened correction. 100%. Yeah. For example, when someone says, hey, you missed this deadline, but overall you're doing a great job. Congratulations. Thanks, you did a great job. You buried the lead. So like, no, this deadline miss was a problem, period. You screwed up. Yeah. Oh, that hurts. I want them to know they're doing a good job. All right, stop erasing what the issue is. All right? Because when you do that, when you say you're doing a great job overall, after you've told somebody that they screwed up, the employee's going to leave confused. They're not going to know what they did wrong. They're not going to know if it's serious or not serious. They're not going to know what actually matters. When your correction lacks clarity, when you are too nice to give good feedback, Culture fills the gap with interpretations. And this is where I think you deal with the silence of the superstars. I mean, the most dangerous stage isn't gossip, it's silence. Yes. Right? When your level 10 performers stop complaining because they realize mediocrity is tolerated, standards are negotiable because everybody's doing a great job overall when even though they screwed up and leadership doesn't actually want that tension resolved because when we tell Betty she screwed up, she gets mad and then she stands stamps her feet and goes and slams things at her desk, and we just don't like that. Makes us feel uncomfortable. When leadership doesn't actually resolve that tension, people disengage quietly. Yes.

Yeah, no, they just kind of— I feel like there's that GIF of Homer Simpson fading into the bush.

Yes, that's exactly what people are doing. They're like, if nobody gives a crap about this because they can't have a direct conversation because everybody needs to be nice to everybody, why am I here?

Yeah, 100%. 100%.

That's it.

It's really that simple. How does that niceness create a barrier though? Like, I mean, we've, we've talked about like it makes people afraid to ask, but like, how did— like, how do leaders take that in the wrong direction? How do leaders create that bad environment for people to talk about stuff.

I think leaders sometimes think that being nice automatically creates psychological safety.

Oh, if I'm nice to them, they'll talk, they'll tell me anything. Exactly.

As long as they feel warm and fuzzy, it's going to be great. They'll come back to work, they'll do their job, and they'll do a great job. And I think— just keep telling yourself that. Exactly. When you're being automatically nice, it creates the opposite. So when you don't have good boundaries, clear expectations with your employees, your employees don't know what's acceptable. They don't know what the real rules are. And so flexibility starts feeling emotional instead of operational. And then employees are going to start wondering a couple of things. Are they going to secretly resent this? Like, am I asking for too much? Like, if they start trying to figure this out, is this, is this going to change how they see me if I ask for something or I tell them that there's an issue? Is that going to change how they see me? And so because you haven't been able to have direct conversations and build standards, that are clear, that's the issue that's going to continue to be a problem because nice leaders often unintentionally punish honesty because they avoid direct conversations. I have had that happen in so many cases. Yeah, and then because of that, because you are unintentionally punishing honesty, employees are going to stop asking for what they actually need because they're trying to protect the relationship. Well, I really don't want— clearly Josh doesn't like it when people are upset with him, so I'm just not going to upset him. So I'm just not going to tell him that this is an issue. I'm not going to tell him that there's a problem with the structure. And I think that sometimes, especially at Clarity, we see this a lot with, with employers that are just starting to scale their teams. They're like, I don't really think I need a lot of structure and rules. I just want— because everybody gets along and everything's good. And it's like, no, no, you don't understand. Leaders think that structure removes flexibility. It actually protects flexibility. 100%. Yes. And clear boundaries, clear rules and expectations, they create fairness, and fairness creates trust, and trust makes honest conversations possible. So here's a hidden irony, which I know you're not going to say is hidden at all, but for some people it may be.

Before you even say it, you're calling me out. I love it.

