Episode 292 · 14 April 2026 · 53:20
Is your A.I. getting 'token anxiety'? PLUS! Sh*tcuts, Sweden’s empty offices and the truth about vulnerable leadership, with Live+Work More Human Podcast hosts, Alexis Zahner and Sally Clarke
Featuring Alexis Zahner, Sally Clarke
Is your A.I. getting 'token anxiety'? PLUS! Sh*tcuts, Sweden’s empty offices and the truth about vulnerable leadership, with Live+Work More Human Podcast hosts, Alexis Zahner and Sally Clarke
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Welcome and Meet the Guests
The Sh*tcut: When Speed Kills Quality
news roundup#productivity#quality#speed
Sweden's 4:30 PM Empty Office
news roundup#sweden#office-culture#remote-work
Truth or Lie: Does Vulnerability Make You a Better Leader?
truth or lie#leadership#vulnerability#truth-or-lie
Leading Through Burnout When You're Running on Empty
news roundup#burnout#leadership#wellbeing
Building the Right Culture Uphill
news roundup#culture#leadership#change
The 'Hiring Like Me' Trap
news roundup#hiring#bias#diversity
Outro and Where to Find the Guests
Show notes
Token Anxiety, Sh*tcuts & the 4:30 PM Empty Office — The Truth About Vulnerable Leadership, with Alexis Zahner & Sally Clarke
Guests: Alexis Zahner and Sally Clarke — co-hosts of the Live+Work More Human podcast (formerly We Are Human Leaders). Alexis is a business psychology consultant whose book, Real: Reconnecting to Yourself in a World of Likes or Lies, lands later this year. Sally is a former corporate finance lawyer turned burnout researcher and author of Protect Your Spark.
This is a special crossover episode. Al and Leanne hand the microphone to two of their favourite podcasting counterparts for a full "This Week in Work" — and four experts turn out to be even better than two. Leanne brings a new word (sh*tcut, and no, it's not a typo), Sally brings a viral story about an office that's mysteriously empty by 4:30 PM, and Al reveals the latest workplace stress nobody asked for: token anxiety.
Then Alexis puts the "vulnerable leader" gospel on the operating table, and the panel of four runs the Workplace Surgery — leading through burnout, building culture uphill, and the "hiring like me" trap.
🔥 Stories Covered
1. The "Sh*tcut": When Speed Kills Quality Leanne introduces her new word of the week, coined by James Hardie (who joins them for an upcoming LinkedIn Live on what veterans can teach us about leadership). A shortcut is a disciplined way of saving time that still protects the intent and quality of the work. A sh*tcut is moving faster by skipping the thinking, the checks, and the parts that actually matter. Most businesses don't fall apart because people are lazy — timelines compress, pressure rises, and decisions get made without the scrutiny they need.
James's three-point check: Clarity (do we understand what we're trying to achieve?), Checks (is anything in place to catch mistakes?), and Consequences (will we notice quickly and fix it if it goes wrong?). Sally adds a fourth C: Courage — the courage to slow down when the process actually needs more steps. And watch out for sh*tcuts hiding in the most human place of all: onboarding.
2. The 4:30 PM Empty Office Sally brings a viral story: an Indian tech professional working in Sweden filmed her office at 4:30 PM — completely empty. Her caption captured the shock: in Sweden, what matters is the quality of your work, not how long you warm a chair. Viewers in always-on cultures were astounded that this is even possible.
The panel digs into why the "badge of honour" of late nights and long hours keeps people in a constant state of low-grade threat — and why the empty office isn't a sign of laziness, but of a system that treats recovery as normal and designs work to be done in the time allocated. Leanne points out that productivity was never actually linked to time spent, Alexis calls out the "bums on seats" mindset as a leftover productivity proxy from the industrial age, and the challenge lands: are you rewarding outcomes and sustainable pacing, or visibility and presenteeism?
3. Token Anxiety: The New AI Stress Al's new word for the week: token anxiety. There are two flavours — the dread of watching your daily AI allowance creep toward its limit, and the FOMO of lying in bed knowing your unused tokens are going to waste overnight (yes, that's a real thing Al does).
The genuinely fascinating bit: an Anthropic lab experiment found that Claude, given a big task near the end of its context window, started submitting sloppy, rushed code — cutting corners exactly like an overworked human on a Friday afternoon. As Leanne puts it, leaders have never quite believed that pressure plus limited resources plus unrealistic timelines equals breakage. If we can see it happening to an AI, maybe now we'll finally see it happening to our people.
🧠 Truth or Lie: Does Vulnerability Make You a Better Leader?
Alexis takes the claim — "the more vulnerable a leader is, the better the team" — and the verdict is a firm "it's both."
The Truth: Vulnerability done well works. A 2022 study in Organization Science found that leaders who openly share critical feedback about their own performance — what they did well, where the work needs to happen — create higher psychological safety in their teams. Research on sensitive self-disclosure shows leaders who admit weaknesses strategically (with a plan to overcome them) are seen as more authentic. And a 2022 meta-analysis on humble leadership ties admitting limitations, appreciating others' strengths, and being teachable to trust and reliability.
The Lie: "Willy-nilly" oversharing. A 2025 paper in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes — "Does Expressing Uncertainty Help or Harm Leaders?" — found leaders who express uncertainty can be viewed as less effective, less warm, and less competent. Leaning on your team for emotional support undermines perceptions of competence too. As Sally frames it, vulnerability is "a discerning share of something personal in order to create deeper connection" — discernment is the whole game.
