Leadership Sucks

In this episode of Torch Talk, Lindsey Chupp sits down with Linda Allison, founder of Allison Management Solutions, for a practical and insightful conversation about leadership, people management, and building strong workplace systems.

Linda shares perspective from years of experience working with organizations on HR strategy, team development, and operational structure. The discussion explores common leadership blind spots, hiring mistakes, accountability challenges, and the importance of clarity in expectations. Linda explains why many business issues aren’t actually performance problems, but system problems, and how leaders can address them proactively instead of reactively.

The conversation also dives into workplace culture, documentation, difficult conversations, and the discipline required to create consistency inside growing organizations. Linda offers straightforward guidance for leaders who want to strengthen their teams without overcomplicating the process.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

• Why structure and clarity prevent bigger people problems later
• Common hiring and onboarding mistakes leaders make
• The role documentation plays in accountability
• How to approach difficult employee conversations
• Practical ways to build consistency inside your organization

This episode is a grounded, no-nonsense look at leadership and management systems, especially for business owners who know their people matter but aren’t sure where to tighten the process.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So I think one key thing to truly be able to make this work and to change your mindset about it is to ask yourself, what is truly performance on this job? Right? Because you could be confusing lots of things with performance, like sitting at a desk, right? Answering an email in 10 minutes. Is that really performance? And I think once you can boil the position down into what does it really mean to perform, it gets it easier to think of how it can be flexible and think of how I might grow that position, et cetera, rather than being locked into old ideas about what performance means.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Welcome back to Torch Talk, the show where we spotlight bold leaders growing businesses and communities with grit and purpose. Today's guest is Linda Allison, founder and president of Allison Management Solutions. In this Torch Talk episode, we are going to discuss her Blaze Business Expo presentation, where we are going to dive deep into how leaders can turn plans into progress, create empowered teams, and sustain long-term success through intentional, focus, action, and results. Welcome to the Torch Talk Show, Linda. Thanks for having me. Second time back.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

So happy to have you here today. I know the last time that we had you, um, our our listeners really found your content to be informational and applicable, and we got really good engagement with that. And so I'm really excited to see what we're going to discuss today. Great. Okay, so we had talked a little bit about um from a leadership perspective, the landscape is changing. And what's what's really on your mind is that employee expectations are changing, and you're not sure business owners are really ready for that or aware of what's happening. So tell us more about what that looks like.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Well, you know, really the you know, you asked me what do I see changing, and of course it's what my clients see changing because I'm here to help them navigate that. And I see in many of my clients that worker expectations post-pandemic really became quite different. And and so how does that look? It's like people want more flexibility. Um, people were started working um remotely, and they said, hey, you know, this is what work looks like now. And also um it was a workers' market and that there weren't enough people, so employers began to create systems to attract people and keep people because that was so hard to do. Um, and also there's been a cultural shift where people are really asking themselves different questions about how much do I really want to give to work versus the rest of the parts of my life? And so that's created uh a big shift for employers about what it is that they need to offer people. But it's tricky, right? Um, it's it's hard because you're still trying to run a business, you're still trying to achieve everything that you were with the old model, but now you need to think differently. And so that's a big shift. It's not the first time in the workplace we've made that shift. When I started out in my career, um the workplace was shifting, was really adjusting to women in the workplace because they were only in certain jobs and now they were going to be in every job. And so workplaces were kind of flopping around trying to figure out what does it look like to have women working here. And so we're now in a in a different um, a different era where we're accommodating these other things that I just talked about. So, what are these folks looking for? They're looking for flexibility so that they can work, work around their life in a different way. They want to grow as individuals and have transferable skills that they can take everywhere and they want to feel like they have a path in their current job, or they might be looking for something else. They want to participate more, they want to be heard and have their opinions um considered and and what is happening around them. The work-life balance um looks different with now many more women in the workplace and men's roles in the family kind of shifting around and changing too. They want to be able to um take care of kids in a different way, maybe than was in the past. They also want to feel proud of the place they work and they want to feel like they're connected to something that they um really value. So those are the things that folks are live looking for. Let's okay, what were you gonna say? No, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

I was gonna say, let's go back again. So, what was the first area? Flexibility. Okay, so what does flexibility look like?