Yeah, I am. Because for those of you that are in your cars and you're like, I don't know if I'm the nice leader, let's think about this. Okay? Nice leader thinks, I am keeping things easy. All right? I'm just keeping it easy. We don't need regulations, we don't need rules, we don't need guardrails. But meanwhile, the team is emotionally exhausted trying to interpret reactions, avoid tension, and guess expectations because they don't know what they're supposed to be doing. And true flexibility requires clear boundaries. Otherwise, everything starts to feel personal, right? Nice leadership feels good in the short term because it protects the leader from discomfort. This is not about your team at the end of the day, nice leaders. This is all about you and not wanting to feel icky. Stop it. Because over time, what you're doing is you're creating confusion, you're creating inconsistency, and you're creating silence. If you're like, everybody's happy, When was the last time they talked to you? And you're like, I don't know. If you don't know the last time somebody brought you a problem, that is a clear indicator that you might be the nice leader.

Let's be honest, you did not start your business so you could spend your days buried in HR paperwork or Googling how to handle employee drama.

That's why I started Clarity HR. We're your fractional HR team, giving you real people, real support, and real solutions. Whether it's compliance headaches, hire struggles or just needing someone to take the people stuff off your plate, we've got your back.

So if you're ready to stop using duct tape and hope as your HR strategy and finally get some peace of mind, head over to clarityhr.com.

That's clarityhr.com. Simple, clear, and here to help.

I'll give you a few seconds to go to the website while we get ready to get back to the show. That's a brilliant one. Yeah. What a punch.

Sorry. No, it's good.

No, I'm not sorry. I mean, it's brilliant. It's a brilliant punch because yeah, if you haven't heard that, mm. That may be it.

Well, I just, everybody feels great. Everything's great here. Everybody's happy. Are they? When was the last time you asked for feedback? Or when was the last time you had a conversation that maybe wasn't comfortable, but ended the way that it needed to to make the business better? If you are not having those conversations ever, because you want to avoid them because they make you feel icky, that's a problem.

I, I love— I want to add something to the 'when's the last time you asked for feedback' is 'when's the last time you got feedback that wasn't comfortable?' Oh, that's a really great one.

Yeah, just ask that.

It like, look, I want you like feedback that's not comfortable. Yeah. If you go around and say, 'Hey, give me some feedback that's not comfortable,' yes, and everyone's like, 'No, things are good,' you got, you got yourself a problem. Yes, you got—

you absolutely do.

It's a big one because I guarantee that their spouse or partner knows all of the problems with your business. Yes. So maybe don't ask the people in the business, ask their partners.

It's their partners. All right, so we realize that we're a nice leader, Josh. Ouch. Yeah, tough. Yeah, and then we gotta fix it. How do you fix it operationally without swinging the pendulum too far and becoming the maniacal dictator? Because I feel like there are— like, we had this— there is an assessment we called like circles. There's like circle, square, squiggle, triangle. We used to do this in our office all the time, and we talk about how like at some point in time circles will realize that they've been taken advantage by everyone. They become angry squares. So, you know, I call it— how do we prevent people from being an angry square? How do they establish operational boundaries?

