How New Managers Accidentally Become Toxic at Work

You know, most new managers don't become toxic because they're bad people. They become toxic because they were promoted for being good at their job, then handed a team and told, Congratulations! Now, inspire those humans. That is not a leadership development plan. That is a workplace version of handing someone a trombone and says, Hey, congratulations! You're in the orchestra now. And the scary part? These new managers often don't realize the damage that they're doing. And that's what we're talking about today on Marc Haine Live. Welcome to this episode of Marc Haine Live. Of course, this is where small business owners and entrepreneurs pick up some core skill sets to help them create the show-stopping, jaw-dropping experience that their customers and their employees deserve. I am your host, Customer and Employee Experience Strategist Marc Haine. And today, my guest is Paul Leon. And he is the host of Manager's Mic podcast. And we're going to be talking about the accidental habits that really kill rapport between managers and their teams. And how newer people managers can build trust, clarity, and strong working relationships before their leadership style becomes the reason why all those good people that you got over there, They start updating their resumes. The price of admission for today is please just make sure you subscribe to this podcast. This is episode 301. So, I'm super, super excited because 301 episodes in and you're still with me. And I appreciate the fact that you found this content and that I hope it's going to be valuable to you. I'd really love to see as well the business community rallying around the work I've been doing since March of 2020. It's free. It's out there and it's there to help make leaders better. So, if you know somebody who could use this content, please make sure that you go ahead and you share it with them. So, if you've ever watched a great employee get promoted into management, you can recognize the pattern. One day, they're the top performer. The next day, they're responsible for things like schedules and coaching and performance issues, team morale, communication, accountability, and somehow still being available for that, hey, do you have a quick second? Basically every 7 minutes. And because most new managers were never trained to actually lead people, they often copy what they've seen before. And sometimes that works. Sometimes, it turns them into, well, the workplace equivalent of a smoke alarm with shoes. Loud, stressful, and technically just there for safety. The truth is though, rapport doesn't happen by accident. But it can be destroyed that way. And that brings us to our Question of the Day. So, where might your newer managers be accidentally damaging trust within their teams? Not because they don't care but because they've never been shown what strong people leadership actually looks like. Go ahead and share your experience. Why don't you go ahead, share this, a link to this episode on your favorite social media platform. Hashtag it #ExperienceLeadership. Put your comments down and be part of this conversation. As I mentioned, my guest today is Paul Leon, a leader, podcast host, practical voice for managers who want to build stronger teams without losing themselves in the process. Paul is the host of the amazing Manager's Mic podcast where he helps leaders, managers, and business operators have better conversations about things like sales, leadership, communication, and team performance. His podcast averages 150 listens a day on Apple Podcasts alone. So, really popular, which means that a lot of people are kind of leaning in to hear what Paul has to say about the messy, human, high-stakes world of management. He has worked with more than 500 companies bringing real-world insights into what really helps managers build trust, improve rapport, and create stronger team relationships. Paul also brings a powerful personal story to this conversation. He was once a college dropout and he has now completed his MBA last month.

Woohoo!

That gives him a unique lens. He understands the climb, the grind, and the quiet leadership moments that don't make it into the company's handbook but absolutely show up in the culture. Paul, welcome to the show and congratulations on the MBA!

Yeah, thank you so much, Marc. That means a lot. Thank you. I appreciate that.

So Paul, maybe you can dig a little bit into how you serve your clients, who your clients are, and how do you go ahead and serve them?

Great question. So, the way I serve my clients now is essentially what I do is I have a free 30-minute sales process That usually invites some good conversations just to see if we're aligned. And in that 30-minute sales process audit, Marc, is it's about determining what are those challenges that that business owner is having. And this is typically in their sales process, whether it's lead, which is typically the case. In most cases, everybody wants more leads. Is it closing rate percentages? Is it scripting? And that free 30-minute sales process audit helps us to peel the onion together to determine what has worked before, what's currently working, but future state, what needs to be working for the growth they want to see in a pragmatic timeline. And that's how I typically introduce myself by starting that one-on-one. But I also give a lot of my content for free, as you mentioned earlier.

Mm-hmm.

The Manager's Mike podcast. does that. It's a free resource. So if somebody is just simply not ready, or they're like, I can't afford consulting, or I'm new, that's for you to take what I would give someone, raise your income level with it, and then when the time's right, then use the free 30-minute sales process. That's how I serve my clients perfectly, in at least in my career journey, current state.

I love that. I love, Paul, just to acknowledge. I want to acknowledge your service heart. It's being of service to the people out there who might not have the resources and being able to put this stuff together through the podcast to be able to expose them to stuff that they might not know. I think it's brilliant.

Yeah, and it's a good call out. I appreciate that you admire that. I feel that you and I are kindred spirits in that as well in some regard, Marc. I just remember when I first got into sales. Um, I don't know if you want me to just kind of jump right into the journey, like past statement.

