Things Leaders Do

143 Episodes

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How to Give a Performance Review When the System's Rigged

2026-09-1623:27

When you're forced to deliver a performance rating you don't believe in, don't defend it and don't hide behind the system. Split the number from the truth: hand off the company's rating cleanly, tell the person the real thing that number can't hold, and make sure the review is never the first time they hear where they stand. Colby Morris calls it The Split. Forced ranking. The curve decided before you even walk into calibration. A person who crushed the year, and you're handed a "meets expect...

How to Manage Your Old Coworkers (Without Losing Their Respect)

2026-09-0925:40

When you're promoted over your former peers, the job is to redraw three things on purpose: the relationship, the standard, and your own support system. Colby Morris calls it The Redraw, and it's the difference between a promotion that sticks and one that quietly falls apart inside ninety days. Here's what nobody warns you about. The day you got the title, the line between you and your team got erased. If you don't redraw it out loud, and fast, your people redraw it for you, usually with the w...

Your Boss Isn't Ignoring You. They're Just Not Hearing You.

2026-08-1224:56

Why does my boss ignore my ideas? Usually he isn't ignoring them, he just never heard them the way you meant them. In one workplace study, 81% of leaders said their people have an easy way to give feedback, while only 44% of employees said they actually have a voice. Your boss almost certainly thinks his door is open. And you're on your fourth attempt to get somebody to care about a staffing problem. That gap isn't about caring. It's about transmission, and it belongs to you. In t...

Stop Going to Your Boss About Your Coworker

2026-08-0525:39

How do you handle a conflict with a coworker who doesn't report to you? Go to them directly, before your boss, and make it the two of you against the problem instead of you against each other. Most leaders were never taught this one. There are shelves of books on managing your team and managing your boss, and almost nothing on the sideways conversation with a peer, where you have no authority and still have to work together on Monday. So 70% of us avoid it, or worse, we go around them t...

GenX, You Figured It Out Alone. Stop Expecting Them To

2026-07-2924:41

Why do Gen X leaders keep clashing with younger employees? Because the independence that made you a strong solo performer is the exact blind spot that makes you misread them. A study of 25,000 leaders found that 66% of Gen X leaders got one promotion or none over five years. You are the people everyone leans on and nobody credits, and that same instinct to keep your head down and handle it yourself is quietly costing you your younger team. In this episode, Colby Morris breaks down the L...

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