To me, as soon as you said becoming a dictator, all I can think of is Sacha Baron Cohen. I just went to the— because the problem is, what's funny is, is when you've— anytime you've seen a nice leader try and get this under wraps quickly, they turn into Sacha Baron Cohen. Yes. In The Dictator. Yes. I mean, it's the most comical thing to watch. You're like, oh, that's cute. You don't know how to do this, do you? To me, it's one, it's fix, it's get back to logic-based decisions and do that with a log. Stop making the one-off decisions. Well, we'll bend it this time. Don't do that based on your hallway conversation, anything like that. Now, what I'm going to say is in many cases, those are gut decisions. Like it's the hallway pass decisions. You should acknowledge your gut feelings. Typically they have merit, they're built on experience, but they are not the decision makers. Use the gut feeling as a signal to look at the data. Yes. Be perfectly fine with saying, hey, I need to look at some stuff. I'll get back to you on this. Audit this. Once again, when a request for flexibility or change comes in, you have to move to mechanics. And what I'm going to tell you is every decision does not need a 20-page analysis, which is probably surprising to hear from me. Yeah, I would agree. But what I am going to say is you need to take a quick pause before you blurt out an answer. 10 to 15 seconds can make a massive difference in clarity in decision-making, because too many times we make that quick decision just to be nice or helpful in the moment. Hey boss, can I do this? Uh, now you can make your decision. If you just give them the yes or no right off the bat, probably you're making the wrong decision. Look at the data. Whenever you can, look at data. Hard data. You know what I'm referring to with this. Numbers! Give me, give, give me the numbers. Give me all the numbers. What does it say about the current performance or state of the machine? Now, the other piece to that is consult a standard process. Now, I've seen it where, like, someone will ask like, hey, can we do things a little bit differently? Does this work? Like, does this align with the fundamental logic of how we normally do things? Are we just winging this for like, hey, I want to take my break 20 minutes early because I'm, I'm hungry? No, no, you've got to look at like, does this fit? Yeah, like if you take your break 20 minutes early, everyone else is going to be like waiting for work to do. No, um, it's figuring out does this fit for nice reasons reasons, or is this fitting logically? Yeah, with that, analyze those secondary effects. Like, and this is part of that 15 seconds at least, if you aren't taking longer for this. Um, if, if it's no good to save 5 tokens for person A if it's going to cost you 10, 15, 20 tokens in another spot. And I see it all of the time. Hey boss, can I just "Skip this part? I mean, it's not necessary." Meanwhile, Betty in accounting is ready to come over and burn the entire sales floor to the ground. Yes. Because now she has 4 hours extra work because you didn't check that one box. Nope.

Didn't follow any process. Correct.

Threw her crap over the wall. Giant bucket without the bucket. Yes. The other thing is too, is I always say verify the decision boundary. Does this request fall into a zone where the employee actually, they already have autonomy? If they already have autonomy on this, you've given them that, you've made it clear that they have this and they're asking, you got an isolator problem. I mean, you're trying to defend boundary using data, not a mood. And if they need to ask you, even though they have the data, and they've been told they can do it. They're trying to figure out, is this going to make Josh happy? Guess what? You're the nice leader. And the problem is, in so many cases, the nice leaders aren't even really that nice of people. No, they're just avoidant.

That's it. Um, or chicken. We'll just— yes, the chicken. The chicken boss.

Um, I— maybe I should wear a chicken costume for this next time we talk about this subject. Uh, the other The other thing is, too, I want to say we need to make decisions by design, not by desire. The process is the filter. You are being a mean boss by saying no. The process is why we're doing it this way. We know the process. You wanting to take a shortcut isn't being mean. It's saying, "Look, this is the process." The data is the secondary filter. Once again, if you run the data, run the information, and run it all through the established process, that is going to give you a decision on like, hey, can I do this, can I not do this? That's once again a way to fix being the nice boss. Yes. Um, the, the shift with this is you aren't— because what this does is this takes the impetus off of the boss for making the decision, because now the data is making the decision. You're merely observing that outcome of the logic. You're not being like, well, Bob will feel good if I do this. No, no, Bob doesn't need to feel good. Bob needs to get his stuff done. He needs to do the job. If you guide Bob correctly, Bob will feel good anyways. Yes. Fix number 2 is mandating the pre-brief before every project. I see this all the time too. Nice leaders give vague instructions because they don't want to sound demanding Or bossy. Oh gosh, yeah. And then the team is left playing like, "Hey, we get to play the interpretation game. What did he actually mean by this?" "Hey guys, do the thing like last time." Which last time?

We've done it 5 different ways. Which one? 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5? Or the one that we're supposed to do that we never have? The one that's written down?

That's the one we're supposed to do. Yeah, the one that's written down that we've never done. I like that. You've experienced that one.

Yeah, I have that one. Not in my business, other people's businesses.

Yes. Yeah, knowing you, that definitely wouldn't happen in your business. No, it does not. Um, we would be finding bits of Chrissy spread across the countryside because her brain would have exploded.

Or my people would have been so mad because they are process-driven. Yes, yes.