Sure.

So, I— we didn't have any money for me to go to college. I was raised by a single mother in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I had to get into sales to survive. It was— it was— I feel like there are 2 types of people that get into sales in my experience. It's either a desperation Or an inspiration type person. And for me, unfortunately, it was desperation. And I started door-to-door selling corporate gym memberships from Miami, Florida through— throughout, and just really kind of hitting the pavement, doors slammed in your face. If a sign said no solicitation, then I was soliciting. And that was— that's how I started. From that journey, I managed to leverage the skills to be able to do that career, do other sales opportunities from that first job, and started becoming a top performer in Fortune 500 companies, Fortune 100 companies, became top 10% of sales, won winner's circles, president's cabinet type awards, and used that money to get my bachelor's. And then from there, current state. Now, I'm a full-time sales trainer, podcaster part-time, and used that money from that opportunity to finish my MBA. And I've always because I've always believed in the power of education. I've always believed in the power of paying down that ignorance tax because that's the one thing nobody can steal from you. Right.

And in the opening, I talked about the lack of training when we promote when we promote leaders. I would think by now, we'd have learned our lesson that training is an essential component to us running our business, especially if you're moving people from one skill set to another skill set. So in your experience, why is this still a challenge? Why is it that we still have this fear? I can't tell you how many times I've heard somebody say, oh, I can train my leader. But what happens if I train him and he leaves? And then of course, the retort is, what happens if you don't train him and he stays? Why is this still a challenge in 2026?

It's a great question, Marc. And what I see annually, I will train about minimum 500. I've trained as much as 1,500 people in a year.

Okay?

And that's across a couple different businesses when I give you those data points. I'm going to tell you what I see from a face value perspective as to why it's still a challenge. So, challenge number one is distraction. And I know, and these are going to sound like common sense, but as you know, Marc, and many people on this, common sense is not common. So the first thing is that it's a distraction piece. I, I want— and I'm going to use AI because it's top of mind and you can't get away from it. It's in every news source. And I'm— this is not going to be a statement to say don't use AI or AI is not important, but I do feel Right now, we are heavily distracted with artificial intelligence being the focus point of everything we're doing to where it's starting to hurt one of the most crucial areas of a business, and that's training. So the first challenge is distraction number one. Number 2, it's knowing what to train to the right KPIs. So for— I'll give you an example, if that's fair, Marc, if I have your permission to do that.

Absolutely.

So for example, if you're a new business owner, let's just take YouTube because we're live on YouTube right now, correct?

Yes.

So typically, like, I'm not as big as you on YouTube, but one of the things I track as far as that, as like a common example for people who are trying to grow a personal brand or audiences, I'm tracking the KPI of uploads, not how many subscribers, not how many comments I get current state because that's not where the bottleneck is. Okay? And I feel sometimes in business, the reason why this training problem is still a thing is because sometimes there's training to train and there's training toward the skill to remove the bottleneck or possible bottlenecks. And I think those are 2 very distinct areas that we need to remove the friction on. So, if I'm training a new salesperson who has never ever like known what an objection is, who knows the skill of looping, there's a different KPI I have to train to. It's how many calls and consultations is this new salesperson doing versus somebody who's been doing it for 3 years. It's what's their overall close rate?

Yeah.

And is it remaining at that stage? And if it's not, what refreshers or friction points might there be that's preventing that from a more seasoning? So, I think that's challenge number 2. So, I said challenge number 1, as I had stated earlier, was distractions.

Mm-hmm.

Number 2 was not trained into the KPIs. And number 3 We don't reverse call, reverse engineer our call to actions enough, at least in my experience. And I feel like when I build training content, and if anybody's out there or you're listening to this, you should always reverse engineer from your call to actions when you're building content because that's where everything is. That's Project Management 101 and work backwards. Any book I feel, and you've written a book, I I'm in the process of writing a book, is you always start with the end and work backwards from there. And I feel like those are the 3 biggest challenges as to why training is the most— is the reason why it's still a problem.

Yeah.

And that's what I'm seeing across hundreds of companies, thousands of people. And though I would say those are my 3 biggest challenges that come top of mind, and there's layers in there. that I can give you. But I say from an 80,000-foot view that if we can fix that, if I could wave that magic wand, I feel like I could fix most companies in the U.S. and then beyond.

Yeah, it's interesting because we're talking about from that 80,000-foot view of if you have an organization, if you're a leader of leaders, we have this inherent need to be able to diagnose how do we help people perform at a higher level and move people forward. But at the same token, we also know that when people get promoted, as we talked about at the beginning of the show, they're not getting trained. So, why is it then the people who are human beings, they've experienced leadership from other human beings, why do so many new people managers struggle to build trust with their team, especially when they were strong individual contributors before ever being promoted? I mean, they were part of a team.

