Episode 26: Three Leadership Mistakes I'll Never Repeat (and How to Avoid Them)

Listening, modeling, and clarity: the three overlooked basics every leader needs

How to stop lazy leadership and build healthier workplaces that last

Episode Summary

In this solo episode of Hard at Work, Ellen Whitlock Baker shares three leadership mistakes she wishes she could go back and do differently — and the practical steps you can take to avoid them.

From listening less and talking too much, to modeling unhealthy work habits, to relying on vague job descriptions and biased review processes, Ellen unpacks why these common traps harm teams and what managers can do instead.

You’ll learn how to:

Listen with curiosity instead of defensiveness

Model boundaries and healthy work habits (instead of hustle)

Create clear job plans and fair review processes that prevent burnout and bias

If you’ve ever wondered how to be the kind of manager people actually want to work for — start here.

Tags: leadership mistakes, management tips, healthy workplace, career clarity, burnout prevention, boundaries at work, fair reviews, leadership coaching, Hard at Work podcast

Quotes

“Imagine what it would be like if when you encountered resistance from a team member, you stopped and listened to what they were saying.”

“It doesn't matter what you tell your team. If you're modeling unhealthy work habits, they will think they must do the same.”

“It shouldn’t be that you’re being paid more to do more. You’re paid more because of your expertise.”

“If you reward extra work, you’re significantly disadvantaging the people who can’t take it on — often working parents or caregivers.”

“Until we stop doing so many things and start doing the things that really matter, we’re going to live in a state of constant overwhelm and your people are going to leave.”

Chapters

00:00 – Welcome + episode overview
01:00 – Mistake #1: Talking too much and not listening enough
02:30 – Curiosity questions every leader should ask
04:20 – Mistake #2: Modeling unhealthy work habits
06:00 – Why “paid more = work more” is a broken idea
08:15 – Modeling boundaries + the power of saying no
09:30 – Mistake #3: Vague job descriptions and unfair reviews
12:30 – How hustle culture skews performance ratings
14:30 – Why clarity and co-created work plans matter
17:00 – Leadership is a choice: lazy vs. people-centered leadership
19:30 – Closing reflections + invitation to connect

Transcript

Ellen Whitlock Baker (00:02.35)
Hi everyone, and welcome to the Hard at Work podcast where we talk about how to create healthy workplaces for everyone. On today's episode, I'm gonna share three things I wish I'd done differently as a leader, explain why, and give you some tools so you don't make the same mistakes.

These are all in the simple but not easy category and often things we overlook when we're too busy, which can be all the time when you're existing in hustle culture.

(01:00) I Wish I’d Listened More and Talked Less

The number one thing I wish I'd done differently as a leader: I wish I'd listened more and talked less. I have a podcast, so you know I love to talk and share my opinion, but I wish I'd not done that as much when I was leading teams.

Especially when my team was telling me something I wanted them to do wouldn't work or that it wasn't the right time to do it. I think a lot of us have the immediate response to push back from our team of, no, you don't understand. I need you to do it. And I need you to do it this way because I know it will work. I promise.

And often our response to push back is to dig in harder and even micromanage the situation. Okay, if you're saying you don't have time to do it, I'll just do it myself because it has to get done, right? Like I'm gonna add this other thing on because it has to get done rather than listening to what your team is saying.

And from the manager's end, I know you're not doing this to be a jerk or to say that your way is the only way usually, although some people are. You're probably getting pressure from someone above you to get it done, and they may even be pushing you to do things a certain way because bad management runs the gamut.

Your intentions might be good, like, hey, I know this needs to happen and my boss wants it this way, so I'll help this employee get it done because they're worried it won’t work. And I have totally been there. So the antidote to this mess, what I wish I'd done differently: listening and being curious.

Imagine what it would be like if when you encountered resistance from a team member, you stopped and listened to what they were saying, step one, and then asked some questions to understand what they mean. One question I wish I would have asked was, tell me a little more about why you don't think this is a good idea, not in an accusatory way, but in a really want-to-understand way.

Or a really good one would be, well, we know our goal is X. I hear you that this isn't a good time to do this thing I'm suggesting. Can we come up with some ideas together on how else we might reach this goal? Or even better: what's making this feel hard? Is it your workload or the general idea itself or both?