Um, to me, so like when we talk about fixing like this pre-brief, define clear directions for desired outcomes, like Destination first. I always tell people, you tell people exactly where you're going. Yeah, I don't say go to Cleveland. I say go to the beach house at Edgewater Park. That is a specific place, not just go to Cleveland. Uh, you have to make sure that you tell them exactly where to go and then explain, like, for the people that are doing tasks within this, you need to explain the secondary impact. People that are doing tasks, like, if they feel like just a cog in whatever machine that doesn't matter Guess what? If they feel like a garage roller where they're like, if you pull one of them out, it doesn't matter to the garage door. Yeah, they're gonna know.

People like to know they matter. People like to know why they're doing the thing.

Correct. Because otherwise they just feel like, great, this is another checkbox that the CEO just thinks is important even though it's not related to the process. Um, the, the other thing that I look at with that is what I always tell people is like A great example is like, we need to check, we need to make sure that this report is accurate because this is going to be used to decide, can we hire more people? Can we get you help? Can we do more things with this? If people know the effect of this, not just, hey, can you give me those reports? Um, there's a big difference with that. Hey, can you give me those reports because I'm trying to make a decision on this?

Holy cow, does that mean— oh yeah, I gotta do that.

Yeah, I see value. 100%. Not only Not only do they see value, but they're probably going to give you a better version of the reports because they know what you want and why the heck you want it. Yeah, why it's important. If you operationalize the roadmap, you now have defined the destination and the people doing the work should be the ones that are— they're the ones that are making the map. Once again, if I say Edgewater Park, the beach house there at Edgewater Park, I'm not going to tell you how to get there. If I say be there at 10 o'clock, I'm just going to assume that you can figure it out.

You're going to get there.

Yeah. And if we've got an SOP for that, you're going to take that. If we have an SOP that says take 77 to 90, then you're going to take 77 to 90. And I'm going to be upset if you don't. If there's no SOP for it, then make sure— Just get there. Just get there. Take a horse. Take a bike. I don't care, just be there at the right time. Um, the other thing is the Clear As Kind protocol is once again, when we've got that done definition, we've got to like— like what I hate is that when people— can you do the thing for me? Okay, but like how should this end up?

Yeah, what thing? Right, right.

And it's funny, I mean, when I used to be in the, the truck sales end of things, like we'd, we'd go down and we're specing fuel tanks, like where they go on the truck, because that makes a difference. If I put a fuel tank in just a random spot in a truck, right, it— you need to ask these things. Or as the, as the leader, you need to fix or tell people exactly where you're headed. Last thing is, I want to say the fix number 3 is the friction audit. This is the big one. Um, instead, like, I always hate it. How's everyone doing? Oh, I hate that because you know the answer you're gonna get. Fine. Now see, I like— your fine was pretty dismissive there. I'm typically fine. I'm gonna sound like you're—

how's it going?

It's going, right? Living the dream. Living the dream. Living the dream is always the warning sign to me. I'm like, oh, this— I'm gonna see this person on a roof. To me, I always say like, like we have a machine breaking meeting is what I always like to say. Like, because once again, now you're putting this on the machine, not the people. There's no blame. It's not Bob's fault. It's the machine. How's the machine working? Monthly, quarterly. It's got to be objective, so it's got to be data-centric. Every department brings 3 examples of friction or rework from the last 30 days. Like, where's the problem? Problems. Yeah, let's talk about these problems openly. If you do this, if you're willing to have these conversations, you're now establishing that you're not the nice leader because we're willing to talk about when stuff isn't so good. We've all got friends that we can't say like, how's life? Oh good, things are great. Um, there's times where, I mean, you and I are close enough friends now where we can come in and like, how's life? I am ready to lose my mind. But because once again, we've built that rapport.

It doesn't occur naturally. No, and it doesn't happen tomorrow.

