Leadership Today - Practical Tips For Leaders

Summary Sometimes it's difficult to enjoy our time away from work even when we've finished for the day. New research shows that unfinished tasks and anticipating a busy day tomorrow can keep work active in our thinking while also reducing our motivation to engage with our leisure time. This episode looks at some practical ways to finish the working day well.   Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 243 of the Leadership Today podcast, where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. This week we look at why unfinished work can follow us home and what we can do about it. Most of us know what it's like to finish work without really finishing work. We've physically finished up for the day, but part of our attention is still back there. Perhaps there's something we didn't quite get done, a problem we haven't solved, or we're already thinking about everything waiting for us tomorrow. A new study followed 179 employees over 14 working days to explore how unfinished tasks and anticipated workload affect our leisure time. The researchers found two different processes at work. The first process is probably quite familiar. When we have unfinished tasks or expect a heavy workload the following day, we're more likely to continue thinking negatively about work. The working day might have finished, but mentally we're still there. The second process is called "motivation erosion". This is when unfinished tasks and anticipated workload are also associated with people feeling less capable of fully engaging with and enjoying their leisure time. So work doesn't just follow us home through our thoughts. It can also reduce our motivation to make good use of the time we have away from work. Imagine finishing at 5.30pm with three things you didn't get done. You head home intending to go for a run, cook dinner or spend time with family. But you keep thinking about what you didn't finish and what's waiting for you tomorrow. By the time you get home, sitting on the couch and scrolling through your phone feels like the easiest option. You haven't necessarily run out of time for leisure; you've lost some of your motivation to use that time well. Here are three ways to avoid work following you home. First, create a clearer ending to unfinished work. Before you finish for the day, write down exactly what still needs to be done and the next action you will take. Writing something like "finish report" leaves the task open in your mind. "Review the final two sections at 9am tomorrow" gives your brain a clearer plan for what happens next. Second, be realistic about tomorrow. For participants in the research, anticipating a heavy workload was also associated with poorer leisure experiences. If tomorrow looks overwhelming, take a few minutes to identify what genuinely needs to happen and what can wait. Schedule the required time for each element into your calendar. Sometimes it's the undefined sense of having too much to do that overwhelms us and follows us home. Third, make some deliberate plans for your leisure time. If work can reduce our motivation to engage with life outside work, don't rely entirely on how you feel at the end of the day. Arrange the walk, book the exercise class, plan dinner with someone or decide what you're going to do before you finish work. Bringing all of this together, finishing work well is partly about creating a clear psychological ending to the working day and also about planning our leisure well. So before you finish today, ask yourself: "What do I need to write down or decide now so I don't have to keep carrying this tonight?"  Then take some time to plan your downtime.   Reference Rutten, R. L. J., & Wehrt, W. (2026). Leisure under lock: cognitive activation and motivation erosion as mechanisms undermining experiential quality of leisure time. Work & Stress. https://doi.org/10.1080/02678373.2026.2722069   Leadership Today On-Demand Special Offer We have a great deal for podcast listeners on our Leadership Today On-Demand subscription. Just go to www.leadershiptoday.com and checkout using the promo code PODCAST for 25% off an annual subscription. Leadership Today On-Demand is a video subscription service that allows you to work on your leadership in your own time and at your own pace. It is available online and through our Apple iOS and Android apps for phones and tablets. Our mission is to help you to become an even better leader. Your subscription brings together all of our video content in one place including: - Five online courses with workbooks - Five five day challenges with workbooks - Nineteen recorded webinars - A searchable library of 170+ "how to" quick videos on a range of leadership challenges That's over $4,500 of content for less than the price of a single online course. And there are more videos added each week.   Get Connected Find out ways to get connected here: https://leadership.today/connect

Summary Autonomy matters for motivation, but what happens when people work in a highly structured environment with lots of rules? New research involving nearly 3,900 NSW Police Force personnel shows that autonomy can still be supported within clear boundaries. This episode looks at how leaders can provide more ownership without removing necessary structure.   Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 242 of the Leadership Today podcast, where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. This week we're looking at autonomy and a question that often comes up in highly structured workplaces: what do you do when there really isn't much choice? Self-Determination Theory identifies autonomy as one of three basic psychological needs, alongside competence and relatedness. When we experience some ownership and choice over our actions, our motivation and wellbeing tend to be stronger. But what happens when you work somewhere with lots of rules? Think about healthcare, emergency services, government, aviation or policing. There are policies, procedures, legal requirements and standards that simply have to be followed. A leader can't just say, "Do whatever feels right to you." So does autonomy still matter in those environments? A new study involving nearly 3,900 people in the NSW Police Force suggests it does. The researchers found that organisational support was associated with greater satisfaction of people's needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness, along with better outcomes such as