Right. It's a good question. And it's one I see a lot. It's one I've been studying through my MBA and a couple other things. I'll give you some data.

Sure.

And then I'll get into peeling the onion a little more with you, if that's fair, Marc. So, 2/3 of people will leave a company because of their manager. And that's been going on for decades. That comes typically from the Society of Human Resources. Okay. And 80% will just leave for the same reason. That's— those are some of those big data points. And they say that obviously because most likely they want to sell training. At least that's the assumption I have when I read those data points from that source. But to your original statement is, why is there still this gap? Like, what are the gaps between individual contributor and then middle manager? Like, what happens in there? And I think it's a couple of key things that happen. So, I think for this to kind of come together in a nice bow, we have to look at what are the first stages of becoming a new manager. And I'll just speak from some of my experience and things I've witnessed.

Yeah.

The first key thing is it is no longer about you. It is about someone else. Okay, I had a guest on my podcast, Oakland McCulloch. I'm literally taking that statement from Oakland McCulloch here who wrote Leadership Legacy. And that's a fancy term. But what happens is we automatically can fall into the trap of thinking, okay, so now I'm the manager, you do whatever I say, and that's it. And if you think that way at first, That shortens the distance between Anakin becoming Darth Vader, for those who understand that Star Wars reference. Okay, but if you start keeping that level of thinking, you start keeping that you do it my way or else. Okay, um, or my favorite is when people will tell you— this is also a bad habit— is I want you to take an entrepreneurial or approach to this. I don't know if you've ever heard that or heard that.

I have, yes.

That— I think that's not a bad statement. I don't think it comes from a place of malicious intent, because when you were on my show, I remember we were discussing the topic of most toxic managers don't become toxic on purpose. It's, it's accidental.

Yes.

And it's not accidental because they can't do it, or it's just Nature. I do believe it's a skill issue. And what I mean by that is you have to focus on praise over punishment, number one. And number two, when you assign a project, you should have clear objectives as best as possible. Okay, even if they're soft objections, to say, this is what I'm looking for. Like, I know for me, And I'm going to talk from the heart, if that's fair, from my experience. So I was in a situation for years where it required over 60 appointments with a therapist in a toxic management situation that I needed to psychologically survive. And in those 60 appointments, what I found about myself was a couple of key things. I found out what the definition of what good management was from those 60 appointments and what the definitions of toxic management wasn't. Like, like what I didn't like about toxic management. And again, number one was praise over punishment. Like, I— if I had done anything wrong, I would be punished like severely. And I'll pause there if you have any questions, or I could keep going.

I just want to give you— Well, you know what's interesting as well is It's not even necessarily praise as it is acknowledgments.

Right.

Right? Being able to recognize and acknowledge where people's energies are at or acknowledge kind of even acknowledging what their stressors might be is an important component, I believe, of leadership.

Yeah, it's a good call out. And it could be semantics too, whether it's acknowledgement or praise. But I feel it needs to be, whether you're using the definition of acknowledgment, you're using the definition of praise, it needs to be an overabundance of that, of those attaboys.

Yes.

And I, like, for example, if somebody builds a PowerPoint, somebody should— you should have that person's name even on the footnote. I was doing consulting with a young woman who had worked at a company for a very long time. She's a good friend of mine. She had worked for one leader, and she would put these PowerPoints together. She would spend months of research data sifting through Excel sheets, and then it would be presented to a board, and the person's name was not even on there. And I remember we had went out, we were, you know, hanging out with some friends and just started crying, like just bawling. And I thought she had like her boyfriend broke up with her. whatever. Like, I would, you know, that's what I thought automatically. And it turned out it's because she had felt so unrecognized at work while we were having like a good time, and that— and even though it's after hours, it just, it just bled into her personal life. Sure. And it was heartbreaking. So you have to have an overabundance of acknowledgement, as you say, praise, pick the words you want, but then over-mediate on the behavior and everything you do. And I'll pause there. Do you have any questions or is that a response?

No, that's, that's, that's, that's good.

Yeah. Yeah. So the other thing too is not having those clear objectives. I want to go back to that. I can't tell you how many times in those appointments where I, um, I felt Like I had to extract it from the leader. And there's nothing— and I'm not talking about like from a collaborative point. If it's a collaboration point, that's fine. But how many times I had to peel the onion and be like, okay, what exactly are we looking for? Do you have a picture and everything? In my experience, it was like, well, you're just— take your entrepreneurial spirit and then figure it out. And then I would do it and then it would be completely not what the person envisioned.

Yeah.

And then it was the old bait and switch. It felt like. And I was like, all right, well, this is a, this is a big no-no. But I think challenge number 3 that new managers struggle with is boundaries. And I can give you an example or I'll give you an opportunity to ask some questions as I layer into boundaries, Marc, with you.

