“It’s cheap and easy to be mean… but it’s hard, and powerful, to lead with humanity.”

In this powerful episode, Frank Zaccari sits down with Ed DeAngelis, founder of EDA Contractors, recognized six consecutive years as a top workplace on Philadelpiah, to challenge a growing myth in leadership:

That strength equals toughness, control, and intimidation.

Ed makes the case for a different model, “Humanity as a Strategy.”

Drawing from his own leadership transformation, Ed shares how shifting from a win-lose, grind-it-out mentality to one rooted in compassion, accountability, and psychological safety not only improved lives, but built a thriving, high-performance organization.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• Why meanness is weakness masquerading as strength 
• How compassion and accountability can coexist, and drive results 
• The role of psychological safety in unlocking performance (even in tough industries like construction) 
• How businesses can give back to their communities while growing profitably 
• Why culture attracts, or repels, top talent 
• The power of servant leadership in building loyalty, innovation, and long-term success 

Key Takeaway

Real leaders don’t create fear, they create trust, stability, and growth.

Because in the end:
“It’s cheap and easy to be mean… but it’s hard, and powerful, to lead with humanity.” 

Connect with Ed DeAngelis

• 📧 Email: edeangelis@edacontractor.com 
• 🌐 Company: EDA Contractors 
• 💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edwarddeangelis/

Why It Matters

In a world where leadership often defaults to control and fear, this episode is a reminder:

You can build a profitable business
You can hold people accountable
And still lead with compassion

Not either/or.

Both.

#Leadership #CompassionateLeadership #ServantLeadership #Culture #PsychologicalSafety #EmotionalIntelligence #Culture #HighPerformance #Resilience #TrustTheProcess 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Have you ever felt stuck in pain, loss, or failure? Wondering how to rise when life knocks you down again? Then Bounce Back is for you. So gather your resilience, hold tight to hope, and get ready to reimagine what's possible in your life. So here's your host, Frank Sakari.

SPEAKER_02 0:30

Welcome to Bounce Back and Business and in Life. I have a question for everyone. Where are the compassionate leaders? If you listen to the news or you read the news, it appears that the world we live in, leadership has become redefined. Now it's measured by meanness and cruelty and threats and a lack of concern for others. It appears the sole purpose of many world and business leaders is to accumulate as much wealth as power, as much wealth and power by any means possible, often at the expense of others. So we're the leaders who create strong, inclusive communities, who are active in building safe and welcoming communities, who bring psychological safety, in a word, psychological safety to the workplace. Well, we found one in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and his ed is and his name is Ed DeAngelis. Let me tell you a little bit about Ed. He is the founder of EDA Contractors, a roofing company that has been recognized six consecutive years as Philadelphia Inquirer's top workplace. Ed, welcome to Bounce Back in Business and Life.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

Frank, thank you for having me. Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_02 2:00

How'd this happen? What did you do?

SPEAKER_01 2:03

You know, Frank, I think with your opening statement, I was in that place where I thought the leaders that I wanted to emulate, I thought strength sometimes was being difficult, demanding to a point where you didn't really care about the person on the other side, because that's what I saw as the strength. And it really took some research for myself and also some self-reflection about am I happy being that type of leader? While we were successful, and I'm not saying I was, you know, I'm not I wasn't general patent. I think I was more of look, it's either win-lose. Like, you know, that's the way it works. Like this is how this is, this is a competition, this is a game, this is sports. You win, I lose, you lose, I win. And it it took me on a journey for myself to reflect on is this what I want to do? But I also want to have a successful company. I want to be successful. I it's really important to me. How we were able to be the best workplaces and all these unbelievable awards we've gotten is just changing my mindset of saying, can I do both? Can I be a caring, compassionate, empathetic leader who holds people accountable and is profitable and build the business, and it is then taken off from there. So what I would say is if the answer your question is it takes self-reflection from the top. And if it's what you want, there's no reason you can't do it if you are committed to doing it.