SPEAKER_00 4:36

Well, that depends. I can I um I'm gonna say that, you know, uh workers are wanting things from you, right? But you have to decide whether your business can actually support those things. So before you start working on what does it look like, you have to understand what it what your business needs and where you can be flexible, right? So uh an example of a way to be flexible that's really pretty simple. I mean, we don't need to make huge changes to our workforce to accommodate the new expectations, but one way is just to have flexible starting and ending times, right? So maybe if somebody wants to come in a half an hour late and they can stay, stay a half an hour longer, that that works for you. But you have to weigh that against what are my what does the team need, what does my customer need, um, and does that really work? So you have to understand for yourself where you can be flexible before you can do that. Um, so so also maybe offering workers uh four 10-hour days and three days off, you know, if your business can support that. Um, maybe that's a an option of way to be more flexible to offer people there.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

How do you assess the business to know if it's good for the business or not?

SPEAKER_00 5:52

Well, I mean, customer expectations would for me would be number one. I mean, if you need your phone answered at eight o'clock and and and you need it answered till six o'clock at night, people need to be there. So they can't choose to be flexible and violate that that standard that you're setting for what you want for your customers, and then also support of the team. Um, is it okay? Can you do all your work remotely, or do you really need to be collaborating with other people? I know you can do that virtually. I think what people are finding now is we thought we could do everything virtually, and now we find, you know, maybe this really works better for face-to-face part-time here. So I think that it's really about what are your business needs. Obviously, if you're running a production line and it starts and it has interrelated jobs, everybody needs to be there when they need to be there.

SPEAKER_01 6:35

Yeah, different industries are gonna have different levels of flexibility.

SPEAKER_00 6:38

So you have to think that through. What am what is okay for me in your own personal, if you're running a business too, you get to decide some things, right? If you're like, no, I really want people to be here three days a week, you get to say. Um, but also what is how does that work for my customer and what we're trying to produce here? That makes sense?

SPEAKER_01 6:56

Yes, I like that.

SPEAKER_00 6:57

So, yeah, so you got to know your limits before you can really decide any of these things, what they could look like.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

And I think for some, like I'm thinking about some of our clients, for the clients where you're in manufacturing or you have restrictions, that can feel a little bit unmotivating from the business owner perspective because you're like, well, I can't offer flexibility if that's something really important to the emerging workforce. What can I do? Is it leaning into the other areas of changing expectations? Like, what you know, how do you handle that?

SPEAKER_00 7:26

Uh I, you know, I mean, people need to know these are the requirements of the job. I and I think that all starts with the hiring process, you know, because we have we see turnover. I think people have experienced a lot of turnover because employees are coming with this expectation, right? And then when they and the and they get on the job and they're like, Well, I thought I was gonna be able to do these eight things, and you're like, We know I never said that, but those are expectations. So in the hiring process, I think it's super important to be clear about hey, you're gonna need to work a regular schedule, and it's not okay to flex that, or you can have this this amount of flexing. So it's important to do in the hiring process. Um, but you know, maybe maybe it is like in manufacturing, the four-day work week um is a great choice, right? Because you're still getting the 40 hours in and people get the three-day weekend if they're willing to do that. And it's not so physically strenuous that 10-hour days are a problem. So that that's something that you could do. But and as far as you being motivated, it's really, you know, this is not touchy-feely stuff here. This is this is a cost equation, right? Um, you know, is the turnover that I might get because I am um not being flexible, like how much does that cost me versus the whatever the cost is of implementing something?

SPEAKER_01 8:41

I would say that's a calculation most business owners are not doing right now, based off of talking to my friends. Right. Well, it's hard to quantify what that would be, but looking at, you know, if I don't offer this, this and this, what is my turnover cost?