No, so this is why this is a part of that friction audit, and this is why you need to implement that. Otherwise you turn into the dictator. Fix the things, I'm done being nice. No, this is, hey, what's wrong? Let's talk about what's broken. Now, if no one's willing to tell you what's broken, you definitely know you have the problem, and you need to go look for stuff that's broken and to get people on board to help you fix it. The thing that I always say with this too is there's the operational debt tracking. Calculate the actual cost of these exceptions. We skipped, uh, step 4 for that nice client. It cost us 6 hours of unbilled labor. That's a bad thing. Yes. What, what are good things and bad things that are happening this way? Here's the thing that I, that I really see with this, and you have to operationalize consistency. Yeah, we talked, I believe it was the last episode, about how I've eaten eggs for 16 years now for breakfast every day. People know what's going to happen when I show up. People are going to know how I can be in a good mood. I can be in a bad mood. It doesn't matter. The answer is still going to be the same. Yep. People know that if results are inconsistent, you only have the mirror to look into.

So true.

If there's an issue with stuff like that, audit the process. Is documentation clear? Did the team have the tools? If the SOP is shaky, fix that machine. More than likely, it's the operator of the machine. Who's the operator? You. You're breaking it. Correct. Bulldozers don't typically grade a surface wrong. The operator grades the surface wrong. It's, it's not the bulldozer's fault, it's the operator's fault. You are the operator. Um, the end result of all this, if you're willing to talk about these and if you're willing to build these, this builds the, uh, this builds the confidence through operations and making it so your people can talk to you about stuff. And that people can talk to you about stuff, turn— communication is always a two-way street. Yeah. If they can finally talk to you, that's what you have to work on. If they can finally talk to you, then you can have the direct conversations with them. There is like, you move, you move from mood to machine. Now, I don't expect everyone to turn into the machine that like, like the lack of mood that I have in some cases when it comes to dealing with stuff like this. In the same sense though, that ability to kind of calm that down, pull that back, and look at the processes and be like, okay, where's this at?

Well, it doesn't mean that you're not going to get hijacked occasionally by an emotional wave, but it does make it easier for you to navigate it. Exactly, 100%.

Um, how do you handle the, but I thought we were friends? How do you handle this?

First of all, you should never have that issue. If you do, then we've got some serious nice leader problems.

So I knew you were going to be annoyed by this question. That's why I was looking forward to it.

I saw it in our notes and I'm like, why are we talking about this? Friendship. I was excited. Exactly. Friendship versus leadership. So friendship says, I don't want you uncomfortable, right? Leadership says, I care enough to tell you the truth. And when you are leading people, Like at work, you, the people that report to you are not your friends. No. I don't know how many times I've had to explain this to people, especially when we promote someone, not in our organization, 'cause we get it, but like when we promote someone in another organization and we have to have the conversation with their upper leadership of this person may not be ready to move forward because their friendships are more important than being a manager. Yep. And so if you want promoted, be prepared to let your relationships change. So I, I, I want to go to Michael Scott real quick.

Yeah, I want everyone to be afraid of how much they love me. No, no, don't be Michael Scott.

Don't be Michael Scott. At the same time, you talk about Olivia Pope in Scandal when all of her people are like, over a cliff was what they would say for her. So we'll go over a cliff for our person. I mean, it— there, there are different ends of the spectrum. So I will say this, leaders have is stop viewing directness as rejection. Yep. Clear feedback is not cruelty. It's respectful to the people that you're working with. And if one honest conversation completely changes your relationship, the relationship was probably built more on comfort than it was on trust. Yeah.

So, and that, that's your fault. That's your—

you did it wrong. Yeah. I thought we were friends. We were never friends. That's when somebody ever says that to me in a leadership situation, I'm like, no, we were never friends. They're never gonna say that. We have rapport, we have healthy respect, but that's why I don't have friends.

I mean, I know there's a lot of reasons why I don't have friends, but it makes it easier. Yeah. Um, something that I've seen too, and, and I've, I've seen this in a couple of businesses, uh, a lot of nice leaders are like, I need Billy Badass, um, as my— and I think this is so mean. The good cop, bad cop.

I hate this more than I thought we were friends.