SPEAKER_02 3:39

Absolutely. Usually there's this aha moment that occurs as you're working, working, working, working, and a lot of us, I'm just gonna outwork you. Right? Did you did you were you in that in that area once, or in that space?

SPEAKER_01 3:53

Right. I was absolutely in that space. I would say probably five, six years into it. I was a grinder. I'm a grinder still. I feel like I can outwork everybody. And about six years into it, I had at the time three little children. I started the business. I was six years into the business, so probably 20 years ago, maybe 18 years ago. And one morning, Craig, I couldn't get off the floor. I was in the bathroom and I just could not function. And I'm not trying to be dramatic, I'm being honest. And I had just hit the wall and I didn't know the wall was there. It took me some days and some time to get myself back. I had felt like I was, I didn't feel right for about a week or two. I thought it was more like because I was tired at certain times because I was grinding it out so much. And I think that was the first realization that you know what? I love my family. I want to be a great father and a husband. I love my business. I need to go on a different journey here for me. And that was the tipping point of me to say, okay, I want to do something different, and can I still be successful? And that's when I went into reading extensively about businesses and trying to figure out good to great and all the great books to try to figure out is there another way to do this? Because I'm successful, I'm happy where I'm at, except I can't get off the floor. I don't want to go back there.

SPEAKER_02 5:20

Right. There's always that aha moment. It's like, okay. Some people call it the come to Jesus talk.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

And it was wow.

SPEAKER_02 5:28

Now, when we spoke earlier, you said something real profound that just struck with me. You said if you are in the community and if you're making a profit in the community, you have to give back and make it better. What are some of the things you're doing in the Philadelphia area?

SPEAKER_01 5:44

That statement to me really provides that part that I really believe in it, which is win-win. So that win-lose mentality. I was a very big sports person. I played college soccer, I was a very big, not a big athlete, but I would say athleticism, athletics is something I really appreciated. But then I kept saying, you know what, this can't be good, just to have it where people are losing. So I do believe that when we get profits within a community, we have a responsibility to get back within the community. And how do you get back within the community? People say, well, you do things within your own organization. For example, we have a program called EDA CARES where we all of our people, it's not getting money, it's more we take all of our skills that we do. We're in the construction business, we do a tremendous amount of things. All our workers will can have an opportunity to go volunteer for certain charities that I don't pick. The charities are picked by our people. We do something called EDA PAC. People who have addiction either suffer from addiction, so for some mental health. We have a program where if you identify yourself that you're struggling, we will guarantee you your job back. We will get you into the programs that you need. We will go beyond taking them and having a black mark on them. We will welcome them to say you're human. This is why I call this thing humanity as a strategy. You have to have a strategy on how you're going to help humans. We saw that in the construction industry, there's a high rate of suicide and substance abuse. So we can do two things. We can ignore it and fire everybody who may be suffering, or we can say, you know what, this is our community. How are we going to do things to help our community? We can take some of the money that we made in profits, put them in these programs, and we're not talking a lot of money. We're just talking about some. The other thing is we do we do teach emotional intelligence within our team. And that doesn't mean just our office and the executives. That's our entire field. And I think allowing someone to learn how their brain works and understand how they can self-identify when they are struggling, where they can breathe, learn how to just and try to take that in. The reason I say that helps the community is because you're you're not helping them just for the work, you're helping them for life. Yes. You want them to be good mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives. So why can't you do both? So if you can do things within your organization, which we do, so if you can give back to the community, it makes them feel good, the community and the people. If you help them when they're struggling with some addictions or some mental health issues, okay, you go, well, and I've had people say to me, Frank, why is that my responsibility? It's your community. What do you mean it's not your responsibility? And you know what? Don't you want the community to like you? So if you want to make money, don't you want the community to say they're good arbiters of our community? They they don't kill the trees, they actually put soil and they water it, and that's what we're doing. Businesses have this, especially small businesses to me. We are so huge that we can have such a great impact on a community. And it's not just giving them money, it's providing all the resources that you have as an organization and give it to the community and help it. Now, just so we're clear, there's a paycheck that comes with working. So there's a responsibility to do that, but we can do both. We can care for you, hold you accountable. We can hug you, and we can tell you it's wrong. And you know why I equate that too, Frank? A good parent does the same. Well, you know what? That's what a company can be. It can be kind of like a parent of the community in your own little world, whatever world you're in. And by creating programs that you see what is the community you're in suffering from, how can I be the small tiny bit of helping it within my little ecosystem? We do all those things. We find ways. We have a fair chance hiring program, we look for people who maybe have been incarcerated, we try to find places, not everyone, but we go through an interview process and we try to try to help them. We have a program for getting more minorities of women in our business. You know, our business is very, we don't have enough. So we are doing those things. Those, this is my community. This is our community. What can we do? And any community we work in, we are going to look into that community and then see where we can help.