SPEAKER_00 8:56

That's well, and I I think it's it's hard, right? Shift change is hard and changing your the way you think about things is hard, right? And and so, you know, I'm probably the older end of folks that are still working, but you know, I grew up in a in a you know, work hard and you know, extra 60 hours a week, get promoted, and and this was my mindset. And by the way, that made me successful, right? And so we build all our systems around those kind of motivations, and they've changed. And now we come in and we we see people that have a little different expectation, and the first thing we do is judge them, which is not helpful at all, by the way, and we start labeling them, and that's also not helpful. And I think first of all, we need to kind of be more flexible in our own thinking about what people need instead of judging it. And you know, I hear people say, Well, young people today, blah, blah, I hate that because I hate it too.

SPEAKER_01 9:50

We're done, we're done talking about it.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

Yeah, I hate it because even even if there are collections of ways of being or ways of thinking that come with a certain age group, you know, we all are the product of the time we grew up in, and that's just a fact. And and so in a way, it's not our fault, nor can we really control it. I mean, you know, I'm I'm was the end of boomers, and so and I grew up in the you know, work really hard culture and stay with one company and all those kind of things. Is that better? I don't know, but it's how we thought, and it's the same for young folks. They don't this this is how they think, and so judging it is actually not helpful at all. Agreed. People today really want companies to invest in them and invest in their skill set, you know. That doesn't in my in my day, in many people's minds, that means a promotion or a raise or whatever, but you don't box yourself in with that thinking. It can be just ever-increasing um tasks and responsibilities, you know, give them a new project where they can go spread their wings a little bit and learn um with you coaching them along. Um, and also uh and have intentional development conversations. Where do you see yourself in a couple of years? Right. And now let's talk about where I see you on that and how what things do you need to do to get there? What is the skills you need to develop? And and let's go work on that together. Um, and I think it's it's a different conversation that than the ones I remembered where it was mostly on me. It was like, oh, you want to go take a class or get a certification? You go do that, I'll reimburse half. You know, this is it was all driven by what I wanted to do. Now employer, I think employees are expecting employers to come alongside of them and help them develop themselves in a career. Just feels a little different than in the past. Um, people that are in the workforce today are wanting to connect with something bigger. They want to be proud of the place that they work in and what it gets done there. So, like being intentionally communicating about why this matters what we're doing. Who are we helping with our product or our service, what we're doing, and how is your job connected to that? How are you pushing this mission forward? Think as in more intentional conversations about that really um help connect with um people's why. And then you want to go to work, right? I mean, we we want our workers to come in and pursue the mission, whether we're standing there or not. And when they're when they really feel strongly and passionately about it, they do that. Um, so we need to take the time to explain, not not do it because I said, you know.

SPEAKER_01 12:32

Well, and that means that the business owners need to take the time to know that. Yeah. You know, how often do you talk to somebody who's been in business for a while and you say, Do you have a mission or vision statement?

SPEAKER_00 12:44

And they say no. Well, it's actually much more common that I would say, Do you have a mission, mission, or a vision statement? And they say yes, and I say, What is it? And they're like, wait a minute, I'll go look it up for you.

SPEAKER_01 12:54

Um, so they don't know it. They don't know it. So it's not, they're not using it to guide their everyday lives. So it's not being used as the tool that it's meant to be.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

And when when I work with folks on creating mission and vision, I'm like, what you want this to be is a touchstone. You want this to be, I got a decision to make, this is a big decision. I'm gonna go back and I'm gonna touch that mission and that vision and I'm gonna say, does it align? I mean, it's not something to hang on the wall, it's it's a touchstone, it's something to go back to all the time, make sure I'm steering in the right direction and for it to be a useful thing. And if it's not useful to you, change it. You know, don't don't be stuck with things on the wall. That's not helpful, and it doesn't, it doesn't motivate other people, especially if you don't know what it is. Um, but that's much more common. The other thing, work-life balance, right? And we hear that so much, it's just kind of like blah, right? I'm kind of sick of hearing that, except for that people are feeling that in different ways today. And maybe, maybe back in the day when I didn't have this idea, I needed it, right? Because it's about mental break. So a lot of times people would get burnt out and change jobs. That's not what we want, right? We we want people to get a little bit of mental break, they can come back refreshed. And so there are ways to to be able to um um help people with that. One is rotate assignments. So I know you've done that here at Fierce when you've people moved people into different roles, it makes them better employees, number one, more flexible. Um, and also gives them a little bit of a break from the tensions that they might be feeling from trying to master the other roles. So that's one way that you can do it. Um, another is to encourage real time off. I know when I was an executive, I went on vacation, I took my laptop, right? I answered emails because it was gonna be overwhelming when I came back. So I probably didn't have real time off for years and years. And guess what? I quit my job, right? I was totally fried. Um, and so we want people to be able to actually get a mental break. And you know, if we want that for them, we need to model it. So that means we model having healthy boundaries ourselves. And we say, I am. So I should be sending team emails at 10 o'clock at night? Probably probably not good modeling.

