They say, “I don’t really have a filter.”
And neither one is trying to be mean.

Neither one wakes up in the morning thinking, “Hey, I wonder who I can offend today.” In fact, they’re both really good people.

The problem is that when something pops into their head, out it comes.

And when people get upset, they defend themselves using the same sentence they always do: “I’m just being honest.”

I don’t think they’re being honest.
I think they’re confusing honesty with leadership.

Because here’s the thing: just because something is true doesn’t mean it needs to be said.

The Three Questions

That’s a lesson people have been trying to teach for over 2,000 years, and you’re gonna be surprised with who started it.

Read more

Someone comes by and says, “Your baby is beautiful.”

You say, “Thank you.”

But wait.
Stop.
Think about that for a second.

What exactly are you being thanked for?

You had sex. The baby happened.
If you’re the male, you contributed about seven minutes of effort and one cell. The female did the other nine months.

The baby’s looks came from some genetic roulette that started a few hundred thousand years ago.

But you say “thank you” anyway, like you painted the kid’s face yourself.

My Cute Dog

The same thing happens to me with my dog.
People stop me on the street and say, “Oh my God, she’s so cute.”

And I almost say, “Thank you.”

But thanks for what?

I didn’t design her ears.
I didn’t choose the color of her fur.
I don’t deserve credit for her face.

It’s not like I have a super sophisticated eye for adopting rescue dogs.

It seems weird to say “thank you”, and more than a little shallow too.

Now, I’m not judging you if you do it, ’cause I do it too.

It’s polite. It’s reflex. It’s just what you do when someone says something nice.

But it got me thinking about how often in our work lives we accept credit for things we had nothing to do with.

The Leader Who Takes Your Credit

I saw this recently, where the team hit their quarterly number. The all-hands happened, and everyone looked at the leader.

He smiled. He nodded. He said something like, “We really worked hard this quarter.”

But he wasn’t the one staying late on Tuesday.
He wasn’t the one on the phone with the unhappy customer at six o’clock on a Friday.
He wasn’t the one fixing the bug until 2:00 a.m.

He was just a warm body in the right place.

I see this constantly with leaders. They mistake being present for being responsible. They accept the applause and forget the entire cast of characters that created it.

What they don’t realize is that the team notices it every single time.

They’ll Remember Everything You Didn’t Say

I have a client. Let’s call him Ted, because Ted Lasso. Need I say more?

Ted ran a sales team that had a genuinely great quarter. They had a big number to beat, and they beat it. The CEO praised the whole team in front of the company.

Ted smiled and said the right things about how proud he was of everyone.
What he didn’t do was name a single person on the team.

I asked him about it afterward. He said he didn’t want to single anyone out.

That sounds generous.
It isn’t.

Because his team watched him stand in the spotlight for three to five minutes there and heard their names exactly zero times.

And every single one of them will remember that. Maybe not consciously, but I guarantee you they’ll remember.

The Important Thing About Giving Credit

Here’s the thing about credit that most people get wrong:

It doesn’t divide when you share it. It actually multiplies.

When you say, “Thank you. Maya led that whole client relationship,” you’re not losing credit. You’re gaining credibility.

You’re proving that you’re paying attention to exactly who did what, and you’re showing that you’re not the kind of leader who confuses your presence with their performance.

Because nothing erodes trust faster than a leader who takes credit for someone else’s work.

You’ve been there. I’ve been there. It sucks.

Say My Name, Say My Name

So here’s the small thing I want you to try.

Next time someone praises a result that other people were involved in, say the names of the people who actually did the work.

“Thank you. Maya led the whole thing with help from Alex and Janice.”

That’s it. That’s all you have to say. That’s how easy it is to become the kind of leader people actually want to work for.

Because leadership isn’t about collecting credit.
It’s about giving it.

So next time somebody tells you that your baby is beautiful, don’t just stand there. Own it.

And then give the credit to the person who did the actual work.

If you wish you or your team communicated more effectively, I put on a free Leadership Diagnostic Workshop that addresses that exactly. Reserve your seat now.

Let’s get back to my client Sharon.

Sharon is a VP at a relatively fast-growing company. I looked at her calendar the other day and it is so colorful. Like a stained glass window that is designed by somebody who doesn’t want any breathing room. Every single block is filled. Meetings are stacked on meetings stacked on meetings. Even her focus time has somehow become a group activity.