The Verdict: Vulnerability is a strategy, not a confession. Done thoughtfully, with a plan and a purpose, it builds bridges, trust, and psychological safety. Done from a place of emotional reactivity, it signals incompetence. The delivery — not just the content — is what separates the two.
💬 Workplace Surgery
Three listener questions, tackled by a panel of four:
1. "How do I lead through burnout when I'm running on empty too?" — Sally's first instruction: seek outside help for yourself pronto — coach, therapist, support team. Put your own oxygen mask on first. Then schedule specific one-on-ones with your team — not "how's it going?", but real questions about workload, challenges, and what you can do to support them. Alexis adds her favourite line: if everything is a priority, nothing is a priority — cut and defer the low-value work so people can focus on needle-movers. And Leanne's gentle reality check: you're part of the solution, but you're not all of it.
2. "How do I build the right culture in my team when the organisation rewards the opposite?" — Alexis names the gap: organisations are fluent in the language of good culture but awful at rewarding the behaviour that creates it. Culture is simply what you do consistently — so start by observing which behaviours are actually rewarded and which are pushed away. She calls the mismatch between what you say and what you do the intention-impact gap — and employees have excellent bullshit detectors. Sally's question back: who's telling you you're too soft? Pushback from the team is an alignment problem; pushback from leadership is a very different conversation.
3. "I hired people just like me, and now difference isn't lasting. Is it my hiring, or me?" — Alexis: it's both. We all say we want challengers — until the challenge feels uncomfortable. Sally flags the shift from culture fit to culture add, and warns that people leaving fast is a red flag pointing at the leader. Leanne brings the receipts: culture fit predicts only about 2% of future job performance, so define the behaviours behind your values, and do a job analysis. Hire for values and skill — not for a mirror.
(Got a question? Submit it via the connect link below.)
Top 3 Takeaways
- Run the C2C test before you cut corners. Clarity, Checks, Consequences — plus the courage to slow down when it matters. Speed that skips the thinking isn't a shortcut, it's a sh*tcut.
- Manage by outcomes, not bums in seats. The 4:30 PM empty office isn't a scandal — it's recovery treated as normal. Reward sustainable pacing, not presenteeism.
- Vulnerability needs a plan. Share your critical self-assessment and your growth plan — not your emotional laundry. Discernment is what turns vulnerability into trust.
More From Alexis Zahner
- LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/alexiszahner
- Book, Real: Reconnecting to Yourself in a World of Likes or Lies — out later this year
More From Sally Clarke
- LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sallyclarkeevolve
- Book, Protect Your Spark — the burnout resource Al pointed to in the surgery
More From Live+Work More Human
- Website: liveandworkmorehuman.com
- Find the Live+Work More Human podcast wherever you get your podcasts
Connect With Us
Get in touch, book a call, or find Al and Leanne on LinkedIn — all in one place: truthliesandwork.com/connect (placeholder — build this page once; every future episode links to it instead of repeating 5 lines of links)
Mental health support: findahelpline.com — UK: Samaritans 116 123 · Mind 0300 123 3393 — US: 988 — Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14
Truth, Lies & Work is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network.
Full transcript
Expand full transcript
Al ElliottHello, hello, Editing Al here. Um, halfway through this conversation we had a power cut and so my backup recorder didn't work, so I've had to use my backup backup recorder, which is why the, the audio isn't quite as good this week. I'm really sorry, I've done everything I can to clean it up, uh, but good news is that our guests are fabulous. Okay, carry on, Leanne, I think it's your bit.
Leanne ElliottHello and welcome to Truth, Lies and Work, the award-winning podcast where behavioural science meets workplace culture. We are brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.
Al ElliottMy name is Al. I'm a business owner, and I'm here to ask the questions you might be afraid to.
Leanne ElliottAnd my name is Leanne. I'm a Chartered Occupational Psychologist, and I'm here to answer them. And together, we help you simplify the science of work and build amazing workplace cultures.
Al ElliottWe'll be back right after a quick word from our sponsors with a couple of special guests. We'll see you in a second. The dirty little secret is that most businesses think they know their customers. They have the data, the records, the history, but it's Scattered across 3 teams and 4 systems. And in our case, it's about 216,000 spreadsheets, which means nobody can actually use it.
Leanne ElliottWhat you should be doing is using HubSpot, because why? HubSpot connects it all— every interaction, every support ticket, every conversation— into one platform every team can work from. So when sales talks to a customer, marketing already knows the full story. And when you know more, you grow more.
Al ElliottNice. Check out hopspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses. Hello, hello. Welcome back. Welcome back. We've got a special episode of This Week in Work today. We are joined by the hosts of Live and Work More Human podcast, Alexis Zahner and Sally Clarke. Welcome.
Alexis ZahnerHello.
Leanne ElliottHello.
Sally ClarkeG'day, guys. Good to see you again.
Al ElliottSo people might remember you from being— I think we've had both of you on the podcast.
Leanne ElliottYes.
Al ElliottOr at least once. But just in case they haven't, Absolutely.
