Leveraging Leadership
Are you ready to up your leadership game? Tune in to Leveraging Leadership, where Chiefs of Staff, executives, and business professionals find the tools, strategies, and insights they need to excel. Hosted by Emily Sander, a C-suite executive turned leadership coach, this podcast delivers practical and tactical takeaways every week.
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Leveraging Leadership
Judgement vs Assessment: Creating a Positive and Productive Leadership Culture
This episode lays out the difference between judgment and assessment at work, especially for leaders like the Chief of Staff. Emily shares real examples, from firing and hiring decisions to handling challenging team meeting behavior, showing how you can assess actions without judging someone's character. She explains how focusing on observable facts and assessments helps avoid negative assumptions, makes decisions easier, and benefits the whole team.
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Who Am I?
If we haven’t met before - Hi👋 I’m Emily, Chief of Staff turned Executive Leadership Coach. After a thrilling ride up the corporate ladder, I’m focusing on what I love - working with people to realize their professional and personal goals. Through my videos here on this channel, books, podcast guest spots, and newsletter, I share new ideas and practical and tactical tools to help you be more productive and build the career and life you want.
Time Stamps:
00:25 Judgment vs. Assessment: Key Distinctions
03:14 Real-Life Examples of Judgment and Assessment
05:47 Observation vs. Assumption in Team Dynamics
09:24 Making Effective Leadership Decisions
13:06 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
Welcome back to Leveraging Leadership, where we unpack the art of business leadership. I'm your host, Emily Sander, chief of staff to an executive leadership coach. This show is all about finding your points of greatest influence and leveraging them to better serve those around you.
emily-sander_2_01-20-2026_112541:Here is a cool distinction and a very helpful distinction for leaders, I think to have or be reminded of. The distinction is between judgment and assessment. Judging a situation or judging a person or assessing a situation or assessing a person or maybe a person's work performance. And I remember when I was chief of staff, there were these moments where I would think something and then in my head, or even say out love, here's the situation, but like, hmm. I don't wanna be judgmental. I'm not trying to judge that person. Or it could be me kind of second guessing myself.'cause if I say this in the group setting, is it gonna come across as overly judgmental? And I've had loads and loads of chiefs of staff describe a situation and then laced in there. Or part of the underlying concern is them being. Judgmental. I don't wanna be a judgmental person. And the way we talk about that word in our culture today, certainly in the west, certainly in America, is negative. So if you're, if you're describing someone's like, she's really fricking judgmental or like, you're being super judgmental right now, even with my tone, it's not a happy thing. It's not a positive thing. So when we're judging someone that's has a negative con connotation. It also has a moral overhang to it, like a moral overtone of like you are a bad person. Like as a person, I don't like you as a person, I'm better than you. I'm gonna judge that fact. Ooh, that's like tricky. That's tricky. Slippery slope. Danger, danger. Will Robinson, on the other side of the fence is I'm gonna assess this situation and my job as chief of staff, my job as an executive or the CEO of this company is to assess situations and to assess people and their work performance. Certainly if I'm not doing those things, if I'm not saying, oh, um, you know, this person is out in front of our strategic partners. They're not representing us well, they're not, acting professionally, and they're certainly not following the internal workflows we have within our company. Like, they're certainly thinking they're the exception to the rule. I am observing that. I am assessing that and saying, it's not working. Something's not working. And then you take an action step. Maybe it's bringing this to their attention. Maybe they're not aware, oh, I'm so, so sorry. Maybe it's, they are aware. We've talked about those 12 times. We've been on a performance improvement plan, and now it's time to have a conversation about them not being on the team anymore. You can do all of that in the assessment land, right? You can do all of that up to and including terminating someone and you still haven't judged them once. You still haven't judged them as a person once, but you're assessing their actions, you're assessing their behavior, you're assessing what they are bringing to the team, how they're showing up to the team, et cetera. The examples I like to give here are when you're firing someone kinda like we just talked about, or when you're hiring someone. So when you're firing someone. Um, and I remember my first, my first termination and I was by far more, more nervous and scared than the person actually being fired. but, uh. I remember telling someone after like, I, like, I didn't like dislike him as a person. I wasn't trying to be like telling him he's a bad person. And