She keeps telling me she doesn’t have time to think. And there’s just enough pride in the way she says it to make me think she doesn’t mean it the way I would expect her to mean it.

The Con Job

You see, we’ve somehow decided that being too busy to think is proof that you’re important, instead of proof that something has gone really deeply sideways.

So I asked Sharon: “If we looked at everything on your calendar this week, how many of the things are actually moving you closer towards your goals?”

She paused for a while. Looked at her calendar. Thought about it.

Then she said: “Honestly, maybe one meeting. Everything else is just stuff.”

And there we have it.

Being busy is a con job. It makes you think you’re achieving progress. It looks productive. It feels responsible. Other people actually reward you for it. And you can end the day completely exhausted and point to that exhaustion as proof that you actually accomplished something.

But activity and progress are not the same thing.

Heck, you can walk on a treadmill for 15 minutes. That’s activity. But you’ll end up exactly where you started. There’s no progress beyond a feeling that you made progress.

Which you didn’t.

What Busy Is Covering Up

Here’s the thing. Your busyness is probably covering something you don’t want to confront.

That’s okay. Everybody does it.

Maybe it’s that important project you keep getting ready to begin. Or the decision you’ve been avoiding for a month. And of course there’s always that conversation you keep rescheduling because the timing isn’t quite right — which is fascinating, because apparently the right time is a day after never.

Busy is usually what we do instead of the thing we’re actually afraid to do.

Being busy is also an amazingly convenient form of avoidance because it actually comes with compliments. No one questions the person who’s slammed at work. We admire them. We call them committed. We tell them we don’t know how they do it.

Meanwhile, the thing that matters most keeps getting kicked down the road.

The Kayak Question

If you want to know what your busyness might be hiding, I have a question for you.

If you decided tomorrow to circumnavigate the world by kayak — no phone, no laptop, no opportunity to send your team a quick thought, nothing to do but keep paddling and don’t get eaten by the sharks — what on your calendar would still move forward in a good enough way without you?

Think about that.

And then pay attention to whatever discomfort or defensiveness you feel.

This is actually better if I ask you in person. But I want you to actually do it yourself and pretend I’m there. You probably have a lot of reasons why your situation is different and you’re actually needed.

That reaction is exactly what I want to talk about.

Let me explain.

Read more

If I asked you right now what they are, could you list them all? Go ahead. I dare you. List them. Just pretend I can hear you. And you know what? I’ll pretend I didn’t plant a bug in your phone.

If you can’t remember them, I bet you can probably picture them. Because they’re probably printed somewhere in some bold font with a clean, pretty design. They probably include some version of integrity, problem solving, collaboration — maybe even accountability if someone on your leadership team was frustrated when they created them.

So here’s my question to you.

When was the last time you made a decision by actually referencing one of those core values?

Take a second if you need to think about it.

The Decoration Problem

I’m often brought in to moderate leadership offsites or company retreats. Naturally, I look at their core values in advance. I then ask people at the company to name the core values to me.

More times than not, no individual can name all the core values. Meanwhile, leadership is no doubt proud of them. They refer to them when they talk to me.

This actually happened with a client recently. I asked the head of HR when she’d last used one of the core values to guide an actual decision. She thought about it for a while and said, “During hiring, I guess.”

They hired 4 people in the past year. 4 times per year, somebody thinks about their core values. Then the values go back to the wall and the employee manual.

That’s not a core values problem. That’s a decoration problem.

Because there’s a difference between a company that has values and a company that uses them.

It’s this…

Read more

Starbucks became what they are because of how they designed the experience of being there.

They all have comfortable seating, warm lighting, soft music, free wifi, and they put your name on the cup. At least they try to. They’re crappy at spelling. But everything aside from that spelling issue is intentional. Everything is sending the same message to the customer.

The message is: you belong here.

The Office Tour I Can’t Forget

That’s what I was thinking recently when a client took me on a tour of their brand new office space.

It’s a beautiful looking space. They had all the things. Foosball table. Ping pong table. Cold brew on tap. They had a brand new logo on a light-up sign and a whole wall painted with their company values in giant letters.

And then I saw the chairs at the employees’ desks.

They were kind of cheap looking. Closer to the kind you find at a banquet hall than an executive office. You know the chairs. The ones that make your tailbone beg for mercy by midday.

I pointed at them.

“Why those chairs?”

The CEO shrugged. “Budget. We saved a fortune. Do you know how expensive chairs are these days?”