commitment and wellbeing. Workplace conflict, on the other hand, was associated with greater frustration of those needs and poorer outcomes. But perhaps the most useful finding for leaders was that people could still experience autonomy in a highly structured command-and-control environment. The catch is that autonomy doesn't mean independence or complete freedom. It's more about having some sense of ownership over what you're doing. You might have no choice about whether a safety procedure needs to be followed. But there may still be flexibility in how work is organised around that requirement. People might be able to contribute ideas about implementation. They may have discretion within clear boundaries. Here are three ideas to try. First, explain the rationale. Sometimes leaders say, "That's just the policy", and technically that might be correct. But where you can, explain why the requirement exists. It's easier to accept a constraint when you understand the reason behind it. Second, be clear about where choice exists and where it doesn't. You might say, "We have to achieve this outcome and these two requirements aren't negotiable, but you have quite a bit of flexibility around the rest." That's much more helpful than either pretending people have complete freedom or controlling everything unnecessarily. Third, involve people in the things they can genuinely influence. A team may not be able to remove a mandatory process, but they might be able to improve how it's scheduled, how information is shared or how work is handed over. Those smaller areas of influence still matter. There's one other useful aspect of the research. The researchers distinguished between a need not being fully satisfied and a need being actively frustrated. Those aren't quite the same thing. You might have a job where there isn't much autonomy, but you don't necessarily feel controlled. That's different from an environment where you're constantly being pressured, micromanaged or prevented from exercising reasonable judgement. In leadership, sometimes you can't increase choice very much. But you can still avoid making things more controlling than they need to be. Bringing all of this together, the key question isn't, "Can I let people do whatever they want?" It's, "Where can I provide ownership, rationale and discretion within the boundaries we genuinely need?"   Reference Marsh, H. W., Ryan, R. M., Craven, R. G., Dicke, T., Guo, J., & Parker, P. D. (2026). Workplace demands/resources, basic psychological needs, and police well-being: an extended integration of self-determination theory and job demands–resources models. Current Psychology, 45, Article 1464. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-026-10005-y.   Leadership Today On-Demand Special Offer We have a great deal for podcast listeners on our Leadership Today On-Demand subscription. Just go to www.leadershiptoday.com and checkout using the promo code PODCAST for 25% off an annual subscription. Leadership Today On-Demand is a video subscription service that allows you to work on your leadership in your own time and at your own pace. It is available online and through our Apple iOS and Android apps for phones and tablets. Our mission is to help you to become an even better leader. Your subscription brings together all of our video content in one place including: - Five online courses with workbooks - Five five day challenges with workbooks - Nineteen recorded webinars - A searchable library of 170+ "how to" quick videos on a range of leadership challenges That's over $4,500 of content for less than the price of a single online course. And there are more videos added each week.   Get Connected Find out ways to get connected here: https://leadership.today/connect

Summary We often treat efficiency as an unquestioned good, but curiosity works differently. A major new research review describes curiosity as "productive inefficiency", slowing us down in the short term while helping us find better ideas and solutions. This episode looks at where leaders should deliberately make room for curiosity.   Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 241 of the Leadership Today podcast, where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. This week we look at curiosity and why being less efficient can sometimes help us produce better work. Most organisations are trying to become more efficient. We want shorter meetings, faster decisions, streamlined processes and fewer wasted hours. As leaders, we're often trying to help people get to the answer more quickly. But we're also wanting people to demonstrate greater curiosity, which works in almost the opposite direction. A major new review of research into curiosity at work describes curiosity as a form of "productive inefficiency". When we're curious, we tend to slow things down. We ask another question, we look at an issue from another perspective, and we might even explore an option that ultimately leads nowhere. Instead of accepting the first reasonable answer, we spend a little longer wondering whether there might be a better one. In the short term, that's inefficient. But the researchers argue that this apparent inefficiency can contribute to things like creativity, adaptability and better solutions over time. The catch is we're often trying to encourage curiosity while simultaneously removing the space it requires. Imagine someone brings you a problem. You know what they should do, so you give them the answer. That's efficient. The problem disappears and both of you can move on. Compare that with asking, "What do you think is causing the problem?" or "What options have you considered?" That takes longer. They may suggest ideas that aren't particularly good. You might end up at exactly the same solution you would have given them five minutes earlier. But something different has happened. They've had to think about the problem rather than simply receive your answer. And perhaps they've noticed something you hadn't considered. The same thing happens in meetings. We can become so focused on getting through the agenda that questions start to feel like interruptions. Someone says, "I wonder why we still do it this way?" and the response is, "That's a bigger conversation. Let's take that offline." Now sometimes that's exactly the right response. We can't explore every interesting question that comes up. That's another important part of this research. The authors aren't suggesting that curiosity is always good