then she was like, it's okay li. It's okay. You did a good job. It was your first firing. Everyone gets nervous, et cetera, et cetera. But by part of my, part of my concern was like, I, like, I'm not trying to say you're a bad person, but you're just not, you're just not a good fit. Like we just can't have you here anymore type of thing. So. You can't absolutely fire someone and have no like moral imperative attached to that whatsoever. And I think that's also a freeing space for a lot of people to operate out of where it's like, oh, okay. Yeah, it is my job to make assessments and, uh. It is my decision to exit this person from the company, but in no way, shape or form am I judging this person. That's, that's like not my job. That's not my imperative, that's not my place to do, but it is my place to assess these things. Uh, the other flip side of that coin is when you're hiring people. So I've had situations where I'm like. I'm, I am judging you as a person and I love you. Like I love you. We're gonna be BFFs. We have so much in common. I can learn a lot from you. We have rapport. We're finishing each other's sentences. You're gonna be a great culture fit with our team. Oh my gosh. Like you're great assessment wise. You don't have the hard skills we need. For this particular role, we did want someone with industry specific experience and you don't have that. And so I can judge someone in a positive way, be like, oh my gosh, you are a good person'cause you're like me. And also assess you're not the right fit for this particular role. And that can lead me to. Some different action steps, you know, can, are you open to this role over here that we have open? Um, can I keep your information on file for a future role that I think you're a good fit for? Um, can we just set something on calendars right now for maybe a month out or a quarter out just to check in and see where both of us are at with this company, with your job search, et cetera, et cetera? I think we have a lot of rapport and I think we, we should just stay in touch. Like those are all action steps that can come from. My assessment of the situation, but again, you can judge someone positively and assess them like not quite what we need in this particular situation, in this particular case. And those are two distinct things, and you can be fine and almost more free with that as well. Another thing that comes up a lot, I get loads and loads of chiefs of staff going, Emily, I have this one person in this team meeting and we have this ongoing team meeting, let's say every week at a leadership team meeting. And this one, jackhole always does this. And like, I'm not trying to be judgmental, but he always does this. And I'm like, okay. Okay. Uh, so here's a good point to bring up the distinction between judgment and assessment. And by the way, judgment and assessment is close cousins with observation and assumption. So if you sit there and go, okay, I see this person in this team meeting every week. They do this, every week, they do this, Emily. And, uh, okay, I'm gonna make an assumption about what that action means. And that assumption leads me to a judgment about their character, about who they are as a person. You've just gone down a slip and slide off of crevasse. You've just gone like headfirst on the slipperiest slope ever. That's almost not. Your right to do. It's almost not like you have no, like you have no place, you have no say in that. Like what? Like maybe you haven't taken the time to get to know this person as a person, so you don't know, everyone brings their work personas to work and all this stuff, so maybe they've always been fronting, you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. How do I just get through this and get like by this person and have to tolerate this person? But you don't know what's behind that. So it's not, it's not your place, it's not your space to operate in that area. But as a, as an observation. I'm observing the actions. I'm observing the behaviors. My team, like my team as a whole in this setting. Absolutely. That's imperative that is your imperative as chief of staff, like, yep. Is this derailing us as a team? Is this adding, fruitful, even if it's fruitful challenges to the team, is it adding something of benefit to the team? Is this moving us in the right direction? Is this maybe off schedule, off agenda, off menu, but it's good. This is a good conversation for the team to be having. Not what I. Planned for, but it's good. Like all of those kind of subtle distinctions and decisions that you're making based off of observable, action and behavior. I always kind of do the little test of, okay, is this a, is this an assumption or observation? Okay. There's seven other people in this room. Would they be able to, to describe the action and behavior like I would if so, it's, it's usually an observation if anyone could say like, okay, he just raised his voice. It's a different volume and he's making accusatory statements toward Jenny and her team. So accusatory statements, that is, that's a definable thing. Would the seven other people like describe it that way, or like when they say like, did he make an accusatory statement? Like, well, well. Well, technically, yeah, technically yes. He did accuse Jenny of this, this, and this. Okay. That's observable. Um, if you're guessing, like he