So I looked at the wall. The one with the giant letters. With their core values.

Then I shook my head.

What Is Environmental Psychology?

There’s this thing called environmental psychology. Most companies have never heard of it. And very few take it seriously, even if they have heard of it.

The idea is pretty simple. Your physical space shapes how people think, how they feel, and how they work. And I’m not talking about this in some fuzzy, feel-good way. This is documented, it’s researched, and it’s a measurable fact.

Your office is influencing people’s productivity right this second. Whether you know it or not. And whether you meant it to or not.

The Message Your Office Sends Every Day

Here’s where it gets a little bit uncomfortable, depending on you.

Your office sends a message to every single person who works there, every single day. They show up and it’s one of 2 messages.

The message is either: we thought about you.

Or: we didn’t.

And once I show you where to look for it, you are going to see this everywhere.

Read more

You already know this. I hope you know this, but bear with me for a second here anyway.

The best leaders are the ones who are open to feedback. They’re curious, even coachable. And it’s not beneficial to anybody to operate in a bubble.

Trust me on this, because I did exactly that for most of my life. I’d brainstorm on my own. I’d try to solve problems on my own. It’s not the easiest way of doing things, and I learned that the hard way.

Because the better way - and the way that’s always better - is to ask for input. Stay humble and let other people’s perspectives help shape your own thinking.

Feedback from the right person at the right time can change everything. I’ve had single honest conversations shift the entire direction of my companies. Heck, I’ve had conversations that changed the direction of my life. A well-timed, honest observation delivered in a way that people can hear can save someone from really bad decisions.

So yes. Get feedback. Value it.

But there’s another part of this that’s really important. The part I said I was going to come to.

The Two Kinds Of Feedback People

There are two kinds of people when it comes to getting feedback:

The ones who ask nobody. And the ones who ask everyone.

Do you know which one you are?
Because both types have a problem.

One group is scared of being wrong. The other is scared of being right.

And there’s a part of this that nobody’s telling you about either of them.

It’s this…

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Forty thousand!!!

There are apps and frameworks and courses and coaches that have entire productivity philosophies dedicated to helping you get more done in less time.

And I’ve tried a lot of them throughout my life.

If you’re like me, and most other people out there, you use some of these productivity philosophies and it feels a lot better for like two weeks. Then you’re back to the same problem you had before.

In fact, you should go listen to a little rant that I had about Atomic Habits. I think you’ll like that one.

The Thing Nobody Selling You A System Wants Me To Tell You

The reason none of these really work to solve the problem you’re trying to solve is because there’s a thing everyone who’s selling you time management systems doesn’t want me to say.

But I’m gonna say it anyway.

You don’t have a time management problem.

I know. It feels wrong.

You’re saying, “Jeff, I have a time management problem. I don’t even know why I am listening to you. I’m busy, I’m overwhelmed. There’s not enough hours in the day to get done what I want to get done. And if that’s not a time management problem, then what is?”

Well, listen, I’m glad you spoke your mind to me. Honesty is really important in our relationship, so I appreciate it.

And let me be fair to some of the 40,000 authors out there. Those systems aren’t useless. Time blocking works. A good to-do list helps. I’ve got an awesome to-do list. It’s really long. And getting your calendar under control matters a lot.

But none of those cure the problem. They’re just treating the symptom.

It’s Not The Problem You Think

Time management isn’t a time problem. It’s a

Read more

The Journal of Vocational Behavior just published what I believe is the most comprehensive analysis of workplace stress ever done.

515 studies. Over 60 years of research. 800,000 workers.

What they discovered is probably going to surprise you.
It surprised me.

The Leaders With The Wrong Answers

If you ask leaders what stresses their people out the most, you’re probably going to get the same answers every time.

Impossible deadlines. Toxic coworkers. Too much work and not enough time to do it. Maybe a bad manager or two thrown in there.

Those are all reasonable guesses.

They’re also all wrong. They aren’t the thing that stresses people out the most at work.

To be fair, all of those things are genuinely stressful. I’m not saying they’re not. A toxic coworker does not create a relaxing experience at work.

But they’re not the biggest stress creators.

It’s not even close.

The #1 Reason People Are Stressed At Work

The number one source of stress for workers - bigger than deadlines, bigger than toxic coworkers, bigger than bad management - is this:

Read more

He had just talked with one of his top employees who, let’s call Lisa.

Lisa’s great at her job. He knows it. I know it, and I’ve never even met the woman. She’s that good.

