Your Team Isn’t Listening To You. They’re Watching You.
Is your "experience" actually creating rigidity? In her first solo episode of Season 2, Ellen Whitlock Baker dives deep into the essential leadership skill of modeling. While many leaders espouse the importance of work-life balance and behavioral health, Ellen challenges us to look in the mirror: Are you actually living the values you’re teaching, or are you a "do as I say, not as I do" leader?
Drawing on insights from past guests like Kira Mauseth, Trystan Reese, and Britt Frank, Ellen breaks down why the "old school" management books from 20 years ago don’t cut it in today’s reality—especially when it comes to managing Gen Z and rejecting toxic, "always-on" work cultures.
The Hidden Cost of After-Hours Communication: Why sending that "quick" 2:00 AM email ruins your team's ability to disconnect, and how to use delayed send or notes apps to protect your boundaries.
The Science of the Nervous System: How true out-of-office time (no lurking on Slack!) is clinically necessary to move from "fight or flight" into a restorative parasympathetic state.
The "Meeting Overload" Trap: Why a schedule with no breathing room makes you unavailable to your team and leads to systemic burnout.
Micro Yeses for Leaders: Using Britt Frank’s philosophy to reclaim your calendar one hour at a time—without the world falling apart.
This episode offers you the ability to find one tiny, actionable thing you can do tomorrow to make your workplace healthier for everyone.
Tags: Leadership Development, Empathetic Leadership, Modern Management, Servant Leadership, Executive Coaching, Healthy Workplace, Toxic Productivity, Burnout Prevention, Work-Life Balance , Behavioral Health , Modeling Behavior , Micro Yeses , Time Management , Reducing Meetings , Out of Office Best Practices , Gen Z in the Workplace , Managing Younger Generations , Kira Mauseth , Trystan Reese , Britt Frank
Transcript:
Ellen Whitlock Baker (00:00)
Hi everyone and welcome back to my first solo episode of Hard at Work season two. Thanks for your patience as I dealt with a very randomly frozen vocal cord that has since gone away, but it made it hard to talk and likely hard for y'all to listen to me. So I decided maybe I wouldn't record as many solo episodes during that time. And I've also just been so lucky to have amazing guests this season that I haven't wanted to hold them back from you. And there are lots more where that came from coming down the pike. I have a ton of interviews already recorded and ready to go.
I'm experimenting with a little bit of a different format of shorter episodes. So I'm looking at 30 to 40 minutes for the interview episodes. Would love to hear from you if you love that, if you hate it, if you like the full hour unedited, that is cool too. I'm thinking about lots of different ways to make all of that happen, but it seems like folks are more interested in that shorter burst of content right now.
So speaking of which, that's what today will be, which typically my solo episodes are a little shorter. So today I wanted to talk about leadership, which is funny to say because that's pretty much what I talk about all the time. But I've been thinking a lot about leadership lately and what kind of skills leaders need right now in this current reality, because things are very different for us than they were even a year ago.
I mean, there's just so much happening that our management books didn't teach us about or situations at work that actually can't be solved the same way we've been solving that situation for years. Not to mention that your management books from 10, 20 years ago were probably all written by a relatively homogeneous group of people. And there are so many other people who are writing and learning and thinking and teaching that we need to be learning from and listening to. it's just really a time where we can dig in and start making really good changes to the work that we do as leaders. And I want those of you who are leaders, who are listening to this, to think about that.
I hope after today's episode you can walk away with one tiny thing that you can do tomorrow that might help make the workplace healthier for everyone because it's time for us to start leaning into that. And now I'm not saying that time in the leadership seat doesn't matter. It does, right? Like you've lived through a lot. The longer you've done it, certain things get easier with time.
But sometimes I think that our experience creates this rigidity that is making it hard for us to be the leaders that are needed right now. There's this sort of stubbornness I see. And I felt it myself too. So know that I understand. I've totally been on that end of it saying, know, “look, I've been here a long time. I've been around the block. I know what I'm doing. So just listen to me, right?”
And I see this often when talking to fellow Gen X, elder millennials, boomers about managing younger colleagues. There's this very pervasive eye roll that I see when we talk about managing Gen Z. Like I was doing a workshop a bit ago and sharing a quote about how the workplace is a really hard place right now. And some data about how nonprofits in particular are pushing employees to a breaking point.
