In this brief interview excerpt, the speaker offers blunt, decisive guidance for two common leadership dilemmas. First, when a manager claims credit for a direct report’s work, the recommended response is to remove the manager immediately, framing the behavior as a form of theft and a severe leadership failure. Second, the conversation introduces the scenario of a new hire who looks strong on paper but is underperforming after three months, prompting a discussion about how to address the situation (typically through candid feedback, performance expectations, and possible termination if improvement does not occur). The overall tone is direct, no‑nonsense, and emphasizes accountability and swift action.
You find out a manager has been taking credit for their direct report's work.
The worst thing you could do is to ignore it because you like the manager and you're afraid of conflict. The best thing that you could do at that point is probably to fire that manager. And I know that sounds really, really, really harsh, but in my mind, that's theft. It may not be theft of money or of property, but if a manager is not willing to highlight their team, that is such an astounding and colossal failure of leadership But they've got nowhere to go but out.
You made a hire that looked great on paper, but is not working out 3 months in.
The worst thing that you could do is nothing and hope that it fixes itself on its own. In my experience, anytime I feel like somebody isn't working out, that's a sign that I need to have a conversation and likely start a process for maybe letting the person go. So the best thing that you could do is to have that conversation, to sit down with them, to acknowledge things aren't working out like I thought they would work out. Is there a misunderstanding of expectation? Maybe they think they're doing great, and so we need to align on expectations. Expectations. Maybe there's a misunderstanding from your perspective on the resources that they have, but we're going to give them the benefit of the doubt that they don't know and that they can't fix it. We're going to give them an opportunity to fix it, but at that point, if it's not working out after that conversation and after a 30, 60, 90-day period, then we're going to part ways.