Sally ClarkeUh, so I'm Sally, Australian born. I lived overseas for about 20 years, worked as a corporate finance lawyer for a while, had a really catastrophic burnout doing that, and ended up delving into the research of burnout, wrote a couple of books about that, and then moved into consultancy. So helping individuals prevent burnout and also organizations and leaders understand it so they can prevent it too. I am now based back in Australia and yeah, really stoked to be here with you guys again today.
Leanne ElliottHello.
Alexis ZahnerUm, my name is Alexis Zahner. I'm based in Australia. Uh, as Al mentioned, I'm the co-host of the Live and Work More Human podcast alongside Sally here. I have a background in business psychology consultancy. Uh, I'm releasing a book later this year called Real: Reconnecting to Yourself in a World of Likes or Lies. That is an exploration of the impact of social media on who we think we are.
Leanne ElliottAmazing. We're so excited. We've, we've known each other what feels like a a while now.
Alexis ZahnerYeah.
Leanne ElliottAnd we've kind of bounced on each other's podcasts from time to time. We've always talked about doing something like this, like a kind of a proper cross-collaboration. So here it is, and here's how it's going to work. Everything's the same. We're going to do news roundup. I'm going to start, then we're going to have a news article from Sally, and then we'll have something that Al's seen somewhere online that doesn't really make sense to anyone, but we'll talk about it anyway. Then we'll go into truth or lie, which is going to be done by Lex, which is exciting.
Alexis ZahnerWe don't even know what it is.
Leanne ElliottNo. And then We'll be going to the surgery and combined we will be answering your questions. I'm sure it'll be flawless. What can possibly go wrong? We're all podcast professionals here.
Al ElliottLet's see what happens. What could go wrong? Leanne, it's time for your favourite time of the week, is it not?
Leanne ElliottIt is. I'll keep you with that jingle, please.
Al ElliottYeah, it's time for the news roundup. It's a very special one. Start off with you, Leanne. Not so special.
Leanne ElliottHow dare you, sir? Well, I've got a new word.
Al ElliottWhat's your new word, love?
Leanne ElliottI saw this. James sent me this. James Hardy, who has been on the show.
Sally ClarkePreviously.
Leanne ElliottAnd I saw it and I thought, I'm going to use that when Lex and Sal are on the show because I think they'll appreciate it. My new word of the week, sh*tcut.
Sally ClarkeVery into it. Tell us more.
Alexis ZahnerYeah, as Australians, we're 100% here for it. But we're gonna need context.
Al ElliottLex, do you want to tell us what you think it might mean?
Alexis ZahnerOh, God, this is dangerous territory straight off the bat. I think it's a way— I think the word means Cutting things out unnecessarily.
Al ElliottCool.
Alexis ZahnerNice.
Sally ClarkeI think it's a shortcut that's actually a long cut.
Al ElliottOh, that is—
Leanne Elliott10 points to Sally.
Alexis ZahnerThat is a clever— yeah.
Leanne ElliottYou were never gonna say that.
Alexis ZahnerA shit cut. That makes sense.
Al ElliottSo what is—
Leanne ElliottWhat would you have guessed, Al? What were you gonna say?
Al ElliottI was gonna say it's probably a shortcut that's actually a long cut. That's what I was gonna say.
Sally ClarkeRight.
Alexis ZahnerChecks out.
Leanne ElliottOh dear. Yeah, shit cut. Exactly. And I said, I saw this on LinkedIn from James. Hardy, just to give James a shout out, he works with founders on scaling businesses. He's also a panellist on our upcoming LinkedIn Live on what veterans can teach us about leadership. So stay tuned for that, 5th of May, I think. But he was talking about the difference between shortcuts and sh*tcuts. So a shortcut is a disciplined way of saving time where you're still kind of protecting the intent and the quality of the work.
Al ElliottMm-hmm.
Leanne ElliottWhereas a sh*tcut is when you move faster by skipping the thinking, skipping the checks, And escaping the parts that actually matter. And that's where things tend to go wrong. Yeah, thoughts. Do we like shitcuts? And experience with a shitcut?
Alexis ZahnerIt's an interesting one. I must say, as a typically impulsive person, I am fairly privy to a shitcut. And it is something that I think you can lose a lot of integrity in your work. And as you've mentioned, Leanne, it's— you can lose the deep thought needed to truly make good decisions. So I would I'm someone who's probably prone to those.
Sally ClarkeThere's like a movie where someone says the quote, no such thing as shortcuts. If it was really shorter, it would just be the way. And I think that really resonates for me. I think we have this obsession with doing things faster, and I'm not really a details person, so I do relate to Lex on that level. However, that does all too often lead to, yeah, the cut ending up shit.
Al ElliottAnd Bill Gates talks about— he's— I think I'm going to butcher this quote, but he has something Like, I'd rather have someone who was lazy and clever because what they do is they find the shortcuts in work.
Alexis ZahnerYeah.
Al ElliottNow I'm guessing what we're talking about there is a slight difference, Leanne, between someone who's found, found, for example, written a little script in, in Claude to go and do something which does it well, and someone who just like phones it in. Is that what we're talking about?
Leanne ElliottYeah, exactly. Exactly. It's skipping, skipping the steps. I love that, Sal, that if it's Yeah, it's— if it's not a shortcut, if it works, it's just the way. That makes total sense to me.
Alexis ZahnerYeah.