Well, and so here's the thing is when you're promoting from within, You're promoting people who were good technicians within their department. They had co-workers and now, we're expecting them. And this is how I stepped into management. I was working at McDonald's and I was part of a really good team. I was a good high performer and they turned around and literally, the quote was, Marc, because you're so good, we want to provide— we want you to turn to become a supervisor so you could teach other people to be as good as you. And from an objective, so keep in mind, I'm 17. So, where's my skill sets at? I knew how to flip burgers, right? And so, all of a sudden, I'm thinking I have all my friends now. This is going to be a cinch. And it felt abusive. It felt like my boss had standards for me that he couldn't communicate. And so, I was feeling like I was letting everyone down. To your point, I didn't have objectives painted for me. I didn't have a definition of what success looked like aside from production. And that was it.

I'm curious, Marc, why the word abusive came to mind. I know you're supposed to be interviewing me but it's just an interesting word to use.

Well, because keep in mind that this was 1978. For a boss to yell and scream at you was not unheard of. There was a lot of carrot and sticking going on. And I actually got an evaluation about a year and a half into my supervisory. So, I was 18 and a half at the time. And my evaluation said that I did not yell enough.

Wow! Really interesting, huh? Okay.

So, we all have our experiences. But for a 17-year-old turning 18, being in a supervisory role to your point is I didn't have— not only didn't I have the leadership skills, I didn't have the social skills to step up into a role without training, guidance, or coaching.

Right. No, and it's a fair frame and I appreciate your transparency. So, I'm going to speak to your experience. The nice thing about humans is that we evolve and we get to learn what's better. So, you said that was '78 when you experienced that. I guess it was a performance report to say you didn't yell enough if I heard you correctly, right?

Yep. Yep.

So, we've evolved to understand that yelling and punishment is directly connected to creating a culture that increases higher turnover. Number one. Number two, creates a psychologically unsafe environment. And I want to pause here on this word psychological safety and define the importance of it, I feel, and where I'm going to attempt my best here. In finishing my MBA program, after I had the final straw and I said, I want to do my MBA, I want to learn to be a better leader and manager. I just felt that it was something that's always in my heart, number one. And number two, I knew that on the other side of it would be a better me. I think that's something that's always stayed with me. Whatever you're afraid to do or it's hard for you to do, on the other side of it is typically a better you. But what I learned through my MBA was 2/3 of the coursework was just on how to keep A psychologically safe environment. And I think that's interesting for a couple of few reasons, Mark. One is when I had gone through those 60 therapy appointments and there was a difficult decision to where I had additional therapy to go to this therapist, I remember reading the emails And I remember reading the final letter I had sent to, you know, stand up for myself. And I just remember like crying like a baby with my therapist. And I felt like dumb, like if I'm saying— because like, I think what happens, Marc, when you're going through, like when you're being psychologically damaged, and I could speak for this from, unfortunately, from a firsthand view, is you start to do these weird things when you're psychologically damaged. Like that I noticed. Like, one is you start to mitigate your pain. Are you familiar with the book Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning?

Yes. Okay.

In that book, there's a story, and I'm going to pull from this story because it stayed with me. It's the, the frame I'm going to use to try to help connect the dots going backwards. In that book, for those who may or not be familiar with it, it's about a survivor of a Nazi concentration Right. And after he survived, he still was a therapist and he started doing counseling again. And in the story, I remember that when he was working in the Nazi camp, there would be an electrical fence in the distance. And it was like an electrical fence and it had electricity running through it. And at any time, Marc, if anybody just didn't want to work in the fields, they could go and they can grab that fence and electrocute themselves and they could They could be done with it, right? They could be done with it. And he would be working in the field and that would happen. He comes back to the real world, he starts taking patients again, and then he starts having to have people in his chair who are telling him like— because most people go to therapy for 2 reasons, Mark. They go, number one, because of the loss of someone they love or a breakup. Those are typically the 2 biggest reasons, interestingly enough. And he said A woman sitting in his chair, or man, that would be talking about a breakup or divorce and crying with him, and the person who grabbed that electrical fence in the distance, the suffering was the same. The emotional suffering was the same.

That's powerful.

And I, I remember reading that And I remember I was in this situation. It was kind of like one of those, like, I don't like outer body experience to say it because it sounds woo-woo to some people, and I'm a business results-oriented guy. But I remember thinking that when I would ever, like, was in a toxic situation, there would be things I would be told like, hey, I don't really like your face in meetings, or My daughter unfortunately was in the hospital for 2 nights, and I was cut off mid-sentence and said, I don't really care about your personal problems. Don't tell me about them.

Wow.