My client had been proactively making changes to better support Lisa and make sure she really understood how valued she was at the company. He was getting her more staff, more resources, and really defining a clearer path of growth for her.

But then Lisa quit. Completely out of the blue.

My client told me that he can’t believe she did that. He said, “I put my neck on the line to get her the team structure she wanted. I thought she’d be more loyal.”

Meanwhile, four months earlier, the company laid off 7% of its workforce, including four people on Lisa’s team, and my client was the one who informed the people that they were being laid off.

During one of the meetings he had with the people he was laying off, the person said to him, “I thought this company wasn’t gonna do layoffs. I thought you said you’d stay loyal to us.”

So this seems like a pretty good time for you and I to have a conversation about loyalty, don’t you think?

So let’s have it.

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I’m not saying he’s accurate with his communication.
I’m not even saying he’s truthful with his communication.

I’m just saying that he’s masterful at it.

There’s been a lot of talk lately about how Democrats aren’t fighting Trump enough. They’re not out there arguing with him or proving his points wrong.

They’re just sitting around complaining.

Let me give you a different perspective on this. It’s why I think Trump is such a masterful communicator, but it also is an indicator of how much influence and trust you have in your workplace.

But first Trump,

Trump Pulls. Democrats Push.

Trump defends whatever he says.

He always has a position where he’s defending the every-person.

• He’s defending the Iranians from oppressive leadership and freeing them so they can have a better life.

• He’s giving all Americans more jobs through the immigration policy.

• He’s lowering prices and increasing our country’s wealth through tariffs, and everybody’s gonna get some of that money back.

These are his defenses. Everything he’s doing is defending the people. That’s how he positions it, and that is the masterful part of it.

Because the Democrats don’t act as defenders, they act as prosecutors.

They’re not defending people in most of their arguments.
They’re prosecuting Trump.

This is a critical lesson in how to communicate effectively and how to increase your influence.

Let me explain.

I’m gonna start with a real world example.

A Real-World Example Of Prosecution vs Defense Communication

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Seventy percent!

That’s basically every place you’ve ever worked.

The open door policy has been around for a hundred years. I’m not going to give you the reason why it started, but I’ll just tell you that it made sense then and it makes sense now. Because the idea’s really good.

The idea being that “my door is always open. Come talk to me anytime. I want to hear what’s on your mind.”

It says, I’m approachable, I’m accessible. I care about you. I’m the kind of person that you can be open with and trust.

I’ve had open door policies throughout most of my career, I actually believe leaders, when they say they have an open door policy, they mean it.

The intention is good. It’s really good.

Unfortunately, open door policies suck.

Open door policies do not create psychological safety in your company.
They destroy it.

They’re the worst things you can do for your company.

Let me explain why.

Read more

You see back in 2009, they put out a deck about the Netflix culture that has since become pretty darn famous. If any PowerPoint can be considered to have gone viral, this one is probably the biggest influencer of them all.

In fact, Cheryl Sandberg once said it’s one of the most important documents to ever come out of Silicon Valley.

If you haven’t seen it, I’m going to put a link in the show notes here. That Netflix document reshaped how companies thought about culture and it led to the onslaught of company core values.

Today most companies have core values. They’re usually some beautiful words that they’ve come up with to define what they stand for. Most often it involves some form of integrity, collaboration, client focus, and probably innovation.

I’m sure you’ve seen them time again, probably on a wall in some office. Maybe on your wall.

But here’s the thing about core values: they mean nothing. I don’t say that to get your goat. I don’t even know what the phrase get your goat means.

Companies don’t call me when things are going well. They call me when they have problems. When they have complex issues that need some simple and fast solutions.

That’s when I get the call, and that’s okay because that’s what I do. And I love it.

One of the first things I’ll ask them, if I can’t find it online, is whether they have core values and what those values are. Some do, some don’t. Honestly, the ones who don’t have values are oftentimes in better shape than the ones who do.

Because for most companies, core values aren’t so much a healthy foundation of the culture, as they are a horrendous liability. And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, you’re probably part of the problem.

Let me explain.

Read more

And, the fact is, that one day I had to fire 35 people. It was a bad day, a really bad day. My wife at the time, and I ended up getting separated that week too. So what would’ve been a bad day, was a bad time in my life and I felt like a failure.

The reality is, after I sold my first company, I was 30 years old, maybe 29.

I felt like a failure then too. I felt like I didn’t achieve what I wanted to.