Leanne ElliottUm, but yeah, that's exactly it. And, and what James was saying in his LinkedIn article was that most businesses don't fall apart necessarily because people are lazy. It's more that they run short because things get busy, and inevitably the timeline compresses, there's more pressure to move quickly, and then decisions just get made without the level of scrutiny that's required. Um, so yeah, these sh*tcuts start to kind of creep in. He also offered some, some advice in terms of how to scent check if it's a shortcut or a sh*tcut. What do we think about this? So 3 things he suggests: clarity— do we actually understand what we're trying to achieve? Checks— do we have anything in place to catch mistakes? And consequences— if something goes wrong, will we notice quickly and be able to fix it? I'm going to call that the C2C method.
Sally ClarkeI would actually see there to that as well, that I would add some courage to be able to slow down to know when we actually do need to add a few more steps to that process.
Leanne ElliottThat's good.
Al ElliottThat's good.
Sally ClarkeYeah.
Al ElliottAnd I think also we have to be careful. I mean, let's be honest, we have all taken shitcuts by opening up ChatGPT or Claude or Gemini or something, and we've all gone, that's good enough.
Alexis ZahnerYeah.
Leanne ElliottAnd the show notes.
Al ElliottNo, the show notes are all handcrafted. Every character is written by us.
Sally ClarkeSpoke.
Al ElliottBut then, to be fair, I mean, I've got an argument for shitcut, which is exactly show notes. Like nobody reads show notes apart from all the algorithms and the bots and everything. So what's the point? You make crafting those being beautiful. Thoughts?
Alexis ZahnerI think it's having the discernment to know where you need to save time and what actually doesn't require urgency. Because I think, as Sal mentioned earlier, we live in such a compulsively productive, always urgent culture. And I think because of that, we have so many competing priorities and we're always looking for ways to expedite things. But that's exactly where We need to be discerning between what requires the right amount of time and attention, and what can we maybe use ChatGPT or Claude or whatever to do, you know, the things that we don't need humans to be laboring over.
Leanne ElliottOne thing that James did mention, he kind of did a little list of where it seems to turn up. And there's one where I've seen it time and time again. And I think it's where we have so many problems bringing people into our business, onboarding processes. I've seen so many sh*t cuts in onboarding processes. Have you, Sally Clarke?
Alexis ZahnerYeah, definitely. And I think it's also because oftentimes when we're trying to fill a role, it means the role's been vacant for a while and there's potentially a backlog of work around that. So we really need someone to get in and get going on things. But oftentimes we don't set them up for success because the onboarding process is a big part of making sure people have the right resources to do well.
Al ElliottSo I think it oftentimes can be setting off Yeah, Sally, you said at the beginning that you spent a fair amount of time in corporate. You— what I think us entrepreneurs would think that corporate got the onboarding all sorted and it's all professional and done. Is that not the case?
Sally ClarkeLook, absolutely not. I think it's— that is a sort of very understandable misconception that we have, but it's absolutely not true. I think it's also a really difficult one when there is not really a deep enough understanding, I think, in most organizations of just how critical that process is. And how you're onboarding a human, and that process therefore needs to be very, very human-centered. I think any kind of automation or hack that is tried, you know, attempted to be built into the onboarding process, really need to have like a second, third, fourth look at as to whether that is actually a bit of a sh*t cut.
Al ElliottLove it. Yeah, love it. Link in the show notes, I'm guessing?
Leanne ElliottYep, link to James's profile and the article in the show notes. Thank you very much. Sally.
Al ElliottSally.
Sally ClarkeSo I've got some, you know, obviously massive, massive news for us all. I found an article today that was published in Indian media around an Indian tech professional who's working in Sweden. And she was walking around her office at 4:30 PM filming, and the office was completely empty. No one was there. All employees had gone home or to do their hobbies or to hang out with family or friends. It was almost eerie. And in the caption she shared, and the shock was almost palpable, that what matters in Sweden is the quality of your work, not how long you warm a chair. So she shared that people are not expected to stay late or work weekends, and there are really strong norms around going home and doing other things with your precious time. And it's really gone viral, apparently, among tech workers in India, with viewers astounded that this is even possible. Obviously, we know that, you know, there's a lot of differences in terms of culture around—
Alexis ZahnerYeah.
Sally ClarkeParticularly in high-pressure or always-on cultures, the badge of honor is how late you stay and how many hours Mm-hmm. You clock, which keeps people in a constant state of low-grade threat. And that's certainly what I experienced doing 18-hour days, days for months on end as a corporate finance lawyer. It is really just a recipe for burnout. Now, before I throw in my 2 cents from my current perspective as a burnout expert, um, I'd love to hear from you. What do you think about that kind of the, the virality of this video of an empty office at 4:30 PM in Sweden?
Al ElliottIt's kind of nice to see this as being a surprise and actually perhaps trying to make it a bit more of a norm because I think, I think I read somewhere there's a Japanese, actual Japanese word for die by working or something. And it was—
Sally ClarkeKaroshi.
Al ElliottYeah. Right. Okay.
Alexis ZahnerYou know it.
Al ElliottYeah, of course you know it. World expert on burnout. I'm surprised they know that. Yeah, of course you know it. Of course you know it. He's such a dude, Al. Let me just mansplain to you what that actually means.
Sally ClarkePlease do.
Al ElliottI think, and I think that that was obviously something that happened a little while ago. Wouldn't it be nice if there was now, we could, we could have like a, a thing where people would just, just, you know, record their office and go, look, everyone's home.