And someone said: “don't let my younger team members see that quote. They already think they have too much work to do.” And everybody chuckled. And I've just really been sitting with that.
Like I've been thinking a lot about why we don't think that it's okay for younger employees in particular to question things about the workplace that maybe aren't working. You know, it's like we're sort of making fun of them for pushing back or saying that they're lazy or they don't know how to work hard or that they're too in their emotions.
But what they're actually doing is rejecting this model that we grew up with that is actually super unhealthy. Right? Remember when no one took sick time unless they were like in the hospital? Like we used to all come in while sick pre-COVID. And where working during your time off got you this like gold star and you were supposed to come in early and stay late to show that you cared. That's what I grew up with in the workplace.
But what did that get all of us? It got us burnout. It got us chronic illnesses. And it got us heartbreak when inevitably we were betrayed by the institutions that we'd given our souls to by a layoff or even a firing or not getting that raise that we'd been promised or all of those things that we expected in return but didn't necessarily get.
So we know that some or even quite a few of the ways that we learned how to do things in the past are actually pretty toxic. So why do we push back on efforts to change or question those things?
I mean, I can only think that perhaps the people who don't want to make change are the people who are the most advantaged by the way the current system is set up.
So all this got me thinking about what kind of skills we need for our leaders of today. And in my next few solo episodes, I'll be exploring that, starting with today, where I wanted to talk about a skill that is absolutely essential for leaders to cultivate right now, which is modeling. Now, not like runway kind of modeling, although if anyone else has watched the America's Next Top Model documentary on Netflix, woo, talk about a toxic workplace.
No, I'm talking about modeling as in you model the behaviors you want to see in your team. Think about it. Have you told your team that you don't want them to work after hours or on weekends? Like, hey, take care of yourselves. I don't want you to do that. You just work when you're here. That's amazing. Good on you. Good for you. Super amazing step. Do you work after hours or on weekends? If you do,
then your team is still going to do it because they see you do it and that is a very confusing message. As Kira Mauseth taught us all the way back in episode seven, your team will model what you show them.
Kira Mauseth (06:54)
“People don't do what they're told. They do what they're shown. So what you model as a leader, like if you're serious about behavioral health, you have to also not send emails at two o'clock in the morning or at least play like a delayed send on your email if you're working at two, right? You got to represent in your behavior the priorities that you are espousing to uphold.”
Ellen Whitlock Baker (07:13)
So pretty smart, that Kira. And I've been thinking a lot about what Tristan Reese said in a recent episode about how important modeling is, particularly in spaces where you might typically be defensive. When we were talking about how managers could support their teams from a braver and more human place, he said,
Trystan Reese (07:40)
“What I do and what I teach people I'm coaching to do is I model a self critique. So I would say, Ellen, it's great that you didn't see that I could do anything differently. I did notice though, that I stepped on your toes a little bit in the middle of your presentation to the all staff. I shouldn't have done that. I don't mean to undermine your expertise and productivity and all of that. Like that won't happen again. So I'm modeling self critique. I'm modeling, see how easy it would be.”
Ellen Whitlock Baker (08:06)
So easy, right?
If you could rate yourself on modeling healthy behavior at work, what grade would you give yourself? Be honest.
I'm gonna go through some common scenarios here, but before I do, I want you to know that I do not want you to be mean to yourself or feel shame if you're someone who might be a do as I say, not as I do leader. This doesn't make you a bad leader. This makes you a leader who learned about how to lead in a very specific way that doesn't really apply in the workplace of today. You're not bad. If you found this podcast,
My guess is you're trying your damn best to be an empathetic leader and create a healthier workplace. So if you resonate with any of these, I encourage you to not feel called out and feel shame, which can cause you to shut down and then no one wins, but use it as a time to practice unlearning some norms that aren't serving you or your team anymore. We have totally got this, my friends.