said something which seven other people would go like, uh, like that's not, I mean, maybe you could read that as accusatory, but like, to me, that was just kind of a, a fact to me that was kind of just like a matter of fact. Okay. Okay. Maybe I assumed he was accusing Jenny and Jenny's team of something. Okay. Maybe that took it one step too far into an assumption. Uh, okay. So anyway, in this scenario, I think leave the. Assumption and judgment to the side that does no good. That's, that's not your area to operate in anyway. It does no good. definitely be attuned to, okay, this is happening. This has happened before. It's a pattern. Now. It's not just a one-off. I see the team shutting down. I see the team getting defensive. This is not how we wanna operate as a team. This is not what's gonna get us to where we want to go. So I'm gonna decide to do something. So it might be. There's a decision point in there. It might be, I'm gonna decide to say something in front of the group right now. Okay, that's a decision. What am I going to say? How am I gonna say that? How am I gonna tee this up? How am I gonna get the team back on track? All of those decisions come in there. It could be, I'm not gonna say anything right now. I'm gonna let this play out, and then afterward, I'm gonna have a one-on-one conversation with this person. Okay. Decision made within that decision. It's okay. Do I need to ask some clarifying questions? I'm not quite sure what's going on here, is it? No, I know exactly what's going on here. And at this point, at this juncture, I need to be very clear. Here's how you're showing up and here's the effect it's having on the team. Here's how you're showing up. Observable fact. Here's the impact it's having on the team'cause it's not the first time it's happened. And if you do need to tag on a, here's a request slash demand, but here's a request for you to change your behavior so you observable fact impact it's having, which is negative, and here's what I want you to do differently going forward. You might have that type of conversation, with that person. And again, this is all in the assessment land. This is all in the assessment realm. This is all in your purview to get these things back on track. And then, okay, we've had that interaction. I've conveyed that information. I've heard this person's take on it. Maybe have some back and forth dialogue. Always good. And then next team meeting, I am again going to assess how the team does and how the team shows up. And this person, when this person does their report out in their round robin, I'm absolutely gonna assess. Did they take on board? What we talked about in the individual conversation, or are they back to their old ways and are they back to raising their volume and heightening this conversation and calling people out and accusing them and finger pointing, that's no good. In that whole process, I didn't once judge them. There was no judgment, but there was a whole lot of assessing going on, and so I think if we can. Move ourselves into like, Hey, it's okay to assess things. In fact, it's part of our job, but if we don't do that, we're not doing our job and leave the judgment stuff to the side. I think that frees us up. Like I just, it even feels lighter to do like, okay. Like I, I don't even need to bring that judgment side of it into it. It frees us up. It helps us. It helps us show up better and make better decisions, and I really do think that people can feel that on the other side. just think about when you're on the receiving end of a communication or interaction, you can kind of tell if there's like a ooh, like, ooh, like there's a, like you're. You are being judgmental versus like, Hey, you're just trying to make the situation better. You've observed something, you're bringing it to my attention, and you have an idea about how to be different next time. Okay? Like, I can take that on board more readily than you judging me as a person. Like you don't, you don't know me like you don't know my character. Like who are you to, who are you to judge? So, uh, anyway, I would encourage you to. Look for opportunities this week, this month going forward, where you can make a distinction between judgment and an assessment to your benefit or to your team's benefit. Um, and I think sometimes, you know, you can kind of come into situations where maybe you express this to someone, like, I'm not, I'm not judging you, or I'm not judging the situation. I'm just observing and assessing these facts. Maybe that's helpful to convey. Actually, say out loud, maybe it's just helpful to know that in your head. Or remind yourself of that as you're going into something like, Hey, me going into this, I just know I'm assessing the situation. I am going off observations. I'm doing this for the betterment of the team. I truly believe this is the direction the team needs to go. And so I'm making decisions off that and I'm gonna leave the judgment off to one side. I'm gonna put that down and let that go. All right, so hopefully this has been helpful. Let me know how you use this or how you see this, uh, come up in your, in your days or weeks or months ahead. I would love to know how this shows up for you. But, uh, hopefully this has been helpful and I will catch you next week on leveraging leadership.
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