SPEAKER_02 10:29

You're right about um psychological safety that I mentioned in the beginning, trying to bring that into the workplace. These are construction workers, right? These are not the classic feel-good kind of people. These are big, strong, usually very tough guys because they do very hard work. How did you bring this in? How did you introduce it?

SPEAKER_01 10:50

Look, that's why I like speaking with people like you, Frank, because I like to also tell people look, you have to be 100% committed to this. So when you introduced breathing, psychological safety, and emotional intelligence to individuals who are working 300 feet in the air, who are in communities where it's rough and tumble, they're bright, strong-willed. They're a community that has a different way of the way to think about things. When you introduce that to them, they look at you like you got seven heads.

SPEAKER_02 11:22

Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

And they go, What the hell is this? The reality is, if you stick with it, what I have seen over the 15 years of us knowing this, they want it, they need it. And when you give them psychological safety and you go, what does psychological safety mean? You bring them in, you make them feel part of you, and you let them be critical without consequence. Be smart, allow them to feel like they are included, that you know, we make it even important in our office that our floors don't have carpet, they have like multi-purpose floors. So when a construction worker comes in with mud on their boots, I want them to feel part of this. That's a little bit of how you start to create psychological safety. Bring them in. It's not okay to make mistakes and keep making the same mistakes, but it is okay to make mistakes. And they're not used to that. And the term they use is I'm used to being a tool that if it cranks wrong, I throw it away and get a new tool. And we say, Whoa, whoa, no, no, no. Because your brain and your skill is far greater than just being a simple tool. If we can get you to be the best you, and that's why if we can strategically get to treat you like a human being, give you some psychological safety, learn it. They come in broken. A lot of them, if they're in their 30s, they've been in this business 25 years, they're they've never seen anyone talking to them like that. Exactly. So you've got to break that down, and it's hard. It's really hard. They really don't want to trust you because you know why? And I've seen this in communities that are underserved, they don't want to get hurt again.

SPEAKER_02 13:05

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 13:06

So you have to build that trust in them. And to get them to be psychologically safe, you have to provide them, you have to really be real with them. You have to be honest. This isn't a trick. I'm not trying. So psychological safety is a hard thing to get, but it's not about getting perfect in psychological, it's about getting on the journey of getting there. And I've on the journey, I've seen construction workers open up and say, Oh, I didn't know that I get hijacked by amygdala, and I didn't know I had a hippocampus. And you start to teach them neuroscience, and you go, Well, they're they're construction workers, they get tats on their neck, and they're doing they're human beings, they want that, they need that, and even breathing, they said, What's this stupid thing? Like we're breathing. I said, Look, let's just take 30 to 60 seconds for you to just stop so I can get the best you right now. And we've done a lot of training on it, we've done a lot of work on it, we talk about it all the time, they use it against us, and that's good. If they say, I don't feel like I can speak up right now, okay. Let's let's provide a better experience for you because we think the best we can get is when you get to speak your mind.

SPEAKER_02 14:21

Wow. I just met with an executive in Human Capital. Okay. What he said to me was your culture is either going to attract top performers or it's going to repel top performers. Are you finding that? Because you're doing that.

