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

Most leaders don't realize they're doing it.

They think they're being supportive, approachable, and understanding. But what if your desire to be the "nice leader" is actually creating confusion, inconsistency, gossip, and a lack of accountability across your team?

In this episode of The Business Fix, Chrissy and Josh revisit one of their most popular topics, the Nice Leader Trap and take it a step further with a practical culture audit designed to help business owners and managers identify whether their leadership style is quietly damaging their organization's performance.

You'll learn how unclear expectations, inconsistent decisions, and avoiding difficult conversations can cause employees to stop following processes and start interpreting moods instead. The result? Teams become hyper-vigilant, gossip increases, top performers disengage, and culture begins to erode from the inside out.

Chrissy and Josh break down the three leadership pillars every healthy culture needs:

• Clarity: Creating clear expectations and direct communication
• Consistency: Eliminating emotional unpredictability
• Courage: Having the difficult conversations leaders often avoid

They also discuss:

• Why employees start managing the boss instead of the work
• The hidden connection between leadership avoidance and workplace gossip
• How "being nice" can unintentionally punish honesty
• Why psychological safety requires more than kindness
• Signs your culture is operating on mood instead of process
• How leaders can identify and correct these patterns before they damage retention and performance

One of the most powerful insights from this episode:

"Gossip is usually unresolved truth looking for a place to land."

If you've ever wondered why accountability feels difficult, why employees seem disengaged, or why your team isn't bringing problems to you directly, this episode is for you.

We’ve heard it: “Nobody wants to work anymore.”

People do want to work. They just may not want to work for your company, your culture, or your leadership style.

That’s what we’ll be addressing at the COSE Big Summit on October 15 in Cleveland.

If you’re ready to stop blaming “the workforce” and start a team, join us.

Visit COSE.org for more information and tickets.

Your culture is not the poster in the lobby.

It is what your team does when you are not in the room.

That is where The Business Fix on the Road comes in.

We help leadership teams fix the people stuff with keynotes, culture consulting, and practical strategies that create clarity, accountability, and real results.