It feels awful when you get idea bombed by your boss, especially if they seem to have idea after idea and are stubborn about pushing them through even though you're already up to your ears in work. Don't be that boss. And if you have a boss that's doing this, you might try showing them data about why you don't think their idea is the best way forward and either sharing an alternative or showing them why it would be best to wait on this one.

My team used to tell me to put my ideas in the imaginary idea jar that we had, which was a good idea. We laughed about it, but it definitely helped me put some things on hold that I was excited about, but were absolutely not the right thing to do at that time. So that's something I wish I would have done differently as a manager—listened more, gotten more curious.

(04:30) I Wish I’d Modeled Healthy Workplace Habits

The second thing I wish I would have done differently as a manager is model healthy workplace habits.

We've said it on here so many times, and I will say it again: it doesn't matter what you tell your team. If you're modeling unhealthy work habits, they will think that they must do the same.

So even if you tell them, I don't want you working after your work hours, I don't want you to work on weekends, please don't check your email or respond to anything when it's not work time—if you're doing that and you're the boss, it will start to look like that's the way to succeed.

And yes, it used to be the way to succeed, but we're over that hustle culture now, right? Right. So if you email your team after or before work hours, you're showing them that's what you need to do. Especially if you and all the other leaders do this, then you're showing that this is what a leadership role brings with it, right?

So that is something I find so typical in companies and organizations. The leadership team has a lot of work to do. And there's this notion that, well, you're getting paid more, so you should work more. And I want us to start deconstructing that. Because it's not necessarily that you're being paid more to do more. In fact, it shouldn't be that you're being paid more to do more.

It's that you're being paid more because of your expertise, and you can help to organize the team and the projects and the strategy in ways that will be most successful. It doesn't mean you have to work more hours. And I'm so tired of hearing that. And we hear it all the time. And I've certainly felt that way before.

So you're like, I told my team not to work on the weekends. But then you come in on the Saturday and get caught up. And they know that you did that. What message are you sending them?

So please be the one to lead healthy habits. And a quick side note on this: one of the healthiest habits that you can have as a leader is learning how to say no. And if you have a hard time saying no, which is a painful, painful truth for me, then you're showing your team that you can't stand up for yourself and that they have to say yes to everything.

And that they don't have boundaries either or can't have boundaries either. Or if they have boundaries, you're going to look at them askance, right? So model healthy habits.

(06:48) I Wish I’d Had Crystal Clear Work Plans and Reviews

And the third thing I wish I would have done differently as a manager: had crystal clear work plans tied to crystal clear annual reviews.

I have worked in places where on a one-to-four scale, like rating your employees' progress in the year between one, not good, and four, very outstanding, we were actually told not to give anyone a four because then there's nothing for people to work for. So if you really advocated for it, you could give someone a four, but it was honestly what was expected—not to give anyone a four. And that's so arbitrary when you think about it.

And if you can do that, then you're not stating and using clear metrics to assess performance. This truly leaves a manager's assessment open to their own personal biases. And we see those come out in workplaces like this.

And I know more of you have experienced this than not. The people who are often more likely to get those elusive fours are the ones that worked extra hours, the ones that did a huge project outside of the scope of their job responsibilities and didn't get a raise for it, but instead got a four on their review.

It is a great example of how we significantly advantage employees that participate in hustle culture and take on more than others, usually to their or their team's slide into burnout as the result.

For example, if I'm an employee who works my hours, turns in the work that's expected of me and meets my metrics, I would probably get a three in this scenario. Whereas the person who works extra hours and gets a lot of extra work done would be a potential four.

Now stop and think about that. You're telling the person who did exactly what they were hired to do and did it exactly to the standards that they were asked to do it to and got the results that they were told to get, that there are actually secret extra ways of assessing performance that aren't talked about openly. You're just supposed to pick up what people are putting down, like, oh yeah, well, I got a four because I worked those extra hours or whatever it is.

Now, I want you to imagine that the person who got the three is, I don't know, let's say a working mom with aging parents and school-aged kids still doing 70 percent of the household burden, like a lot of women are, whether they work or not. Whether they work out of the home or work in the home.

So that person who got the three and met all the metrics but didn't work all the extra time doesn't actually have the bandwidth to do that extra work. And she is trying to preserve her sanity and not burn out by setting boundaries and not doing after-hours work.