And I would, I would have these little micro moments of like things I didn't like to hear. But what I would do, Marc, is I would go, well, that's okay because people are dying of hunger elsewhere. This isn't that Mm-hmm. I need to be stronger. That's nothing wrong with being that. I think it's good as humans. I think inherently most humans are really good. We care about people. We want to fall on the sword for each other. But what happens is, Marc, when we do that, when we mitigate our suffering, we increase psychological damage and we allow it to enter. And that's why I think boundaries is a very, very important word that I think is a huge contributor as to why toxic management thrives. Your situation with your manager saying you didn't yell enough, you did nothing wrong. I just want to be very clear. Now, I wasn't born in the '70s. I was born in the '80s. Not to Make you feel odd or old.

Thanks so much.

I didn't— look, I'm an old spirit, okay? So we're fine. But he just— it's a matter of an ignorance of the time.

Sure.

I don't think he was trying to coach you from a place of, yeah, I want Marc to be more hurtful because that's fun. It's just in the '70s and '80s It was a time of what we thought knew best. Yes, I was hit with a belt. As I got older, the research came out hitting people, kids with a belt doesn't do anything to correct behavior. You know, that was kind of a dramatic example.

But it's there, you know. So, we all have metaphorical belts all through our lives, right? And so, part of the challenge, I think, To your point is you had the wherewithal to be able to go into therapy to deal with some of the things that kind of was holding you back. Because what happens is I think we get so used to kind of workplace toxicity that we put up with it. And sometimes, we're kind of our own victim because we don't want to do anything to change it. I mean, back in 1978, 1979, 1980, the unemployment rate was so high, you didn't leave your job. And because of that, managers had power. Now, people can switch jobs at a drop of a dime. There's tons of people looking for really skilled people. And so, we now can be very kind of picky about the kinds of organizations we're going to work for. And I challenge a lot of people that more times than not, that whole interview stage is just as much an interview about finding the right candidate as it is for the candidate to figure out, is this the— do we share values with this organization if they decide that they want to hire me?

Yeah, it's a good call out and it's a good way. I like the way you put that. Me personally, I'll give you a framework that has always served me when it comes to helping people in new management.

Can we get to— sorry. So Paul, could we get to your framework right after our break? Would that be okay?

Oh yeah, yeah. Excellent!

So, we'll get to Paul's framework right after this.

When the spotlight shines on your business, are customers applauding or yawning? In other words, how is your business performing? Make your business a star with a new book, Lights! Camera! Action: Business Operational Excellence Through the Lens of Live Theater by Marc Haine. Marc uses his business and acting experience to help you see your business like a live show so you can create a performance your customers will never forget. Buy Lights! Camera! Action! today at your favorite online retailer or directly at marchaine.com. When you're delivering an important speech to a huge audience, it's easy to lose your place or go way over time. Give yourself an advantage with the Pro Speaker Presentation Speech Timer app. No more checking your watch or calling for time. The Pro Speaker Presentation Speech Timer app keeps you on track with easy-to-see timers, even changing color for visual prompts during your speech. And you can set audio cues to practice or set it to vibrate so you don't even have to look. Be the pro you know you are. Download the app at speakerpresentationtimer.com.

Welcome back! I am speaking with Paul Leon. Paul, you were just about to tip your scale and tell us a little bit of framework that leaders can use.

Yeah.

So, the framework was— it's always served me. It's tested and proven. I actually learned of this framework from a guy by the name of Dr. Robert Rohm, who I had the privilege of being able to know and get certified later in DiSC with some of their team. And it's HALT. I think if you're a new manager, you're somebody who's never ever managed anyone, leverage this framework as best as possible. So HALT stands for H— you should never give feedback if somebody is hungry, number 1. Okay, number 2, if they're angry, if somebody is going through, for whatever variants or reasons. Okay, and number L is lonely. Okay, maybe they just, um, lost a loved one. Okay, I was, you know, last night in the hospital with my little fur baby, you know. I would not want feedback today. Uh, um, in a general sense. And then T is for tired. So if you're ever— you're like, you're new, like, where do I start? I feel if you use HALT as like a framework to help you with people. Never give feedback when somebody's hungry, angry, lonely, or tired. I think that's an easy-to-use first step for some new managers.

And it gives us breathing room as well, right? To your point, I mean, if you're tired and you're stressed and to that point, you're not eating very well, you're not sleeping very well. I mean, the whole cornucopia of emotions tend to bubble to the surface. And so, any discussion won't be productive at that point.

Yeah. And I think the other caveat to this, and there's layers into this feedback. I don't think you should also strive to never publicly embarrass anyone. If you've been with any type of human behavior things like DiSC or whatever, I think what you'll find is 60% of the population is typically more people-oriented based on that research. And people who are people-oriented hate being publicly embarrassed. I will give you an example if that's fair, Marc.

Sure.

So, I was speaking all day in New York. I don't know if you've ever had a day where you had to speak, but you were like, I don't want to do this. at all today, like, or if you ever had a day, but you do it anyways because what anchors you, I assume, and what I feel about you and me is that you like the thrill of seeing somebody win. I get that energy from you and I feel we're connected on that, you know, on a professional and human level.