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

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Transcript

0:55

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. No, I was that was that good? I just don't want anybody. Doesn't listen to me. Right. Yeah. No, I hear I hear it. Um, in most cases, though, two people don't even realize it at that. They just don't have the. So we are gonna 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 just have some nice leader tendencies, how conflict avoidant they truly are. Yes. And 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 I do. Yeah. Let me tell you, I still had the same problem. And 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, 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. You can still be nice. You just can't be the quote unquote nice leader that doesn't have accountability, right? The the spineless leader. Yes. Yeah. No. So we are going to talk about that. Um to me. This is the audit. This is the and 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 dark. 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, 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 six weeks ago. Correct? Correct. So being that nice leader is actually a form of selfish. Selfish? I can't say that word. Selfishness. Thank you. I can thank you, I appreciate that. Um, 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've talked about this. Yeah. 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, it's so I feel bad that they were born in invertebrate. Yeah. It's okay. You have the same spine as a jellyfish. Congratulations. Relations. No one respects you. That's great. You've heard this title. Congratulations. Come on down or 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. And that hurts me. I'm sure it 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. You know, a leader changes their mind depending on the stress, what's going on in the you know, everybody's stressed. Like we just won't do that. They give vague feedback. You're doing okay. Thank you for doing a good job. What, what did I do a good job on? Right. Just I feel like this pains you to say these even. It does. It does. Um, another one is they'll avoid those hard conversations. We talked about this in multiple episodes. Just we don't want to give feedback. We don't want to feel icky because, you know, it might be uncomfortable to have a sweaty ten minute conversation. So 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. We've all done that, right? And when you do those things, you change your mind. Depending on stress, you give, 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 three seeds. We've talked about the three 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, so I feel and now suddenly I'm thinking of the lion from The Wizard of Oz. 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 Christy doing today? Is, 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, it doesn't get better. I don't know why I keep going jumping to these analogies, but as soon as you said emotional survival, yeah, I think of like, suddenly your workplace is the worst game of survivor. Well, it's because I don't want to disappoint anybody and they don't want to bring me any hard information because they're either afraid I'm going to freak out or I'm just going to ignore it. Because that's the other part. If you're a pendulum in your business, emotionally, you're not. 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 cares elastic 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 hyper vigilant 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, a bad day. We're gonna work from home. Or are that bad? It's. Or we don't know how is 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. As an isolator trap, I tend to 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, 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 makes sense. Yeah. Well, 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 some place to land. Oh, yeah. I feel like once again, that needs to be another crazy needle point. 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 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. The number of times that I have heard that we've heard rumblings of this, that and the other. Yeah. You have. Yeah. And but the ramblings come from leaders who have consistently and constantly softened correction one hundred percent. Yeah. For example, when someone says, hey, you missed this deadline, but overall, you're doing a great job. Congratulations. You're doing a great job. You buried the lead. So like, no, this, this deadline miss was a problem, period. You screwed up. Yeah. Oh that hurts, I don't want I want him 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 is 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 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 you're level ten performers stop complaining because they realize mediocrity is tolerated. Standards are negotiable because, you know, everybody's doing a great job overall when even though they screwed up and leadership doesn't actually want that tension resolved. Because, you know, when we tell Betty she screwed up, she gets mad and then she, she, she stamps her feet and goes and slams things at her desk. And we just don't like that makes us feel uncomfortable. Like 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. One hundred percent. One hundred percent. Yeah. 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 it? How did 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 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 a 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 in roles. I just want because everybody gets along and everything's good and it's like, no, no, no, you don't understand. Leaders think that structure removes flexibility. It actually protects flexibility. One hundred percent. Yes. 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. Um, but for some people, it may be for those who 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. That's a brilliant one. Yeah. What a, what a punch. Sorry. No it's good. I mean, it's. No. It's brilliant. Um, it's a brilliant punch because. Yeah. If you haven't heard that um 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? Huh. That's a really great one. Yeah. Just ask that like, look, I want 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 a problem. 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, their partners. Okay. All right. So we realize that we're a nice leader. Josh. Ouch. Yeah. 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 like we had this, there is an assessment we called like circles. There's like circle, square, squiggle, 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 and I just went to because the problem is what's funny is, is when you anytime you've seen a nice leader, try and get this under wraps quickly, they turn into Sacha Baron Cohen 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 fixed. 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. Um, 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. Um, 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. Um, 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 twenty page analysis, which is probably surprising to hear from me. Uh, 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. Ten to fifteen 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. Um, if you just give them the yes or no right off the bat, probably you're making the wrong decision. Uh, 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 the numbers. Give me all the numbers, please. What does it say about the performance, current performance or state of the machine? Now, the other piece to that is, is consult. Consult the standard process. Now I've seen it where like someone will ask like, hey, can we do things a little bit differently? Does this 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 twenty minutes early because I'm, I'm hungry. No, no, no, you've got to look at like, does this fit? Yeah. Like if you take your break twenty 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 or is this fitting logically with that, analyze those secondary effects like, and this is part of that fifteen seconds at least if you aren't taking longer for this. Um, if, if it's no good to save five tokens for person A If it's going to cost you ten, fifteen, twenty 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. Um, meanwhile, Betty in Accounting is ready to come over and burn the entire sales floor to the ground. Yes, because now she has four hours extra work. Because you didn't check that one box? Nope. Um, follow any process. Correct. Or crap over the wall. Giant bucket without the bucket? Yes. Uh, um, 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. Um, if, 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 get a nice leader problem. Mhm. 