SPEAKER_01 15:12

I actually just I mean, I tell everybody I don't expect I'm responding when it's convenient for me, you respond when it's convenient for you. I don't expect other people to see it.

SPEAKER_00 15:21

So so you're modeling your work-life balance, right? You're saying I work sometimes at 10 o'clock at night is a really good time for me. You don't need to do that. So I think one key thing to to truly be able to um make this work and to change your mindset about it is to ask yourself, what is truly performance on this job, right? Because you could be confusing lots of things with performance, like sitting at a desk, right? Answering an email in 10 minutes. Um, is that really performance? And I think once you can boil the position down into what does it really mean to perform it, gets it easier to think of how it can be flexible and think of um how I might grow that position, et cetera, rather than being locked into old ideas about what performance means. Um that's uh uh probably the foundation and baseline of thinking for being able to achieve flexibility.

SPEAKER_01 16:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

So so what employees are looking for the most from workers from employers today that's a little different than the past is flexibility in their work hours, um, growth so they can learn participation, so they can be part of crafting the next things, and also work-life balance that works for them, being able to get mental breaks from their work. Um, ways that you can do that. You can create, first of all, you need to make sure people you set very clear expectations when people take a job so that they understand this, this, this can happen here or it can happen here. They don't take jobs that they are um not going to be happy in. Because you can probably get a lot of the conflict and turnover out of the way right away by not hiring people that aren't a good match. Um, and then you can work on ways you can be flexible. How to be flexible, you can um shift some work hours, you can change the work schedule number days a week, you can um allow people to work from remotely if that works for them and you and you agree on it. So that's one of the ways. The another way is to help people to be able to grow um in the workplace, and that's about and how sitting with them and envisioning where do I want to be in three years and where's my skill set now versus that and being very intentionable, intentional about giving people the opportunities to grow the skill set that takes them where they want to go. And then for work-life balance, it's really just allowing people to have an opportunity to take mental breaks so they can truly remove themselves from work and come back rested. I mean, I always think the word vacation is an interesting word because it comes from vacate, which is to leave. But often we don't leave when we're especially when we're leaders, right? We we feel like we have to have a finger in the whole thing. And you don't allow your people to go and learn some things when you do that. Number one, and number two, you never get refreshed.

SPEAKER_01 18:16

So one of the things I learned in this last year about myself is when I'm out of the office, it's really calm around here. Quiet. Yep. So Lindsay brings the chaos.

SPEAKER_00 18:26

That's what you bring the chaos. Yep. Full transparency moment here. It's true. I mean, one of the first things, one of the early things I learned as a leader was people are watching everything you're doing. And and it's hard to get that realization. And I I remember I was working and I became a manager, and we were all kind of located in this smaller space. Um, and I noticed that if I came in all cheery and happy, it wasn't too long, everybody in the office seemed to be cheery and happy. And if I and I I would I'm not a person that has a ton of mood swings, but if I was a little down or down or quieter that day, the office caught that and I realized how powerful my behavior and my attitude was on the team. And sometimes you just need to bucket up, you know, and you can't let it till you make it. Well, hopefully you're not. Or drink a whole bunch of caffeine, something like that. But at least, like if you're really troubled by something, you have to control the way that shows up in front of people. Because as a leader, the most important thing is how we show up to influence people. We have to be thinking about that all the time about um how is my behavior impacting?