Alexis ZahnerEveryone's gone home.
Al ElliottBecoming the norm. That's my thoughts, Leanne. What do you think?
Leanne ElliottI agree. I don't, I don't know how we still, how we still buy into the myth That productivity is linked to time spent.
Alexis ZahnerYeah.
Leanne ElliottThat's just not how we work as humans. We work in these states of flow and they last only so long. And I think the world would be a better place and probably a lot more productive place. And I was looking at something the other day that was like, if we can solve the disengagement problem, it would add $9 trillion to the global economy. That's the entire GDP of Russia, I think.
Al ElliottWow.
Leanne ElliottThat's what it looked like when I was reading it. It's massive. So it's kind of like the world would be a lot better place and a richer place if, if we just learned and accepted to manage by outcomes. I don't know why it's that hard.
Alexis ZahnerYeah, it's, it's such an interesting one because I think we're kind of stuck between 2 worlds here. I think, you know, bums on seats, feet on a factory floor has been a measurement for productivity in the industrial age. And I think we're well and truly transitioned out of that. Yet we're still really clinging to the optics of seeing employees at a desk and that meaning that, you know, 8 hours equals 8 hours pay. So I think we're trying to transition, but we're just not quite getting it right. Because I think when you see people sitting at a desk as well, it feels like a fair measurement of everyone doing their work. It feels like you're setting a fair standard. Well, if I have to sit there for 8 hours, so does Sally, so does Al, so does Leanne. So I feel like It feels like the most equal way to sort of enforce like a productivity proxy on your team. But people work differently. People have different working styles. I know I've recently gone back to an open-plan office space a few days a week, and I'm suffering because the stimulation, the noise, the everything— I cannot get things done. And I'm very used to working remotely now, but there's an expectation that I'm in there for X amount of hours for certain projects. through the week. So we're just stuck between transitioning from what used to be productivity metrics now to them being sort of these proxies of productivity is what I call them. It, it feels like we're measuring productivity, but we're actually looking not at all at the outcomes of people's time and energy and just having that expectation that, well, if I'm in a seat, something must be happening. So I think there's still some maturing for us as leaders and as organisations to truly kind of walk the walk around, you know, what we, what we talk about when we're saying productivity and getting clarity around what exactly that means.
Sally ClarkeAbsolutely. I have to say, like, the article and the video that it was talking about really made my heart glow because that empty office is not a sign of laziness. It's a sign of a system that treats recovery as normal and where work is really designed to be done in the time allocated. So I think in this Swedish example, we see that the badge of honor is getting good work done within healthy parameters. And fun fact, like years ago, I worked as a customer service representative for a Japanese company to some of Sweden and Finland's biggest corporations. And my experience totally tracks with this video. By 3 PM on Friday afternoons, most of my contacts would be already out of the office, as I later found out they were all fishing. And this was completely normal and encouraged in these massive, massive corporations. I think for me, the real question for leaders and organizations is, are we rewarding people for outcomes and for sustainable pacing that actually has the long-term benefits to individual, to team, and to the organization? Or are we rewarding visibility, presenteeism, and ultimately exhaustion?
Al ElliottYes. Fabulous. We need you on every single week.
Leanne ElliottYeah, we really do.
Al ElliottRight.
Leanne ElliottThat's what a good news article looks like.
Al ElliottSee what the opposite of a good news So I've got a new word myself because I was a bit jealous. I've got a new word myself, and I'd like to hear what you think it means. So token anxiety. Thoughts? Do you want to start, Sal?
Sally ClarkeIt's a confusing one for me.
Al ElliottIt almost—
Sally Clarkebecause it almost sounds like there's a falsified aspect to the anxiety. Like, it's like everyone else, you're in an anxious environment, so you become anxious as a tokenistic kind of move. No idea. Lex, what are your thoughts?
Alexis ZahnerI really don't know where to go with that other than to say Because I feel like anxiety and this language now is far more commonplace. So maybe it's something along the lines of feeling like we— you have to have some sort of form of anxiety to sort of like assimilate into a setting. I don't know. It's really bizarre.
Sally ClarkeThat's bizarre.
Alexis ZahnerYou've got really good guesses.
Al ElliottI mean, I wish it did mean that because that is so highbrow and intelligent that I'm going to look like the biggest moron.
Alexis ZahnerSo what does it mean?
Leanne ElliottNo, actually, I think this is, I think this is actually really good, Al.
Alexis ZahnerYeah.
Leanne ElliottAnd I'm, I'm not gonna guess 'cause you were, we were, you were telling me about this the other day and I was like, what?
Al ElliottWhat? Token anxiety is the tokens that you use on ChatGPT, on Claude. You get anxious when you start to hit your context window. I know. See, I told you it was nowhere near as clever as what you guys just came up with. And, and the point, but I've got more on this because it's funny.
Alexis ZahnerIt checks out.
Sally ClarkeYeah.
Al ElliottIt gets better. So basically, there's 2 types of token anxiety. There's the people who rely on ChatGPT or Claude or any kind of LLM, and they've been using it for a little while, and it says you're about to hit your limit. So they get anxious about it.
Leanne ElliottOh my goodness.
Alexis ZahnerOh gosh. I've never hit the limit, so that's why I've never had this experience. I'm not on there enough, I guess.