SPEAKER_01 14:41

I look, that's why I don't mind giving away some of the secrets of why I think we have some of the best talent. It's that they will not work for a place that ultimately doesn't give them the resources and the ability to be the best of who they can be. So your top performers want to come to your place and they come to EDA. They embrace this mindset, they're looking for it, they're yearning for it because they don't want that old school way of doing things. They want something new. And I don't care if they're 55 or they're 25. Now, 25 absolutely demands it.

SPEAKER_02 15:23

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 15:24

But there's many 55-year-olds who are saying, and I'm telling you, because I every time we get new people in here, they go, I have been looking for this. I just had a person leave who retired, and he said, I wish I would have been here 25 years earlier. And I'm not saying that the we're not perfect by any way. EDA is not perfect, but I am telling you if you're a business out there and you want to see if it works, I'm telling you that you're going to get the best talent. And yes, we lose people a lot of times because they don't want to buy into this.

SPEAKER_02 15:54

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

Because this is hard. I'm asking you to look inside yourself. I'm asking you to really reflect on why you're you're screaming right now. That's not the way we lead and manage it. We're servant leaders. We do not do that. We serve our employees. They don't serve us, we serve them. And some people say, I don't, I don't buy into that. Sounds like some touchy-feely 70s thing. It's not that. It's harder. But, and when you start cracking it, you get incredible employees who are innovative, dedicated. They want to be there, they're happy. Why? So, if your strategy is to help them as human beings, how is that going to hurt your business? Success from your business is going to come from your people. It's not going to come from one person, it's not going to come from Ed DeAngelis. It's going to come from us. And every great business is about us, not about one person.

SPEAKER_02 16:55

Exactly. I owned an insurance agency for a little while and I dealt with some construction companies. And one of the things, and you could see it was the job is done, you're gone. And then when they would get another job, they had to go get new people. So that was a consistency and a continuity and a loss of, I call that a brain drain. They don't know how you do what you do. And that's got to give you a competitive advantage, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_01 17:18

It's continuity within our field staff, our office staff is number one. We want to build a community. When you build a community, you only use the community for things that, you know, a good neighborhood, you know, one that I grew up in is a neighborhood where there's everybody there and it there's a continuity of consistency. Well, it's the same thing at a business. We have an advantage because we do not have turnover. Our field staff is very steady. They want to be here. They are demanding that we help get them work so they can be successful. Again, we're going to hold them accountable, but we're also going to train them. We're going to train those field leaders how to be, whether they're a mason, a carpenter, a glazer, panel installer, a roofer. It doesn't matter. There's no different teaching here at EDA. Meaning there's skill teaching that may be unique to the specific. But when it comes to human being teaching and leadership, it's one way, the EDA way. There is no other way. It's this way. So we don't care what your level is, drivers, or your uh VP, it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_02 18:28

You made a statement when we spoke before about kindness. You said to me, kindness is manly. And kindness is what real leadership is. It's not the pounding the desk when I was coming up. It was the guy pounding on the desk and yelling and screaming. That didn't work in the 70s and the 60s. It's certainly not going to work now. Okay. Now in the industry you're in, kindness, you again you don't equate it with construction workers. All right. And you've mentioned that it was quite a challenge. Do you see them taking that out from the job and into their own homes and into their own communities?