So let's get into some examples of how you might be modeling a way of working that is antithetical to the workplace you're trying to build and what you can do about it. First, are you sending emails or messages to coworkers after working hours? As I talked about with Kira in episode seven,
Even if you have told your team that they aren't obligated to answer after hours, if they see you doing it, they will feel like they need to do the same to keep up with you. I guarantee you this is true. So what can you do instead? Well, the easy answer is don't send emails or messages after work. Keep a notebook or use the notes app in your phone. And every time you think of something outside of work hours that you want to tell someone, write it down.
Or if you absolutely feel like you must email after hours because that's the only time you have to get to your inbox, which is another issue, but we'll talk about that later. Use the time to delete and file messages, not actually respond. You can probably clear out a lot of clutter in your inbox without even answering a single message.
it's a good way to maybe alleviate some of the stress on your mind if you've had a particularly busy week, but without signaling to your team that you're working late at night or on weekends. Or last resort, and I say this because it's kind of cheating, schedule any emails that you write at night or on weekends or in the early mornings to send during working hours, whatever those look like for you and your team.
I don't love this also because A, if your reports get five emails from you at 8 a.m., they know what you're doing, so it sort of defeats the purpose. And B, it's not actually helping your stress level, which is the point. But if it must be done, that's a way to do it where you're still modeling overall the behavior you're hoping to see from your team.
Next example of how you might be modeling something different than what you want to see in your team. Out of office time. So when you go out of office for vacation or sick leave, do you completely shut down communications or do you pop in for a few email answers or texts? You completely power off your work phone, silence your messages, go dark, right? Excellent. That's the right answer. wait, I'm sorry, what? You don't?
Congratulations, you're normal. And also we can do better. Tech.co's latest workplace report shows that a whopping 83 % of senior leaders feel, at least somewhat obligated to respond to work queries while they're on vacation. Yikes, right? Like, let's break this down a bit.
First, if you're so busy that you can't disconnect for a vacation or sick leave or God forbid, bereavement leave or whatever out of office leave you're taking, if you're so busy you can't disconnect, we have a problem. And a lot of us are too busy. That's why the burnout and disengagement and retention rates are so dire right now. We have more to do in any given day than is actually achievable. Taking away something like time off,
that helps you reset your nervous system is helping absolutely no one. Vacations or any uninterrupted time away from work clinically reset your nervous system. They take you out of the sympathetic fight, flight, freeze, fawn, high cortisol mode to the parasympathetic mode, which is calming, bringing you back down to stasis of your nervous system.
And we all know this is necessary for your health. So don't mess it up. Don't be available. It's no good for you. And if you are not reset in some way after your time off, you are no good for your team and for your company. So it's not a winning game.
Let's walk through some common reasons that you think you can't be unavailable. Here's the one I hear all the time and used to say, but what if my team needs me? Babe, if your team can't function without you for a week or two or three, something else is wrong. You need to realize that. And I say that with humility because I have been there.
We have a lot of examples that show us that we need to be there for our team. We've heard about servant leadership. We've lived through bosses who micromanaged or needed to sign up on everything. That is unhealthy. Set your team up for success by giving them a proxy if they need help during your vacation. A peer who you trust to help them make the best decisions. And then do the same for that peer when they go on vacation.
Most importantly, build a team that doesn't feel like they have to check every little step with you because that is not healthy in general, my friend.
Here's another reason why people think they can't be unavailable. But what if my boss or the leaders need me? What if something important comes up? I have spent many a vacation checking in, answering emails and phone calls memorably one time at 3 a.m. in a San Francisco hotel room on the bathroom floor so I wouldn't wake up my husband. I still remember how cold the marble of that bathroom floor was on my pajama bottoms as I furiously answered emails from my boss that they were sending at 3 AM so I could show that even though I was on vacation, I was still paying attention.
I just want to take that version of Ellen and hug her, take the laptop away from her, and dropkick it out the window, right? My team didn't need me. My boss didn't need me as much as it might have pleased them that I responded while on vacation. All it did was signal that I was always available. Later that year, I went on a two-week vacation out of the country and turned my phone off for the whole time. It took about three days of feeling anxious that I was missing something, but then I relaxed into it and I'm so glad I didn't spend that memorable vacation checking in on work stuff.