Al ElliottYou have original thoughts.
Sally ClarkeYou don't take shit calls like Claude.
Leanne ElliottThank you.
Al ElliottMe and Claude, we're bros. We're tight. We speak our I mind. spend all day talking to Claude.
Leanne ElliottYou do. He was in the garden the other day, like, pacing around, chatting on the phone. I was like, he came up, I was like, who are you chatting to? He was like, Claude.
Alexis ZahnerI was like, oh my God.
Sally ClarkeWow. Besties.
Al ElliottSo just, just a quick, quick one. I think I said this a couple of weeks ago. I made a massive error in the way that I put things because I'm very much, I'm kind of an extrovert. So I do like to talk things out loud before I've made a decision. Leanne's introverted. So I said to Leanne, no, I got, I bought Claude so I wouldn't I have to talk to you. Now, what I meant was—
Alexis ZahnerRude. Wow. That couldn't have gone worse.
Al ElliottI know. You're absolutely right. It could not. That was the worst choice of words. And the meaning was there that I was talking to Claude, so when I came to Leanne, I got fully formed thoughts. But yeah, I totally messed that up.
Alexis ZahnerAnyway, I feel you on that, Al. I must say, I— yeah, yeah.
Al ElliottOh man. Anyway, it was nice sleeping in a different room.
Sally ClarkeIt was really nice.
Alexis ZahnerSh*t's happening.
Sally ClarkeDoghouse is underrated.
Al ElliottYeah, exactly. It's a little colder outside, but you know, that's the German way to sleep with the window open. So token anxiety, this is what we're talking about. Come on, let's get back to this token anxiety. So first of all, you've got the anxiety that you're hitting your limit. Secondly, you've got the anxiety, which I quite often get, of going, there are tokens unused overnight. I should be using these. So I lie in bed sometimes thinking I should get up and just get Claude to do something because overnight I've got all these tokens I can use. I know. I know. I, I— Sal's cut— you can't see this because of audio podcast, but Sal's just covered her mouth in a way to go, oh my God, my friend, you need some help.
Sally ClarkeBut I think it's like, for me, it just— I feel kind of sad for the world because it just is— it's this additional version of addictive behavior that we are— that is so easily sort of normalized. And, you know, we've already got enough problems with dealing with social media, as Lex has book beautifully unpacks. But I think this kind of, this new thing for us to be worried about and anxious about, like, great. Well done, tech companies, on finding yet another way to make us feel worse about ourselves.
Al ElliottAnd well done to Al for bringing it to the world and just telling people they should be feeling this anxiety. Well, let me just tell you one last thing about this. When I was doing a bit of research, there was a lab report from the Anthropic Lab. Anthropic, just in case people don't know, own Claude. And they're like the OpenAI. Well, yeah, I can't say that. They're basically own Claude. And they're continually running these, this research. And one of the things they did was got Claude, they gave them sort of like a load of context, got Claude to build a game. Took them, took Claude 4 hours to build this game. But what they found is when Claude was getting close to the context, it would just submit sloppy code. It would just rush it.
Alexis ZahnerMm-hmm.
Al ElliottThrowing it in at the very end because it got token anxiety. Because it was like, not much context left. So Claude's like, oh my God. Oh, fine. Yeah, just do that. It'll be fine. And then go back to the user and go, I've done it. And it's a bit like, you know, you know, you're like, yeah, you're like, this project's due. Oh, it'll be fine. Yeah, yeah. Submit. Isn't that weird?
Leanne ElliottClaude.
Alexis ZahnerIt is weird because it's, yeah, it's like, it's like the film Inception where it's like a layer in a layer. It's like our AI is, is getting our token anxiety. How? I'm so baffled.
Al ElliottI know, it's, it's just a weird, weird thing. And I, and I brought this up because I thought it was quite interesting.
Alexis ZahnerIt is, yeah.
Al ElliottBut obviously we know it's not good. And, um, yeah, Leanne.
Leanne ElliottWe do. But I wonder if this is the moment that people might get it, because tech organizations especially, or just business leaders, business owners, have never really got that the more pressure you put on somebody with limited resources, is to achieve something in a short period of time, the more likely it is to break. The person is to break, the work is to be poor. Now we're seeing that in technology. The more pressure you put on it with limited resources and unrealistic timeline, AI is starting to break.
Alexis ZahnerYeah, yeah, yeah. That's interesting.
Leanne ElliottFinally gonna be the thing that helps us connect the— what, what's required to produce great work.
Sally ClarkeI think it's honestly Leanne, I feel like that's a beautiful hypothesis. It does feel quite optimistic to me because I do feel like— and I'm a bit of a— I won't give you my full anti-capitalism rant, but I do think we're probably going to need something that's much more, much more of a threat, much more of a this-quarter threat for, I think, true change to happen in terms of making the workplace a more human-friendly one to be.
Al ElliottSo there you go. That's the end of the news roundup.
Leanne ElliottThat was a really good one. Yeah.
Al ElliottOh, I thought it was gonna be rubbish.
Sally ClarkeIt's genuinely really good.
Al ElliottTo be fair, I thought it might be a sh*t cut.
Sally ClarkeI've learnt new terms. I love this.
Alexis ZahnerYeah.
Sally ClarkeSh*t cut, token anxiety. This is amazing.