SPEAKER_01 19:06

Absolutely. Look, I am you know I'm pausing because it's really important to me, especially today. The best men in this world are the ones who are protective, caring, they care about others, they love people, they love each other, they speak openly about who they are as people, what they're afraid of, what makes them upset. What I've seen is when you crack that egg of people who are from communities where that is frightening for them, you get the the strongest men who really, really are kind. You can hold someone accountable with kindness and care. You can do it in a way that is nurturing. You just have to strategically do it. It's cheap and easy to be mean. Yes. Cheap and easy. I will repeat it. You're not spending enough time thinking about how I can deal with this person without being hijacked and screaming at them and being mean. Mean is easy. It's weak, it's not thoughtful, and it's there's no place for it in humanity. You can let someone go. We let people go. They leave this place. You can do it in the right way. It means so much to me that I want to speak about it all the time because I want to fight against this ideology that men have to be something of a cartoon character. And that's what it is. We're human beings. We have again, you talk about psychological safety. I got to be safe enough to tell some I'm afraid right now. And then construction, I need them to say to each other, you know what, I'm a little bit afraid right now. Can we do a little more training on where we are? Because I'm a little bit and it's not like, yo, dude, just get get over it. Like get, you know, or I'm not feeling right. I had a tough time at home and I'm not feeling right. That's not weakness, that is badass to me. Right. Our best leaders are that. My person who runs EDA Pact, who is wasn't, you know, was in that program, was part of it. He gets emotional when he speaks, but he is tough. You don't want to feel like that. And humanity moves forward when we care for each other. It separates and becomes less of a community when we try to break each other apart. Our job is to try, I need to understand the person who comes from a totally different community than me, has different upbringing, and I need to provide psychological safety because we're from different tribes. And I need to learn that. And you go, well, how does that help your business? Because if I get them in the right mental space, they are amazing. And men need to stop pretending that you have to be someone. Just be a human being.

SPEAKER_02 21:58

Exactly. That's it. Exactly. I've heard uh gentlemen out here in California say, you know, meanness and cruelty is weakness masquerading as strength. And people see right through that. They know that you don't care. They know that they're an asset. And that drives me crazy. When I hear people say, a leader say that my staff are an asset. They're not an asset, they're a person. And if you brought them in, I worked for uh Mr. Charles Xley, and I was at NCR, I need a location in his office at one point. And one of the things he said to me was when you hire somebody, Frank, and this is this is back in the in the 70s, you better have a 25-year plan for them because that's your job. But the whole model is just what you're talking about, is I care about you as a person, and we're going to help you grow while you're here. And you may go into different positions while you're here, but we're with you on this journey. That's what I hear you saying. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_01 23:07

I do. I mean, and I think your business is better if you when I hear people say they stole someone from me, or like stole, these aren't property, right? These are people. My job is to nurture them. If my nurturing and and their best place for them to be is not here, we have to embrace that because we are better if people feel like they want to be at a place instead that they're fearful or they don't know if this person cares about me. I am telling you, the amount of love or care that I get back is beyond anything I can understand. So if I had a choice between cruel and mean where they are fearful of me, so they scared. I walk in, everyone gets quiet, everyone. Do I want that? Is that what I want my legacy to be? Does that what any leader's legacy wants to be? That the people are afraid of them? No, they want to say, I respect that person, they help me, they care for me. Again, I go back to parenting. You can be a parent, and that is an old model that the mother and father, especially the father, is you're fearful of that person. No, I want you to be respectful of that person, know that person is serious, but I know that person loves me and cares for me and wants the best for me. And why can't I say that Lori that I can do the same thing, that I can care for her, want her to do the best, but she has to fulfill her part of the bargain. And if Lori thinks that there's a better, that's the difference between parenting. If she thinks she can get somewhere else better, that's she should do what's good for her.

SPEAKER_02 24:44

Right.

SPEAKER_01 24:45

And I think this mindset, I get very triggered. You know, I usually I try to stay as emotionally intelligent as I can. But Frank, when I hear meanness, be a leader, that is not a leadership skill. Again, that is a cheap way to lead. You lead, it's hard, it's complicated. To be a servant leader, like your old boss said, I'm working on this person so they in 25 years they can say, you help me become better, you help me become a better, again, parent, you help me become a better person. I'm better for my friends. And oh, by the way, I'm earning more money, I have a nice home, I am I'm raising a family, I take trips. You know what? Nothing makes you happy. And I'm making money. Win, win, win, win, win, win. I know it seems ridiculous. It seems so simple to me. I kind of laugh when I hear a different approach. But at the same time, this is just the way I'm doing it. If someone else has another way of doing it, that's great. But this is the way I think is the best way to move forward. And I think we have proof our company has grown exponentially. We have low turnover, we get awards, but more importantly, I can walk through this building and feel it.