Here's the last habit to break for this episode anyway. You don't want your team to be completely over-scheduled. You tell them, hey, save some time to do the work. You don't have to be, I don't want you to be in meetings all day, et cetera. But you yourself are in meetings morning till night. first of all,
Having a schedule with no breathing room is good for absolutely no one. It isn't even good for your boss or the company because it leads to you being very unavailable plus burnout. No one, it's good for no one. And I certainly know how it feels. I had those stacked schedules. I remember during the pandemic having eight hours of Zoom meetings in a row and I'd emerge from my home office bleary eyed and cranky with nothing left to give.
Not to mention no time to do all the work that came out of those meetings. And trust me, your team sees it. First of all, they're gonna be frustrated if they have no access to you. I hear it from people I'm working with all the time. I'd love to talk to my boss about X, Y, Z, but I can't even get on their calendar and I don't wanna bother them after hours. So there's that. But if you're busy all the time in meetings, they're going to feel like something's wrong if they're not busy all the time in meetings. But no one should be busy all the time in meetings. It's so ridiculous. Now, there's a lot of different rules of thumb out there about what an ideal number of meetings is for a workplace. And I know it can vary depending upon what you do. a good place to start is aim for 10 % of your week being meetings.
And I know that might feel totally out of the picture. And it's a whole other podcast on how to reduce the number of meetings you have. There's a lot of really great tips out there for how to do it, so maybe I'll make one on that soon. But if you're at the six to eight hours of meeting per day place, which unfortunately a lot of us are, you're not gonna be able to get to 4 hours a week right away.
So can you do something small to try out a slight reduction in the number of meetings you have per week? Let's remember what podcast guest, Britt Frank, told us about micro yeses in episode 28.
Britt Frank (17:18)
“I use a tool I call micro yeses. And so a micro yes is not a baby step. It's not even a small step. It's take the most ridiculously tiny step you can think of. Now cut it into 10 more pieces. So a micro yes for a fitness goal is not, is not take a walk after work. Cause you're not doing it. So clearly that's not swell enough. A micro yes for a fitness goal is today, throw your left shoe by the front door. Done. Nailed it. Like that's it. And it sounds so stupid. And I but here's what happens. It's a step that's so stupid. Your brain's not gonna register that anything is happening or changing. Your brain is gonna be like, threw a shoe by the door. That's no big deal. But then tomorrow you can throw two shoes by the door. And then the next day you can put one on.”
Ellen Whitlock Baker (18:06)
So using Britt's micro yes philosophy, maybe you cancel one meeting this week. Comb through your schedule, Monday morning, comb through your schedule or whatever your first day of the week is. What isn't totally necessary? What could you handle with an email instead or a recorded message? Which again, we can get into in another episode, but I learned about how to do loom recordings after I started this company and it is a game changer and I really wish that I'd known about it when I was in the workplace. And if you don't know what that is, it's basically you can record a video message and record your screen while you're doing it to teach someone how to do something to go through a document with someone, to just ask some questions, all of these things that we often try to accomplish in a meeting, which takes way more time. I'll put some links in the show notes to what I'm talking about there, but there are other ways to handle sharing information besides a meeting. Looking at your calendar, what meetings are scheduled for projects that you really have no business starting yet?
I know you've got an hour, give it back to yourself and then do not, do not reschedule another meeting over that hour. Keep it blocked on your calendar. If that works, if the world doesn't fall apart because you took one hour off of your meeting schedule, try to take another one off next week. If you're overloaded with meetings, your team will feel like it's okay for them to be as well and or feel like they should be overloaded with meetings.
And that's bad for everyone. So to recap, three good habits to model as a leader are, one, keep your work during work hours, two, when you're out of office, or on leave of any kind, let your team know that you won't be available and stay offline. Set them up with a proxy for emergencies. Three, try to reduce the number of meetings you're in every day.
Show your team that taking time for deep work is something you do as well as something you encourage them to do. In sum, that old adage, do as I say, not as I do, is old news and honestly was terrible advice in the first place. Taking care of yourself is necessary in order to take care of your team. Model these behaviors at work and you'll help to create a team that knows how to protect its time to be more effective, efficient, and healthier.
Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Hard at Work. I hope you enjoyed it. As always, it would mean so much to me if you'd subscribe, rate, comment on, review, or share this or any episode of Hard at Work. It really helps more people see the show. Take care of yourselves and I'll see you next time.