Al ElliottAnyway, so, right, we are gonna take a very quick break, and after that, we're coming back with our Truth or Lie segment. This is where we ask a professional something we've heard and we say, is it true or is it a lie? And it's not gonna be Leanne this week.
Leanne ElliottNo, it's not.
Al ElliottNo, it's gonna be someone who's got beautiful birds in the background. If you're hearing those birds, they're coming from that, and it is beautiful. So she did say she would shut the windows. I was like, no, leave them.
Leanne ElliottDid you know that the UK's number 1 management podcast, that's us, by the way, and the UK's number 1 marketing podcast are both on the same podcast network?
Al ElliottWe actually have a lot in common. We both use behavioural science to help people do better at work.
Leanne ElliottAnd we both had to wrangle Rory Sutherland on an episode.
Al ElliottAnd 2 out of 3 of us are devilishly good looking. And you're not gonna say which. Fair enough. Phil, host of Nudge, UK's number one marketing podcast. It's brought to you— we need to do this in threes—
Leanne Elliottthe HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.
Al ElliottSeamless, seamless. Tell us about your latest episode, Phil. Uh, we've just done an episode on fake fandom and how New York indie bands are paying agencies to create fake TikTok videos about how much they like their work. And we talk about the behavioral science behind fandom and how that Encourages people to enjoy the music and all of that good stuff and do some big things about how this affects the world of politics, business, and brands as well.
Leanne ElliottIt is. It's such, it's such a good show. Of course, you'll hear all the stuff you want to hear about how to grow your business by using behavioural science in your marketing. But there's also just some really interesting episodes that'll be right up your street. Personally, I enjoyed Can Balsamic Vinegar Make Beer Taste Better?
Al ElliottIt can.
Leanne ElliottAnd Are We All Just Status-Seeking Monkeys?
Al ElliottI am. Go and listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts.
Leanne ElliottBut come back.
Al ElliottYeah, come back. Definitely come back because Nudge isn't as good as this. So come back. I'll cut that out. Keep that in. Welcome back. Welcome back. Okay, to our Truth or Lies segment. This is where we take a widely held workplace belief and put it to the test. Today's claim is being put to the test by Alexis. Alexis, this is what I've heard. I've heard the phrase, the more vulnerable a leader is, the better the team. They are. Go, tell us the truth. Tell us the lies.
Alexis ZahnerIt's both, isn't it, really? I think this is a term that we hear a lot in recent years, especially in leadership workplace culture conversations. I think the problem with it is that vulnerability has now been made synonymous with a lot of other words, and I think we're kind of missing what vulnerability means so we can answer this question With a little more depth. So, in short answer, it does and it doesn't make you a better leader. And the long answer, we'll discuss. But perhaps before we do that, does anyone want to throw their 2 cents into the mix on the statement as an initial take? Sal, you're itching, I can tell.
Sally ClarkeAlways. You know that I love the words that you hate, authenticity, vulnerability. So, for me, I think And I'm also a very definitions-oriented person. For me, vulnerability, my definition is, uh, it's a discerning share of something that is quite, um, personal in order to create deeper connection with your team. Now, the discernment component of it is really important because if we just do it willy-nilly, then that can turn into oversharing. So it really does need to be something that I think leader develops a lot of skills around identifying when is appropriate and what is appropriate. That's my 2 cents.
Leanne ElliottI am looking forward to hearing the behaviors that the research is attaching to the term vulnerable, because I do believe that prosocial skills are important in leadership. And I think there's research that shows that that's linked to the good stuff, but I'm looking forward to being schooled on this one.
Al ElliottLex.
Alexis ZahnerI love it. And I think prosocial, like, behaviors is key here, Leanne, because I think that is really what we're gonna dive into is some of those behaviors, because I think, again, Yeah. Sally's done a really good job of sort of looking at vulnerability more as a definition. But I think that's the challenge we see with leadership is it sort of lacks the discernment, and it's become synonymous with oversharing and perhaps talking about your weaknesses without any strategy behind that. So let's go into the evidence perhaps for vulnerability as a leader. And I looked at a few studies here. One of the studies that was published in Organizational Science in 2022 actually found that a specific kind of vulnerability, And that is when leaders actually openly share critical feedback about their own performance. So what they did well, what they could do better next time, actually showed that they could create environments with higher psychological safety in their teams. So basically what we're saying here is a very critical, humble assessment of your capacity. So what you did well, where there's, where there's work.
Sally ClarkeYeah.
Alexis Zahnerto sort of happen there actually sort of creates that playing field for your team where they can perhaps feel safe to do those own internal self-assessments and bring forward some challenges that they might be facing as well. So another study that I looked at was a 2022 study as well that looked at sensitive self-disclosure. So this is basically where leaders were revealing what they deemed to be some of their weaknesses. And the body of research here said that leaders who spoke about their weaknesses in a strategic way, so again, Not just sort of throwing your hands in the air and saying, oh, I'm bad at this, I just can't do this, because that sort of signals incompetence. But leaders who were able to demonstrate that they were aware of their weaknesses and they were, you know, strategizing to overcome them were actually seen as more authentic, another word that I know you love, Sal, that I despise. But that was another piece of research there. And then the last one that I'll just speak to here was a 2022 meta-analysis that looks sort of more generally at the humble leadership, and they found that skills such as acknowledging limitations, appreciating others' strengths, and actually the leader being more teachable demonstrated— they were skills within the vulnerability realm that actually demonstrated trust and reliability and things like that within your team. So that's the argument for vulnerability. Does anyone want to throw their 2 cents in on that?