SPEAKER_02 26:04

Yes, exactly. And I think that's the movement is going in that direction. The the leader who is a collaborator and a facilitator. I interviewed Dr. uh Edward Hest from the University of Virginia, the Darden School. He's a futurist. Things that he said was he said, Frank, in less than five years, the poundy on the desk guy is gone. The fear and intimidation guy. Well, we got a problem now with it, but they will be gone. And the and the great leaders will be collaborators and facilitators. Work with people and make things easier. And that's exactly what you're doing.

SPEAKER_01 26:43

Yeah, you know, Frank, I I worry, and I don't know about you, that there is a divide today. That there is a divide of your thought mindset, Mr. Hess's mindset, and I agree with them from a younger generation, but I fear the younger generation see success because there are many, many people who are successful doing it the opposite of how we're talking about.

SPEAKER_02 27:08

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 27:09

So if someone says, Well, I could make a million dollars doing it that way, okay. You could. I guess the end of the rainbow is for me is is that what you want your legacy to be that you made a million dollars by beating on people? You know, haven't we seen in history? Doesn't history teach us that the pharaohs and the kings of the of the latter year they get killed. Yes, it didn't work, it doesn't work. You know what? Human beings overall will eventually revolt against this. And I think what you're what Dr. Hess is saying is the revolution is coming, just be on the right side of it.

SPEAKER_02 27:45

Exactly. Well, Ed, you've dropped a lot of wisdom here today. So uh how do people get a hold of you? Because I think people are gonna want to talk to you.

SPEAKER_01 27:55

You know, I think the best way is, you know, I I present a lot of articles, a lot of my thoughts and speaking on on LinkedIn. And, you know, they can go to my website at EDA Contractors. You know, we have 450 employees. I think you'll see a lot of things about our company on our website, about how they feel. I don't think, and you can see it's not manufactured, we don't manufacture that. I think go on LinkedIn and see some of our articles, my Forbes articles. You know, I try to write as much as I can because Frank, that's why I appreciate doing this podcast with you. Is I want that all, not that alternate voice. I want someone to make a choice whether they can do it humanity as a strategy or do it on a people or a tool. So you can choose, but I want you to know that there is this other choice. Because honestly, I wasn't sure if that was a choice when I was growing up in the business. Yeah, please reach out. And if anyone ever has any questions, you know, they can drop me a note and I'm happy to respond. I really want to help entrepreneurs. I really want to help people who who are out there in the work world saying, is there an alternative? I don't want to get stuck in this place and feel like this is the only thing I need I have.

SPEAKER_02 29:01

Exactly. And folks, Ed does respond quickly. Now, as I mentioned, we're just about out of time. I want to thank uh Ed again for showing us that real leaders, real leaders do not amplify fear and chaos, they project stability and consistency. They understand that creating and sustaining high-performing culture depends on the clarity of your vision and treating people with respect. And you heard Ed talk about that for the last 30 plus minutes. Now, let me leave you with this none of us are in this alone, and the secret to walking on water is to know where the rocks are. And today Ed showed us where many of those rocks are. And in this podcast, we're gonna find more rocks and we're gonna bounce back better than ever. Share this with a friend. Please subscribe. And Ed again, thank you so much for your time and your wisdom.

SPEAKER_01 29:52

Same here. Thank you, Frank. Have a great day.

SPEAKER_00 29:56

So that's it for today's episode of Bounce Back. Head on over to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen and subscribe to the show. One lucky listener every single week who posts a review on Apple Podcasts or iTunes will win a chance the grand prize drawing to win a ten thousand dollar private VIP day with Frank himself. Be sure to head on over to bouncebackpodcast.com and pick up a free copy of Frank's gift. And join us on the next episode.