But in this scenario, we're significantly disadvantaging her and advantaging the person who has the extra time because they have more help at home or aren't parents or whatever it is that somebody might make room for that extra work.

So a better option is to have an annual work plan that shows exactly what the team member is responsible for and what their metrics are. That's it. I mean, it seems so simple, yet many of us don't do it.

Throughout my career, my metric was "engage alumni." That's too broad. It's absolutely what I'm here to do. But how many and at what level and what growth should I aim for and how should I engage them and who might I focus on? Those are the metrics that would help me understand if I was moving in the right direction and my team was moving in the right direction.

So crystal clear metrics and crystal clear responsibilities make all the difference in the world.

There's also potentially maybe there's a template for an annual work plan, but no one checks to see if you've done it or not. And so it's one of those things that just slides off your to-do list because you have too much to do.

So friends, there's another option and it is great. It is about being very clear what each person will be working on each year and how they will be assessed. Full stop. That's it.

I know that's easier said than done, but once you have the system set up, you can run like clockwork. Clear overarching goals, clear annual work plans co-developed with your team members that show exactly what's expected of them in a year. Clear metrics so you both can know how things are going. Quarterly review meetings so you can check in at least three times before the annual review—so nobody is surprised at their review.

And maybe like me, you've experienced reviews that ask about things like the employee's commitment to mission or willingness to go above and beyond. And friends, this is where we start to go wrong.

Once you realize that a job, any job—whether you work for a nonprofit, whether you work for a hospital, whether you work for T-Mobile—is a transaction. Once you realize that, it all gets a lot easier.

And I'm not saying that to be callous. I know a lot of people, especially in the public nonprofit sector, will hear that and say, no, I'm in this for the mission. It's awesome that you care about your work, or the people you're serving, or the product you're selling. I'm not saying don't care. But I am saying recognize that working for someone is a transaction between you and the employer.

The requirement is that you do the job you were hired to do to the set expectations that were given to you and you will get paid for doing it. The end, full stop. That's the transaction.

It shouldn't be a requirement that you have a commitment to the mission because that's not part of the transaction. And this is going to feel like sacrilege for some of you and definitely some people I know in the world.

And yes, in the nonprofit and public sectors, we get paid a lot less than folks in the private sector. And so you have to be in it a little for the joy you get from doing it.

And if you're in the medical profession or first responders, you're risking your life. You're working absolutely bananas hours. You're seeing really hard things every day. Of course you care about those things or you wouldn't do the job.

So again, I'm not saying you don't care, but I'm saying that you shouldn't be measured on how much you care. You should be measured on whether you're doing the work. And that's it.

(17:58) Wrapping Up

So there you have it. Three things I wish I'd done differently when I was managing teams and some ideas for how you can not be like me and do better. Because I certainly have the rearview mirror here and I have hindsight.

I want you to know what I've learned this year doing this amazing podcast from all of the experts that have been on here, from all of the research I've been doing and from thinking about the ways that the workplaces I have been involved in worked and didn't work and what might make them better.

Making the choice that creates a more people-centric work culture that is not rewarding hustle or belief in the mission and ending in burnout and massive retention issues—it's not the easy path, right? It's so much easier to do what we've always done, to hope your team will figure it out and be self-starters and not need much guidance because you have way too much to do. But that is lazy leadership.

Until we stop doing so many things and start doing the things that really matter, we're gonna live in the state of constant overwhelm and your people are going to leave. And that's gonna cost a lot of money.

So I know you can do it. You can listen more, you can model healthy work habits and you can create these crystal clear job expectations and annual review processes. All of this does require us to slow down, but in slowing down, we will get stronger and ultimately better.

So that's it for this episode. I hope it was helpful for all of you. If you're enjoying the show, please follow or subscribe, rate, review, share with friends. All of these things help the podcast get seen and heard by more people.

If you have any feelings about this episode, please put them in the comments, comment on my LinkedIn, send me an email at ellen@ewbcoaching.com. I love to have the conversations because I'm still learning too. I'm unlearning and I'm learning at the same time.

So I would love to hear if you have thoughts on anything I talked about today. Take care. I hope you have a wonderful day and thanks for listening.