Mm-hmm.

And I remember I was speaking all day and somebody I had worked with In the lobby, like, ran up and started berating me in the lobby. Now, it was after the event, and the bartender was really the only one who caught it and had to kind of like talk me down. Like, you ever see like those old-time movies, like someone's watching the bar, like, what are you drinking? Who drink minimum? Like, I don't know, I don't, I don't know if that's like a Cheers reference. I'm just making This up on top of my head. But in that moment, I felt so embarrassed by being yelled at in the lobby of the hotel, even though all the attendees had left, even though all everyone was gone, and it was only really one person who saw it. It still felt publicly embarrassing. And I feel that's also another layer and boundaries as to as new managers. might strive with.

Well, and those boundaries, we go from this idea that we're in crisis. And so, a lot of times like I've spoken to managers where they will talk badly about somebody who's not there because they messed up. And then, when I pulled the manager aside, I said, why did you feel it necessary to slam that person in front of everybody else? Well, because then they'll know not to make that mistake. And it's like, isn't that an interesting thing? Because I bet you any money that had I done that about him, he'd be pretty darn upset that I went off on him behind his back to his co-workers.

Yeah. No, and I'll give you another frame if it'll help to try to anchor this skill even further. So, I've been married 10 years. I'm going to flex my relationship in this analogy with you, if that's fair, Marc, if I have your permission to do that. One of the first professional development books I ever read, and it's been debunked, they say, but I still think it's relevant, is Gary Chapman's 5 Love Languages. Are you familiar? You're familiar with that book, is my assumption.

Yes.

I think a lot of people in organizational behavior kind of debunk that book and kind of Oh, that book's stupid. People say that about it. I've heard. I still think it's a good frame. I don't think any professional development's gospel, but they do help give you what you need. But in that book, I remember reading it. Love is not what you do when everyone's looking. Love is what you do when someone is not looking. And I think if you really let that statement sit, just really let that statement sit, like love— I'm gonna say it again for impact and importance— love is not what you do when someone is looking. Love is what you do when someone is not looking.

Mm-hmm.

I was at dinner with a couple of trainers and speakers. I'll never forget, there was a very, I would say, objectively attractive waitress. And one guy in the group took his wedding ring off and put it in his pocket. Now, I'm not saying— I'm putting mine back on because I'm not saying that seeing someone attractive or saying someone's good-looking is bad. I want to be very prescribed. But those little things you do when someone's not looking, like your analogy of someone gossiping, oh, they won't get it, when they're not looking. That will blur the lines into destroying culture. And the consequence is gossip because that's always the fastest vehicle for killing culture and start dismembering the team emotionally little by little. It may not happen overnight. But when it happens, it's going to happen fast.

And at the core of all that is trustworthiness and trust. As a core because I love Stephen Covey's trust bank account analogy. And that when you do little things like that, who talks about it afterwards? And what message are you giving to the world?

Right.

Right? And so, that becomes a question of if he's willing to do that, do I trust him on more important things?

Yeah. No, it's a good frame and I like Stephen Covey's. What was the last small micro thing which you say you did for somebody in the last 24 to 40 hours, Marc? Maybe I'll challenge you and then you can challenge me back that it didn't cost you anything. It may not ever go anywhere, but you did it anyways, if you don't mind sharing.

Yeah. So just recently, we had a breakdown in a theater group that I'm in. The backstage manager stepped out and walked off production. And I took it upon myself to have a heart-to-heart conversation with her. I'm not in a position of responsibility with the organization.

Yeah.

I just thought this was somebody who needed support in some form or fashion. It's no skin off my nose to have a half-hour conversation with her to understand where her mindset is. And then, be available if she needed coaching or needed some aspect of support in how she addresses the group from that point on. Because as far as I'm concerned, she'd lost a ton of credibility by walking off production. And so, I wanted to be kind of that voice of reason for her.

And see, Marc, the reason that's a rarity is because so many people, I feel, don't step out and do the little things like that, even though it's a behind-the-curtain type scene. I don't— if you're somebody listening to this, I'm gonna get a little— I'm gonna try not to get too much in a soapbox and overdramatize because I can get really passionate sometimes. If you're somebody who inherently just wants to see people win, that's a great start, okay? And I would encourage you to let that resonate, that childlike wonder of just seeing people help. Stay with you. I think one of the things that always stayed with me is a quote I learned from somebody who was training me early in sales is this: I would rather be stupid on fire than smart on ice. I don't know if you've heard that frame, or maybe now you're rehearing it. And I've always liked that frame, stupid on fire, smart on ice, even though I don't feel I'm stupid, um, in, in terms of like an intelligent sense. But what it means is that you will learn more by helping 30 people sometimes that you don't know and may never go anywhere. Like I had today, I had a recruiter reach out to me and it was a position that was interesting. It wasn't in alignment with me, but I said, hey, I have 15 minutes. I encourage you to call me even though this is not in position. And the recruiter actually called. She said, I don't ever get anybody, rarely, who would invite me to call. And I thought that was an interesting statement because what I did then was I said, send me the link, I'll post it on my LinkedIn and I'll drive traffic. And she said, you'd do that? I said, I know we're strangers. And she said, not anymore.