or that we should maximise it. Curiosity consumes time and attention. Instead, it's more useful to think about where curiosity is worth the cost. Here are three things I'd suggest. First, identify the work where you don't want the quickest answer. If you're dealing with a complex problem, making an important decision or trying to improve something that hasn't been working, deliberately allow more time for questions and alternatives. That's where a little inefficiency may pay off. Second, notice how you respond when people are curious. Leaders can say they want people to challenge the status quo while unintentionally shutting down questions through impatience. If every curious question receives a quick explanation of why things can't change, people eventually stop asking. Third, put some boundaries around curiosity. You might spend the first 15 minutes of a discussion exploring the problem without trying to solve it. Or ask everyone to come up with three different explanations before deciding what is going on. The aim isn't endless exploration. It's making sure efficiency doesn't close down thinking too early. Bringing all of this together, the key question isn't, "How can we make everything more efficient?" A better question might be, "Where would a little inefficiency help us think better?" Thanks for listening, and I look forward to speaking with you again next week.   Reference Kashdan, T. B., McKnight, P. E., & Harrison, S. H. (2026). Curiosity at Work: A Productive Inefficiency Model. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 14. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-012825-104832.   Leadership Today On-Demand Special Offer We have a great deal for podcast listeners on our Leadership Today On-Demand subscription. Just go to www.leadershiptoday.com and checkout using the promo code PODCAST for 25% off an annual subscription. Leadership Today On-Demand is a video subscription service that allows you to work on your leadership in your own time and at your own pace. It is available online and through our Apple iOS and Android apps for phones and tablets. Our mission is to help you to become an even better leader. Your subscription brings together all of our video content in one place including: - Five online courses with workbooks - Five five day challenges with workbooks - Nineteen recorded webinars - A searchable library of 170+ "how to" quick videos on a range of leadership challenges That's over $4,500 of content for less than the price of a single online course. And there are more videos added each week.   Get Connected Find out ways to get connected here: https://leadership.today/connect

Summary Negative feedback can sometimes improve performance and sometimes leave people distracted, discouraged or withdrawing from their work. New research shows that how surprising, disruptive and consequential the feedback feels helps explain those different reactions. This episode looks at how leaders can make difficult feedback clearer and easier to act on.   Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 240 of the Leadership Today podcast, where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. This week we look at negative feedback and why the way someone experiences the feedback can matter just as much as what you actually say. Most leaders know that feedback needs to be clear and specific. If something isn't working, we need to talk about it rather than hoping the problem fixes itself. But we've probably also experienced situations where feedback seems to have a much bigger impact than we expected. We raise what feels like a fairly straightforward issue and the person becomes defensive, discouraged or distracted by it for days afterwards. New research published in Human Resource Management helps explain why. Rather than treating every piece of negative feedback as the same, the researchers looked at specific feedback events over a 10-week period. They were particularly interested in how novel, disruptive and critical the feedback felt to the employee. By way of example, imagine telling someone they need to tighten up the formatting in a report. That's negative feedback, but it probably isn't particularly surprising or consequential. Now imagine telling someone who believes they are performing well that there are serious concerns about their overall performance. That's a very different event, even if both conversations could technically be described as negative feedback. The research suggests these characteristics matter because feedback can affect our sense of competence and use up mental resources. If the feedback is significant enough, part of the person's attention shifts away from the work itself and towards trying to understand what has happened, what it means and what they need to do next. For leaders, one implication is to think beyond the message you are delivering and consider how surprising it will be. If someone has been hearing nothing but positive comments for six months and then receives a major performance concern at their annual review, the novelty of that information becomes part of the problem. Regular, proportionate feedback reduces the likelihood that one conversation has to carry everything. It's also worth thinking about how disruptive the feedback is. Are you asking the person to make one specific adjustment, or are you effectively telling them that their whole approach needs to change? When substantial change is required, people may need help breaking that into manageable steps rather than leaving the meeting with a broad sense that everything is wrong. And then there's the issue of competence. Corrective feedback should focus on the approach someone is taking rather than who they are as a person. Something like, "This part isn't yet at the standard we need, so let's work through what needs to change", gives you room to be clear about the problem while still conveying confidence that improvement is possible. This doesn't mean cushioning every difficult message or turning negative feedback into praise. Sometimes the feedback genuinely is serious and needs to sound serious. But it does mean recognising that the same words can land very differently depending on what the employee already believes, how consequential the issue is and how much change you're asking them to make. One question worth asking before your next difficult feedback conversation is: How big an event is this likely to be for the other person? If the answer is "quite a big one", then allow enough time not just to deliver the feedback, but also to help them make sense of it and work out what happens next. Clear feedback matters. But effective feedback conversations also take into account the impact of the message on the person.   