Show Notes
If you left tomorrow, who on your team would actually want your seat?
In most rooms I stand in front of, when I ask people who wants to lead someday — nobody moves. And when I ask why not, the answers are never about ability. They're about cost. "I've seen what it does to my boss." "More headache, barely more money." "I like my life."
Your team has been watching the job for years. And somewhere along the way, you wrote the job description without meaning to.
In this episode I break down The Open Seat — three moves to change what leadership looks like from where your team is standing:
Audit the Ad — what you say out loud about your own job IS your recruiting pitch Show the Other Half — narrate the invisible wins they never get to see Ask Somebody By Name — the exact sentence, and why most people are just waiting to be asked
Plus how this runs through the LEAD Framework — Listen, Envision, Align, Drive.
More from Leaders Leading Leaders
How many people report to you right now? And how many of them did you have a real conversation with last week? Not a hallway hello. Not a status update. A real conversation, about them. If that second number is a lot smaller than the first, you are not a bad manager. Your team got bigger, and nobody gave you more hours.
Two people on your team can't stand each other, and everybody knows it. The short answers in the meeting. The eye roll. The long way around the office. And you are hoping it blows over. It won't. And while you wait, the rest of your team is paying for it.
There is a meeting on your calendar for nine o'clock tomorrow morning. Fifteen minutes. You have already talked to HR, the paperwork is done, and you have been rehearsing the first sentence all night. This is the first time you have to fire someone, and nobody ever showed you how.
You just got put in charge of somebody who has been doing this job longer than you have. Maybe a lot longer. So you rehearse answers in the car, you jump in first in meetings, and you try to sound like you know more than they do. They can tell. Everybody can tell.
You got promoted, and the people you are leading now are the same people you used to grab lunch with, complain about the boss with, and text on the weekends. The group text got quiet. Somebody looked at you a little different halfway through a joke. And you are wondering whether you are still one of them, or the boss now. You are both. That is the hard part.