Right.

And I bet that person you helped, regardless, that person may have been a stranger on some level to you. I don't know. the whole context. But I guarantee you promoted them to a friend.

And that's part of the challenge, right? The part of the challenge is when, especially from a leadership perspective, is we have these barriers that we put up around ourselves as leaders. I'm the boss and they're the employees, right? And I have one story that I went to my employee. One of my employees had invited me to her wedding. And I was touched and thrilled to death that she thought enough of me that she invited me to her wedding. And what was interesting about it was when I was sitting around a table and people said, how do you know Stephanie? It's like, oh, I work with Stephanie at the casino. And they go, oh, how long have you worked together? We worked together for 4 years. She's great and we have a lot of time. When she came to me, she sees me, she goes, Marc, Marc, Marc, you have to come and meet my parents. Mom, Dad, this is my boss. At no time Did I ever refer to myself as her boss? Yeah, my mindset has always been these are people I work with. We have different job descriptions. We have different responsibilities. But at no point did I ever turn around and say I was her boss. But yet, that's how she perceived it. And I thought that was really interesting.

It is interesting. And it could be for a lot of reasons. My assumption is she just doesn't want to lose In sales, they talk about the word posture.

Sure.

You know, it could be a posture thing would be my assumption.

And it's also a mindset thing of how people view the relationship. Even though I don't refer to it that way, they have that reference to it. And so, I think that's really interesting. It's one of the things that always drives me absolutely batty, Paul, is when a manager tells an employee, You have to listen to me. I'm your boss. Because that is the manager having lost authority, trying to regain the authority. And instead of turning around and saying, how did I lose this? Like, how did I lose this authority that now I feel I have to reinforce it? It always shocks me. I can't tell you how many times I've heard that come out of somebody's mouth at Yeah.

Remember the last time somebody went to sell you something, they said, you have to listen to me because I'm selling you something? Remember the last time you bought from that guy?

Yeah, right.

Yeah, never. Absolutely. I think that's a— and it might seem cliché to say ABC, always be closing, or always be selling, whatever, you know, but My definition of selling is I just want to help someone buy. I don't know if you've ever heard that frame before, and I think this is small, but I think it'll make— connect the dots with you. Your job is not to say you have to listen to me because I'm a manager versus I want to earn the right for you to listen to me because I want to help you buy what you need. Yeah.

And that's a much different stance as well, isn't it?

Yeah. And I'm going to play devil's advocate and advocate for the middle manager here a little. It's also unfair to you that you do have 2 customer bases is how I view middle management. You have directors and CEOs who really are like your— that's like your primary customer. But you also have your direct reports pulling at you. And when you're pulled in 2 directions, I do believe there are times where, yeah, you know, I think you can have victim statements, you can have victory statements. The important thing is how many— you need to weigh out the victim statements from the, the victory statements more, obviously. But what's important is If you had to choose who is you're gonna help at this current state, who would it be? Now that's only a question you can answer.

Yeah.

But I do advocate for your pain that like, I do feel sometimes middle managers are some of the— I think it's harder than a director at times. I think it's harder than like a VP at times. And yet they do a majority of the work and they're not seen. They're not heard. And one of the things I learned in my therapy, number one rule in making somebody feel special is everybody wants to be seen and respected.

Yeah. Interestingly, Anna is on the call and she's tuned in. And Anna, thank you so much for the comment. It touches my heart when I see stuff like this. Anna and I worked together for a couple of years. And I'll just make it a little bit bigger. But she says, great manager. You made us feel heard and seen. I have learned so much from you. You know, when I stepped into leadership roles after my initial McDonald's thing, I realized that there were so many different aspects that I didn't like about being a manager. And I thought, what is one thing that I can control more than anything else? And that is at the end of the day, as a leader, I wanted to be a legacy component to this person's development. I wanted people to be able to look back and go, yeah, we worked hard. We had crisis. We overcame crisis. We had a really good— we had really good teams. At the end of the day, we were part of this community. And then, at the end of it, I learned so much more. And Anna, thank you so much for tapping that in. Like I mentioned, it does my heart good. But that Those components are really the kind of the important thing that we have in sales. We have after-service sales or after-service components. And I believe that even with employees, we need to have some sort of after-service support of people long term. And so, to your point, this idea of how do we drive leadership to the point where we're serving all our stakeholders in a way that's going to be positive and fulfilling Yeah, and that's your question you're asking, like, how as a middle manager can you serve all stakeholders, both direct reports and upper-level leadership, correct?

