Business Owners & Entrepreneurs Podcast with Peter Boolkah | Business Coach | The Transition Guy®
You didn’t start a business to become its hardest-working employee.
But that’s exactly where a lot of successful business owners end up.
The business grows. The team grows. Revenue grows. The problems grow.
And somehow, instead of creating more freedom, you find yourself working harder, carrying more responsibility and becoming increasingly essential to the very business that was supposed to give you choices.
That is The Hamster Wheel Trap®.
I’m Peter Boolkah, business coach, author of Your Business Sucks: Build a Business That Works Without Destroying Your Life, and for more than 20 years I’ve worked with business owners and leadership teams around the world.
This podcast is about one thing:
Building a business that works without needing you at the centre of everything.
We talk honestly about the issues most business owners eventually run into, founder dependency, leadership, people, culture, sales, profit, cash, scaling, management, exit readiness and what it really takes to build a business that someone else would actually want to own.
Sometimes that means challenging the way you think.
Sometimes it means admitting that the thing holding the business back is you.
And sometimes it means recognising that a bigger business is not necessarily a better business.
Along the way, I sit down with entrepreneurs, authors, thinkers and leaders from around the world, including people such as Chris Voss, Mark Divine, Verne Harnish, Brad Sugars to name a few, to unpack the lessons, decisions, mistakes and experiences that shaped the way they think about business, leadership and life.
This is not a podcast about hustle.
It is not about vanity revenue.
And it is definitely not about pretending entrepreneurship is easy.
It is about building a stronger business, becoming a better owner and creating something that gives you more options not fewer.
Because eventually every business owner has to answer the same question:
Do you own the business, or does the business own you?
Business Owners & Entrepreneurs Podcast with Peter Boolkah | Business Coach | The Transition Guy®
My Hard Lesson in Leadership
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Leadership isn't just about compassion—it's about balance.
In this video, I share a personal story of when my desire to help an employee backfired, and the hard lessons I learned about setting boundaries and maintaining team productivity. If you're navigating the challenges of leadership, this video will offer insights to help you lead with both heart and accountability. Watch now to learn how to avoid the mistakes I made and become a more effective leader.
CONNECT WITH PETER BOOLKAH
Website: https://www.boolkah.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/boolkah
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pboolkah/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Boolkah
X: https://twitter.com/boolkah
ABOUT PETER BOOLKAH
Peter Boolkah is a business coach, author and speaker who has spent more than 20 years helping business owners build stronger, more valuable businesses that do not depend on them for everything.
He is the creator of The Hamster Wheel Trap® and author of Your Business Sucks: Build a Business That Works Without Destroying Your Life.
Peter works with founders and leadership teams on the issues that ultimately determine whether a business creates freedom or becomes another job: leadership, founder dependency, people, profit, execution, scaling, exit readiness and enterprise value.
His approach is direct, practical and built around one simple question:
Do you own the business, or does the business own you?