Reference Corwin, E. S., Rosen, C. C., Lee, H. W., Simon, L. S., & Johnson, R. E. (2026). Negative Feedback as Performance Conversations: An Event Systems Perspective. Human Resource Management. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.70094.   Leadership Today On-Demand Special Offer We have a great deal for podcast listeners on our Leadership Today On-Demand subscription. Just go to www.leadershiptoday.com and checkout using the promo code PODCAST for 25% off an annual subscription. Leadership Today On-Demand is a video subscription service that allows you to work on your leadership in your own time and at your own pace. It is available online and through our Apple iOS and Android apps for phones and tablets. Our mission is to help you to become an even better leader. Your subscription brings together all of our video content in one place including: - Five online courses with workbooks - Five five day challenges with workbooks - Nineteen recorded webinars - A searchable library of 170+ "how to" quick videos on a range of leadership challenges That's over $4,500 of content for less than the price of a single online course. And there are more videos added each week.   Get Connected Find out ways to get connected here: https://leadership.today/connect

Summary Leaders can easily assume they have stronger relationships with employees than employees themselves experience. New research shows that this mismatch can reduce psychological safety and make people less likely to speak up. This episode looks at how leaders can test their assumptions and make it easier for people to raise concerns.   Transcript Hello and welcome to episode 239 of the Leadership Today podcast, where each week we share practical tips to improve your leadership. This week we look at how leaders and their teams rate the quality of their relationships, and the impact on whether people feel confident to speak up. Most leaders think they have a pretty clear view about the relationships they have with people in their team.  The problem is that relationships involve two people, and the other person may not see things in quite the same way. A recent study looked at leader-member relationships from both sides. The researchers collected data from 496 employees and 139 leaders and examined how closely leaders and employees agreed about the quality of their relationship. They then looked at psychological safety and whether employees were willing to speak up with ideas, concerns and suggestions. As you might expect, relationships were strongest when both the leader and employee saw them positively. But the more interesting finding was what happened when the leader rated the relationship more positively than the employee did. In those situations, psychological safety was particularly low. Leaders can easily overestimate how safe they are to talk to. We know our own intentions. We know that we want people to raise concerns and challenge our thinking. But employees are making a different judgement. They're trying to work out what is likely to happen if they disagree, raise a problem or tell us something we don't really want to hear. A leader might think, "My door is always open", while an employee is thinking, "Yes, but I'm not sure how they'll respond if I tell them the project isn't working". Those two people are describing the same relationship very differently. The challenge is that leaders who think the relationship is already strong may not do much to improve it. If someone rarely disagrees with us, we can interpret that as evidence that everything is going well, when it may simply mean they're being cautious. One useful thing to do is look for behavioural evidence rather than relying on your own sense of the relationship. Does the person ever disagree with you? Do they bring you bad news early? Do they raise concerns before they become problems? Do they offer a different view when you've already expressed a preference? You can also make it easier for people to tell you how the relationship is working for them. Rather than asking, "Is everything okay?", which will usually produce "yes", try something more specific. You might ask, "What could I do that would make it easier for you to raise concerns with me?" or "Is there anything I do that makes it harder for you to disagree?" Of course, asking the question is only useful if you respond well to the answer. If someone takes a risk and gives you feedback, becoming defensive teaches them something very quickly about how safe the relationship really is. Leaders don't get to decide on their own whether a relationship is strong. What matters is how both people experience it. So this week, think about someone in your team you believe you have a very good relationship with. Then ask yourself a slightly uncomfortable question: what evidence do I have that they would describe it the same way? Thanks for listening, and I look forward to speaking with you again next week.   Research: Pahng, P. H., Fuller, R., Kwak, J. S., & Kang, S. M. (2026). Same Playbook, Safer Plays: Leader-Member Alignment and Employee Voice. International Journal of Business Communication. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/23294884261476053   Leadership Today On-Demand Special Offer We have a great deal for podcast listeners on our Leadership Today On-Demand subscription. Just go to www.leadershiptoday.com and checkout using the promo code PODCAST for 25% off an annual subscription. Leadership Today On-Demand is a video subscription service that allows you to work on your leadership in your own time and at your own pace. It is available online and through our Apple iOS and Android apps for phones and tablets. Our mission is to help you to become an even better leader. Your subscription brings together all of our video content in one place including: - Five online courses with workbooks - Five five day challenges with workbooks - Nineteen recorded webinars - A searchable library of 170+ "how to" quick videos on a range of leadership challenges That's over $4,500 of content for less than the price of a single online course. And there are more videos added each week.   Get Connected Find out ways to get connected here: https://leadership.today/connect