Uh, I am just gonna ask questions that are more and more irritating to Chrissy until eventually we get to the point where she's just gonna storm out of the studio. Stay tuned for that.

I mean, because there are times where I've had to have these— I'll just look at someone, go, do you need me to be bad cop? And when I say that, I mean like, are you absolutely incapable of having this conversation? This is on the consulting side. Like, if we have clients, there are times where we'll look on the HR side, I've I've watched my people do it. They're like, "Do you just need us to do the thing because you are incapable?" It's okay if you are because that's why you pay us. But it drives me to a point of frustration. Because the owner gets to stay— because usually it's the owner that has to be good cop. Right? It is. Owner stays emotionally protected as the nice one. And then the manager, the person who's actually doing the work and running the business, is the one that has has to be the enforcer that everybody resents. And you create— can you feel my irritation?

I feel like you're going to turn into the enforcer here soon because you've created a divided leadership structure.

Oh, 100%. You have. And I'm sorry, leaders cannot outsource courage, right? You can pay other people to do that for you, but you cannot outsource when it comes to your leadership team. You bring in a consultant to do that work, you bring in an HR consult, like, fine. But if you struggle with directness, the answer is to build the skill. It's not to hire someone to carry the emotional weight for you. We will be that person for a moment at Clarity, but we are not going to be that person forever. We are going to train you to do the thing. And if you are not able to do the thing, then you don't live in our client value of being coachable and open to change. So we're going to cut you.

Physically? No. The thing that I see that happens with this on the back end of that is when you were a little kid and like for me, if I didn't get something from mom, I asked dad. No. And that's what good cop, bad cop turns into. If, if, if, if the manager's the bad cop and the owner's the good cop, I bypass the manager for all the decisions that I want to go to the owner and be like, hey, He's got no spine.

It's like our kids know we never ask mom certain things. We never ask dad certain things. No, no. Well, here's the other thing too, Josh, is if you have, you have more than one business owner and you have a good cop business owner and a bad cop business owner, you have split your culture in half.

You have no culture. You have no culture. It's whatever randomness and it's whatever fits. What the people want that day.

Yep. And that is the definition of a toxic work environment. So, I mean, you— you— we do not outsource courage. We build the skill.

I feel like we're gonna have a lot of Yellow Brick Road comments on this. Um, I, I want to revisit— we talked last week about the Saturday test. Yeah. Um, if you're a nice leader, you are probably working on your Saturday fixing things. Because you were too nice to them on Tuesday.

Yeah, you didn't tell them to do the job or they needed to redo it. Absolutely. You're the one that's in there Saturday afternoon. Yeah. And you're— yeah, if you're working on a Saturday because you didn't tell your people that they needed to do the thing the right way, or you wouldn't tell them when they were doing it wrong. I mean, it's avoidance. Avoidance always collects interest. Always. Avoidance. And avoidance is expensive. If you take nothing else from this conversation, no, you want a toxic work environment, have bad cop, good cop in your management style. 100%. You want to pay a ton of interest and be resentful on your weekends, be the nice leader.

Yeah, it's funny, bad cop, bad cop is better than good cop, bad cop.

Oh, absolutely, hands down.

Because at least people know what to expect. Yes. I mean, once again, if I'm walking into a shitstorm, I want to know which way the wind's blowing, and that way at least I know the the way the wind's blowing. Yes. Uh, for our quick shots, uh, to me, like, some of the actionable, actionable things from this is, first off, the mood mirror. Ask a trusted pyramid. Do people seem to tiptoe around me? Um, if the answer is yes, do they care?

Correct. Or am I a marshmallow?

Right. Do they tiptoe? Am I, am I tiptoed around, or am I the floor mat? If you are either one of those two, yeah.

Yeah, I would say clarity reduces anxiety. So most teams aren't asking for a nicer leader, they're asking for a clearer one. Oh, I like that.

Yeah. Uh, to me, directness is a skill, not a personality. Believe it or not, I used to be the, the, the, the, the nice leader. Um, horribly. Um, as I got older and more cynical, it became better, easier to become direct. But you don't have to change who who you are, just change the mechanics of how you communicate data.