Learn more at https://www.boolkah.com
If you're a business owner or a leader, today's video will be particularly relevant to you because we're exploring a topic that inevitably affects everyone in our roles. I'll share a real story from my experience: a difficult situation with an employee that has taught me invaluable leadership lessons that have since shaped how I approach leadership. Make sure to watch the full video to prepare you to navigate similar challenges. So, let me start with a story. A few months ago, we had an employee who was going through some tough personal challenges. He was feeling quite overwhelmed and had a hard time focusing on work. We had several conversations about his situation and I suggested he might benefit from talking to a professional counsellor. Despite his struggles, he decided not to pursue that path, and looking back, it's clear that his choice had a significant impact on everyone involved. As a team, we really wanted to be supportive. We reduced his workload, extended his deadlines, and covered for him whenever he couldn't manage his tasks. He was granted all the sick leave he needed, and we did our best to provide an environment where he could feel understood and supported. It really did seem like the right thing to do at the time. But what happened next taught me one of the most valuable lessons in leadership. In the beginning, the employee improved, but then came another bad fall, and over time the employee got into the habit of being helped out. He began to rely on the team to pick up the tasks he couldn't do, and there was no visible effort on his part to regain control of his work or even seek the help he needed. I even moved him to a different project where he could work slower and unbothered. Then, after more than five months of trying to offer him support, he told me he was going to go and work for another company. He then left us without finishing his tasks. And the part that stung the most, he didn't even thank us for the support that we had just provided. He just walked away, leaving behind a pile of incomplete work and a team that felt both used and unappreciated. Now look, I have worked from corporations for more than 15 years, and I know what it feels like to be shot on from a great height. To work under leaders who were disconnected and indifferent, which didn't even give a damn about your needs. Now I don't want to be that type of leader, and this is something that I've paid a lot of attention to. That's why I try to offer as much support as possible. Leadership during difficult times is one of the most challenging but also the most defining aspects of our roles, and we have the hard task of remaining balanced and not becoming overly compassionate or disconnected from our team. So let's break down some of the key lessons I learned and explore how you can apply them in your leadership journey. Lesson 1. Balancing compassion and performance. One of the first things I learned is the importance of setting clear boundaries when offering support. Now according to Adam McGraw's book, Give and Take, successful organizations thrive when they find the right balance between giving and taking. Now as a leader, it's crucial to ensure that while you're supporting an employee through a personal crisis, the overall productivity and morale of the team are not compromised. Here's where the concept of enabling versus empowering comes in. You see, when we enable someone, we often remove the need for them to take action. On the other hand, empowering means giving them the tools and support they need to help themselves. Now in our case, we enabled the employee to constantly pick up his work without encouraging him to seek professional help or take steps to manage his own responsibilities. This not only affected his growth but also placed an unfair burden on the rest of the team. So, how can you strike the right balance? Well you need to start by setting clear expectations from the beginning. Let your employee know that while you are there to support them, there is an expectation for them to take certain steps as well, whether that's seeking professional help, managing their workload within the limits of their situation, or gradually taking on more responsibility as they start to recover. Another critical lesson I learned is the understanding the boundaries of managerial support. Brene Brown talks about the importance of vulnerability in leadership in her book Dare to Lead, but she also emphasizes the need for clear boundaries. As leaders, we need to show empathy and understanding, but we must also recognize when our support is no longer beneficial. Now in our situation, we crossed the line from being supportive to enabling a cycle of dependency. We didn't set limits on how long we would reduce his workload or make it clear that his continued absence from key tasks was unsustainable for the team. As a result, we ended up compromising the productivity of the entire team. It's so important to create a framework for support that includes clear time limits, regular check-ins, and expectations for improvement. This way, you're providing the necessary support without sacrificing the needs of the business. One practical approach is to establish a policy where employees going through personal crises are offered a set period for reduced responsibilities after which a review is conducted. This review can assess their readiness to resume normal duties and if needed, adjustments can be made. However, it's crucial that these adjustments are finite and communicated clearly. This experience also led me to reflect on the broader role of leadership during difficult times. See, leadership isn't just about making decisions, it's about guiding your team through challenges while maintaining a sense of direction and purpose. Simon Sinek in his book Leaders Eat Last emphasizes that leaders must protect their teams. But they also need to make tough decisions that ensure the long-term health of the organization. In my situation, I realized too late that by not addressing the growing issue head on, I wasn't just failing the employee, I was also failing the entire team. I honestly believe that other people would have got rid of him immediately. But you know what? I thought it would be just too drastic. You see, one of the toughest aspects of leadership is knowing when to be compassionate and when to be firm. This experience has taught me the importance of preparing for future challenges. As leaders, we should have a clear plan of how we handle personal crises within the team. This includes having resources like employee assistant programs, creating a culture that encourages seeking help early and being ready to step in with firm, compassionate leadership when needed. What about you? Have you faced similar challenges in your leadership journey? How did you handle them? Do you know what I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below. If you found this video helpful, don't forget to like, share, and subscribe for more content on leadership and business management.