Have I heard you correctly, Marc?

Yes, yes.

I feel that there's a couple answers to that. The first thing I will tell you is, number one, if you are listening to this and you are a middle manager, And you have a team that respects you and they love you. Really good company I know called Craig's Electrical. I'm gonna mention them just because I, I do love, um, the owner. Like the owner of— I have had the opportunity to have a good professional rapport.

Mm-hmm.

I was doing a leadership training and he was an attendee. I'll never forget he had said when people were suffering in the area where he was serving, like hurricanes and all that, he let a lot of his staff take backup power solutions so that they wouldn't be without power.

Yeah.

And he didn't have to do that. That's money that you could technically argue is cost of business— gas, resources, time of product— but he did it anyways. And I feel like a good man like him Is somebody who already has those traits, and he still comes to leadership training, Marc. Here's the crazy thing. He still comes to learn frameworks, even though he was already doing the things that he's already doing. And to this day, he still does those things.

Yeah.

And I think the answer to a certain population is, if you are doing these things, you just got to give time time. Sometimes building teams is done in decades. They're not done in months. Yeah, number one. I think that's the first answer I have to a certain population of people who are already doing the right thing. To the population of people who are like, I am 30 days in, I have no idea what I'm doing, I feel confused all the time, it's okay.

Yeah.

Because if you're here now and you're willing to pick up 1 or 2 nuggets to level up your skills, resource guides, and frameworks, then the same principle applies. But you should always have a bucket of, I feel, money or something you can invest in skills to buy down that ignorance tax.

Yeah.

And hopefully you, if you don't work for an employer that can do that, then I would encourage you to invest this somewhat on your own because those skills will always pay out future state.

I love that. Hey Paul, just a quick notice to our audience. As you could tell, Paul and I are on a mission to support businesses just like yours. So, if you belong to an organization that could use our help, or you or someone you know might be planning a leadership retreat or a conference, drop us a line. We'd love to explore how we could be of service to you and your people. I think that's the key here is that we are the resource if you need that help. Paul, as we wrap up today's show, do you have any last thoughts about what we've been talking about today?

I would say the last thought that I want to give you, since the subject on here is how to kill the habits that make you an accidental toxic manager so you can skyrocket rapport with your team.

Mm-hmm.

The last thoughts that I will leave you with is that intention will go farther than you'll ever know. And the last thing I'll leave you with, I did a training 3 years ago. I'll never forget. And I got a text 3 years later and somebody said, I still remember your conversation. I still remember your resource guides. They're killer. Thank you for just being you.

Hmm.

I have always had the intent to help, and you just never know when that mustard seed is going to grow to the way it needs to grow.

Right.

I think if there's anything I can leave you with, if you're bad at everything right now, if you can start to shift your intent to just wanting to help people and get nothing in return, and you give time time, time will give you a reward.

I love that. Hey, Paul, how can people get a hold of you if they want to connect with you or work with you?

Yeah, I would encourage you to Follow the podcast, The Manager's Mic.

Yep.

I typically— it's a side hustle because I'm a full-time employee with a really amazing company that you would follow that as a free resource. If you feel you want to take our relationship further and you're like, I want to buy down the ignorance tax and get my sales process to where it needs to be in more rapid succession, visit themanagersmic.com and join our newsletter where you'll get a free script that you can use in there. It has AI prompts, everything. And then if you want to schedule that in real time on a lunch break or on a time that's mutually convenient for both our schedules, shoot me a message through themanagersmic.com. And my commitment to you is I will get back to you and ensure that you get what you need to be successful, whether you make the investment to get an ROI or we just end up having rapport. And that's still an ROI for me.

I love that. Paul, thank you so much for serving my audience today. It's been great, you sharing your knowledge, your passion, and your expertise. You mentioned before, we are born of the same bread. We are both service-focused first. And through that, I believe you can do no wrong. So, thank you so much for doing the show today.

Yeah, appreciate it. That's a good opportunity.

So, do you have any questions about today's episode? Or maybe you're thinking, hey, we could really use a complimentary 30-second or 30-minute brainstorming session with Marc. Good news! You can snag a spot on my online calendar. The link is in the show notes. It's the one that's marked meetwith.marchaine.com. And if you really appreciate what Paul has said, talked about today, please go ahead and follow his podcast. Reach out to him. His contact information is also in the show notes. As always, I am at your service. And if you haven't done so yet, please, please make sure you're subscribed to the podcast. That way, you'll get the notification when I bring you fresh new content each and every week. I appreciate you being here with us today. I can't thank you enough for sharing episode 301 with me. My name is Marc Haine. I hope you stay safe, stay healthy, and I hope you dare To be the exception. See you next week.