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? Well, just. Yeah. The chicken. The chicken boss. Um, I maybe I should wear a chicken costume for this next time we talk about this subject. Um, the other thing is too is I want to say we needed to make this. We need to make decisions by design, not by desire. Um, the process is the filter. You aren't being a mean boss by saying no, the process is why we're doing it this way. We know the process. Um, you wanted to take a shortcut isn't being mean. It's saying like, look, this is the process and the data is the secondary filter. If 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 if you guide Bob correctly, Bob will feel good anyways. Yes. Um, fix number two is mandating the pre-brief before every project. I see this all the time to nice leaders give vague instructions because they don't want to sound demanding or bossy. Oh gosh. Yeah, and the team is left playing like, hey, we get to play the interpretation game. What did he actually mean by this? Yeah. Hey, guys, do the thing. Like last time. Which last time? We've done it five different ways. Which one? One. Two. Three. Four. Five. 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. Oh yeah. The one. 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. 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 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. 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 and 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 going to know. People like to know they matter. People like to know they matter 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 other thing that I look at with that is what I always tell people is like a great example is like, we need to chat, 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 make. Oh, yeah, I've got to do that. Yeah, I see value. One hundred percent. 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, why it's important. Um, if you operationalize the roadmap, you now have defined the destination and the people work. Doing the work should be the ones that are, they're the ones that are making the map. Um, once again, I, if I say Edgewater Park, the, the beach house there at Edgewater Park, I'm not going to tell you how to get there. I'm if I say be there at ten o'clock, I'm just just going to assume that you can figure it out. You're going to get there. Yeah. Um, and if we've got an SOP for that, you're going to take that. If we have an SOP that says take seventy seven to ninety, then you're going to take seventy seven to ninety. 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. I don't take a horse. Take a bike. I don't care. Just be there at the right time. Um, the other thing is the clearest 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, we'd go down and we're like specking 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 three 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. Uh, see, I, like you're fine. Was pretty dismissive there. I'm fine. I'm gonna sound like your. 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. Um, 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 three examples of friction or rework from the last thirty days. Like, where's the problems? 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. Mhm. Um, and it's, but because once again, we've built that rapport. Yes. It doesn't occur naturally. No. And it doesn't happen tomorrow. No. So this is why this is 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. Um, 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 step four for that nice client. It cost us six hours of unbilled labor. That's a bad thing. Yes. 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. We talked, I believe it was the last episode about how I've eaten eggs for sixteen 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, you, you only have the mirror to look into. Um, I if 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 not the bulldozers fault. It's the operator's fault. You are the operator. 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. 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. 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. No, 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 one hundred percent. Um, how do you handle the. But I thought we were friends. Oh. Okay. How do you handle this? First of all, you should never have that issue. If you do, then we've got some serious nice problems. So I knew you were going to be annoyed by this question. That's what I was looking for. It in our notes. And I'm like, why are we talking about this? Um. I'm 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 because 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 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 Oliver 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 to 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 it'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 have seen too, 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, 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 Chrissie, 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. Well, I'll just look at them and 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 isn't the consulting side. Like if we have clients, there are times where we'll look on the HR side. I've watched my people do it. Do you just need us to do a thing because you are incapable? It's okay if you are because that's why you pay us. But. Right. It drives me to a point of frustration. Okay? Because the owner gets to say this is because usually it's the owner that has to be good cop, right? It is owner stays emotionally protected is the nice one. And then the manager, the person who's actually doing the work and running the business is the one that has to be the enforcer that everybody resents. And you create a 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, one hundred percent 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 consultant, 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 we will. 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. I physically know the thing that I see that 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 I, if, if the manager's the bad cop and the owners, the good cop, I bypass the manager for all the decisions that I want and go to the owner and be like, hey, he's got no spine. Our kids know we never ask mom certain things. We never ask dad certain things. No, no. Well, here's the. And the other thing too, 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. One, you have no culture. You have no culture. It's 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 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 him to do the job or they needed to redo it. Absolutely. You're the one that's in there Saturday. 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 one hundred percent. 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. Because hands down, 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 is blowing. And that way, at least I know the which way the wind is blowing. Yes. Uh, for our quick shots. To me, like some of the actionable, actionable things from this is, first off, the mood mirror. Ask a trusted peer mentor. Do people seem to tip toe around me? Um. If the answer is yes or yes, do they care? Correct. Or am I a marshmallow? Right. Do they tip toe? AM I or 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. Ooh, I like that. 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 easier to become direct. But you don't have to change 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. O 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. Kill the meeting after the meeting. If you hear gossip, go straight into a ten minute conversation. Ten minute sweaty conversation. Yes. Um. 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. Um, speaking of which, can a nice leader scale. Yeah they can, but only if they learn that clarity is kinder than comfort. Oh, nice. Leaders can absolutely scale when they stop avoiding hard conversations and start creating consistent expectations. Kind leader scale, avoidant leader 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. Yeah. You absolutely can be. I mean, come on. We've both grown from being just a nice lady. Oh, one hundred 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. Um, and the ones that didn't appreciate my growth don't work for me anymore. Correct. One hundred percent. And I found amazing people. Absolutely. Huh? Imagine that. Um, 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, I agree and the, 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. Um, agreed that that is the they should know things about me. They should. I mean, everyone 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? Uh, this is one of those things where I like to me, there's degrees of this. You can be clear. You can be direct. Uh, I have a tendency to error a little bit too much on those in some cases. And two. 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 with. I'm shocked. Absolutely shocked. Can't believe it, huh? See? You learned something today, Chrissy. To everyone out there. Thank you for tuning in. We appreciate it. Uh, once again, hit the Business Fix podcast dot com. We'd 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.