I felt like I couldn’t achieve what I wanted to, that I couldn’t do what other people did.

And that’s why now I cringe when people say someone either succeeded or failed. And you hear it all the time about entrepreneurs. He sold his company so he succeeded. She didn’t IPO. So the whole thing was a failure.

I was talking to a client today who has an early stage business. Been going for a couple years. It’s doing fairly well, but still trying to find its footing.

Suddenly, over the last month or two,

Read more

He wrote a brilliant book called Atomic Habits. You probably read it, but if you’re one of the seven people in the world who hasn’t, here’s the basic summary.

If you focus on small, consistent habits that allow you to improve 1% per day, you can radically transform your life.

Now here’s my take on it.

It’s complete bullshit.

The Math Works. The Logic Doesn’t.

From a mathematical perspective, the 1% principle makes sense. It simply takes the concept of compound growth and applies it to daily habits. It’s fifth grade algebra. Improving by 1% every day is one to the 365th power, which results in a 37.7% increase at the end of the year.

The math works. And that’s all fine and nice. But there’s a very big and hugely incorrect assumption with his premise. It’s this:

Read more

That’s not a hiring decision. That’s a comparison. And those aren’t the same thing.

This episode is about the bias nobody catches because it feels exactly like careful thinking. And the one question that exposes it before you make a decision y…

Read more

Then you rolled it out... and nobody cared.

Not because your team is lazy. Because you forgot to have this conversation.

This episode is about the one conversation most leaders skip that determines whether a plan actually works.

--

Are you ready to see your Unconscious Operating System?

Once you see it, you’ll never be able to unsee it again.
Sign up for the FREE Leadership Diagnostic Workshop.

www.thebestleadershipcompany.com/leadership-diagnostic-workshop

When you promote loyalty over performance, you just told your best people exactly how much their work matters.

Spoiler: they’ll act accordingly.

This episode is about what your last promotion really said about you.

--

Are you ready to see your Unconscious Operating System?

Once you see it, you’ll never be able to unsee it again.
Sign up for the FREE Leadership Diagnostic Workshop.

www.thebestleadershipcompany.com/leadership-diagnostic-workshop

There are 5 skills that every company needs every employee to master. The catch? They don’t teach you how to do them. That’s all on you. And if you don’t figure it out, somebody else is always going to get that promotion.

Listen to this rant, and let me know your position on the matter (my contact info is below)

--

Are you ready to see your Unconscious Operating System?

Once you see it, you’ll never be able to unsee it again.
Sign up for the FREE Leadership Diagnostic Workshop.

www.thebestleadershipcompany.com/leadership-diagnostic-workshop

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The Best Leadership Newsletter Ever (join 14k subscribers) :: www.TheBestLeadershipNewsletter.com

Coaching, Consulting + Keynote Speaking :: www.TheBestLeadershipCompany.com

Contact Jeff Matlow ::
hello@TheBestLeadershipCompany.com

Are you more lonely than you were seven years ago? Because we might be in a loneliness epidemic and nobody is recognizing it - or looking for a cure. It’s not going to magically change on it’s on.

Listen to this rant, and let me know your position on the matter (my contact info is below)

--

Are you ready to see your Unconscious Operating System?

Once you see it, you’ll never be able to unsee it again.
Sign up for the FREE Leadership Diagnostic Workshop.

www.thebestleadershipcompany.com/leadership-diagnostic-workshop

--

The Best Leadership Newsletter Ever (join 14k subscribers) :: www.TheBestLeadershipNewsletter.com

Coaching, Consulting + Keynote Speaking :: www.TheBestLeadershipCompany.com

Contact Jeff Matlow :: hello@TheBestLeadershipCompany.com

It’s not about how you do the writing, it’s about how your words resonate in the end. So stop judging people for using AI as a writing partner.

Listen to this rant, and let me know your position on the matter (my contact info is below)

--

Are you ready to see your Unconscious Operating System?

Once you see it, you’ll never be able to unsee it again.
Sign up for the FREE Leadership Diagnostic Workshop.

www.thebestleadershipcompany.com/leadership-diagnostic-workshop

--

The Best Leadership Newsletter Ever (join 14k subscribers) :: www.TheBestLeadershipNewsletter.com

Coaching, Consulting + Keynote Speaking :: www.TheBestLeadershipCompany.com

Contact Jeff Matlow :: hello@TheBestLeadershipCompany.com