SPEAKER_01 19:36

And that means you got to control it. So, this is a little bit of a shift away from the employee expectations, but expanding on that idea. So if you're a leader, you want to do all of these things, but what you're talking about is um growth, awareness. How do you learn how to control that?

SPEAKER_00 19:53

Well, often now that I'm a coach, I think, boy, I wish I would have had a coach when I was working. It would have really helped. So getting feedback, honest feedback from people, but I learned by mistakes, right? I learned like that didn't work. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 20:06

What if you have like, what if, you know, as leaders, we tend to be dealing with a lot. And I know a lot of like, okay, let's take myself for example. So we have four kids at home, all different life stages, husband, elderly parents, like I'm in the sandwich generation. I got all of the things going on that you could be talking about. And so there can be a lot of things outside of work that I'm trying not to carry inside of work. So, like, what are the best practices to make sure like you don't bring that with you?

SPEAKER_00 20:34

I don't know. I mean, I I I'm a I'm really good at compartmentalizing. I'm guessing you probably are too. I know you fairly well. I'm good at compartmentalizing, and I almost viewed like work as the getaway. You know, it's like I don't have to deal with those pressures here. I can just really focus on on accomplishing these things. But but but controlling, you know, having um mental mastery is really important as a leader because you cannot let your feelings impact everyone. You know, you have to be thinking that through. Like, how is here's what I need to to achieve here from how I'm gonna interact with everybody and my processes and what I'm trying to do. What do I want to achieve? And how does that look? And it can't be I come in and I'm grumpy or mean or moody or whatever, um, or or indecisive um, you know, person, that's that's not gonna get me the result I want. And you just have to be aware of that all the time. I think that was the long-term learning thing of my whole career when I got to the end was yeah, it's all about self-mastery. It's all about what do I want this to turn out like and how do I need to show up for that right now?

SPEAKER_01 21:41

I always tell my kids, if you can learn now what it took me 20 years to learn, then you're gonna be way further ahead. So that's the truth. It's really looking at somebody, you know, after you go through your career path, okay, what do I wish my and I and I wish that for my employees as well. Like if I can teach you what I wish I would have known when I was 20 years old, you know, don't be afraid to go out and do the things or all of those types of things. But self-mastery is a great point. So you need to learn more about yourself. I tell everybody all the time that was what my 30s was about. So you learn a lot about yourself. But the quicker you can learn that and understand, you know, more about yourself and how you're presenting and your team, it's really is about people. It's always like people interacting with people is whether you're leading the person or you're just working with them, or you're looking at your leader and you're saying, okay, well, why what's going on here?

SPEAKER_00 22:34

Right. So yeah, and leaders, um, I mean, we have lots of definitions and there's hundreds of books on the shelf about leadership. And really, it comes down to getting people to do things they wouldn't do if you weren't there. I mean, so that's about people. It's all about people and and motivating them out. You could write a hundred books about how to do that, which is what they've done, but it but we sometimes I think we get lost in the methods and we forget what we're doing it for. And it's just to achieve a result, right, through people.

SPEAKER_01 23:03

Well, thank you so much for summarizing that for us, Linda. If somebody listened, maybe they were at Blaze Expo and now they have listened to your expanded content here. Um, and maybe they want to learn more about leadership or how to assess their own skills or their team, how should they get a hold of you for more resources?

SPEAKER_00 23:19

So you can look for me on LinkedIn, on Facebook and Facebook and um Instagram. And if you search for Allison Management Solutions, you'll find me and my contact information is there.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

Great. Everybody look Linda up. She's a great resource. She has lots of different uh training curriculum made and developed for teams. She is a great leadership coach and just a great friend. So I really appreciate you, Linda. I appreciate you too. Thanks for tuning in to Torch Talk. If today's story inspired something in you, share it with a future change maker, colleague, or friend. Until next time, stay inspired, stay intentional, and keep your fire burning.