Yeah, and I would say avoidance becomes operational debt. Every conversation you delay eventually gets paid for in confusion, frustration, rework, or turnover.

Oh, turnover is the one that people never think about too.

No one will ever leave me, they all love me. No, they don't.

If it kills a meeting, after the meeting, um, if you hear gossip, go straight into a 10-minute conversa— 10-minute sweaty conversation. Yes. Sunlight is the best disinfectant for nice leader culture.

Yeah. And consistency builds trust faster than charisma ever will. Ooh. Your team should not have to interpret your mood to understand the standard. We talked a lot about mood today.

I like that. Yeah. Speaking of which, can a nice leader scale?

Yeah, they can, but only if they learn that clarity is kinder than comfort. Ooh. Nice leaders can absolutely scale when they stop avoiding hard conversations and start creating consistent expectations. Kind leaders scale avoidant leaders stall.

I was about to say that. That was going to be what I was going to push that to. Like, can they— can— if they stay the nice leader? No, they got to grow.

Yeah, makes sense. But yeah, you absolutely can be— I mean, come on, we've both grown from being just a nice leader.

Oh, 100%. And my people appreciate it. Mine do too. Like, hey, here's the thing, not like, hey, you've been wonderful. Yeah, I really appreciate everything you do, but this thing sucked.

Yeah. Yeah. And the ones that didn't appreciate my growth don't work for me anymore.

Correct, 100%. And I found amazing people. Absolutely. Huh, imagine that. What is the difference between vulnerability and oversharing?

This one is amazing. Vulnerability builds connection and trust, okay? Oversharing transfers your emotional weight onto your team. So it's a really simple question to ask yourself. It is, is this helping the team feel informed and connected or responsible for managing me emotionally? Because if they're feeling informed and connected, I'm doing my job. If this is just about me being able to feel better because I need to unload something to somebody else, that's not, that's not good. Leaders need to be human, but they do not need to be emotionally unmanaged.

I agree. And the bar that I have kind of used is, for me, they should know my hobbies. They should know what I do. Yeah. They shouldn't necessarily know what I'm dealing with. Exactly. Agreed. That is the— they should know things about me. They should. I mean, everyone around me knows I ride motorcycles. I love my motorcycles. Great. They don't know what I'm dealing with. No. And that's perfectly fine. Gripes should usually go up, not go down.

Yeah. Question for you. Yeah. Is there ever a time when being clear is not the right operational move?

This is one of those things where I— like, to me, it— there's degrees of this. Yeah, you can be clear, you can be direct. I have a tendency to err a little bit too much on those in some cases, and too matter-of-factly. You still need to make sure that you are clear and direct. You just have to make sure it's delivered tactfully. Yeah, don't ensue panic, right? Tactfully is the area that, uh, believe it or not, I sometimes have a difficult time I'm shocked.

Absolutely shocked. Can't believe it.

Huh. See, you learned something today, Chrissy Myers. To everyone out there, thank you for tuning in. We appreciate it. Once again, hit the businessfixpodcast.com. Would love to get your feedback. Love to get information from you there. That all being said, do us a favor, take care of yourself, If you can take care of someone else too, we will see you very, very soon.

If you're a small business owner navigating the world of marketing or looking to establish yourself as an industry expert, you already know the power of a great podcast.

But getting it all right, from the sound to the strategy, can be a headache. And that's where Pedal Stopper Productions comes in. We're the team behind The Business Fix and Chrissy Myers' Better Business for Small Business Leaders podcast.

One of the things I love about what you do, Josh, is that you're always willing to help out. And part of that is with your free 30-minute no-pitch podcast consultation.

That's right, 30 minutes of our best tips, tricks, and podcasting basics. Absolutely no strings attached, just podcasting insights to help you crush your goals. Visit pedalstopperproductions.com to book your no-pitch call today. That is pedalstopperproductions.com.

And now back to the show.