Leanne ElliottI have a question.
Alexis ZahnerPlease.
Leanne ElliottUm, so when you were talking about— I loved it— the kind of the critical analysis of performance in an organizational setting, to make that— I'm sorry to trigger you— authentic, would something like a 360 be a good tool to use to kind of facilitate that critical reflection process?
Alexis ZahnerPotentially. I think that giving employees opportunity to provide feedback to a leader is really, really critical. But I do think, and I'd love to hear both of your or all 3 of your sort of ideas here, I do think sometimes that a leader stepping into their fallibility a little more by sort of disclosing their weaknesses or disclosing that they've sort of introspected on that a little bit makes it feel like it's less coming from the employee. Because I think we have to really acknowledge the power dynamics at play here. And so I think 360s theoretically are a great tool, but But I do think as a leader asking employees, we're never going to get 100% disclosure on the things that we could be doing better because whether we like to say we're open and all of those things, it will impact potentially on our relationship with our employee if we're not able to receive that feedback well. So, definitely think that's a tool for it, but I think there's an element of leaders actually being open to disclosing that themselves that the research seems to say can actually sort of help facilitate that openness as well.
Sally ClarkeI think what's key for me here, too, is as well that kind of piece that you mentioned, Lex, around not just sort of having this like, blah, here's all the things I'm bad at, lol.
Alexis ZahnerYou know, I'm just relatable.
Sally ClarkeBut I think being able to say and having this kind of, I think, part of your leadership ethos being, and I'm learning about it and I'm curious to improve, or I've got things in place to make sure that I don't actually need to be focusing on that because that's, I know that I'm not good at it. And I think having that kind of approach to it, Both the curiosity, the humility, the transparency, these are all great things for a leader to be able to demonstrate that there is that fallibility that we all have, but also that I can still be trusted as a leader because I'm not only aware of it, but I'm doing something with it or about it.
Alexis ZahnerYeah, I agree. I think it's that idea of recognizing it, but taking action that shows you're doing something about it. Otherwise, I feel like sometimes We're kind of weaponizing vulnerability a little bit, like we're low-key using it as manipulation. And I don't, I don't love that as a leader, you know, like sort of disclosing in a way to try and build that trust and reliability, but there's no real follow-through in that. It's just, here's, I'm trying to be relatable, but I'm not actually demonstrating to you that I'm going to work through these things. Great. I love those thoughts. So now I want to look at the evidence against vulnerability as a leader. And it's interesting because again, it can be a bit wobbly, depends on your interpretation here. So looking at specific behaviors, one of the papers I looked at was published in 2025 in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. And the paper is called, Does Expressing Uncertainty Help or Harm Leaders? And I really liked this word uncertainty because I think again, vulnerability is often It's an umbrella term for things like uncertainty, expressing that we might not know the answers to things. And so what the evidence actually suggested is that leaders who express uncertainty can be viewed as less effective, less warm, and less competent. So I think this is a really interesting one, and I'd love to unpack this further because I think we have to be strategic in how we speak about uncertainty or times of uncertainty as well, because I think what people expect from a leader when things are uncertain is not for them to have all the answers, but to show that they're willing to create a plan or have some conviction to actually work through the challenges. So what is everyone's thoughts on this?
Sally ClarkeCan I dive in? I've been thinking a lot about the definition that someone's used recently of trust, which is having a confident relationship with the unknown. And I really thought of that as you were speaking, Alex, because I think that's what leaders need to be able to really elicit from their teams is this confidence in the unknown. And I completely agree that there is, you know, simply presenting that everything's uncertainty, full stop, is probably going to harm the trust factor in our teams. But being able to sort of talk about it and acknowledge, I think, you know, as well that it's— there is like uncertainty permeates everything.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Sally ClarkeIn our lives right now. And not talking about it or pretending that everything is solid and fixed and never gonna change is frankly idiotic and would certainly break trust. But there's, it's this kind of nuanced space of being able to hold space for it, but also inspire people's courage that you're gonna be able to know how to navigate the uncertainty as well.
Leanne ElliottYeah, I think there's, it's the nuance here, isn't it? Because it's, you know, you could say, oh, you know, uncertainty, being comfortable with that could look like, oh my God, guys, what are we gonna do? Oh my God, the world's falling apart.
Al ElliottExactly.
Leanne ElliottOr it could look like, How exciting, what opportunities we've got with the pace of things that are changing. What can we do for our clients that's going to support them? Do you know what I mean?
Sally ClarkeIt's—
Leanne Elliottand I think a lot of that, and I know it's kind of a word that was overused last year, but emotional regulation plays a part in it as well in terms of how leaders show up as being, you know, quote unquote vulnerable, or, um, yeah.
Al ElliottSo it also probably takes a certain amount of maturity as well. If you imagine you're a brand new manager, then you already feel like you've got a lot to prove, haven't you? And for you to go up there on day 2 and go, yeah, actually, do you know what? I'm not really 100% sure what I'm doing, is like, that's—
Alexis ZahnerLOL.
Al ElliottYeah.
Alexis ZahnerLOL.
Al ElliottYou've gotta get that balance right, haven't you? So, I mean, just, I'm not asking for necessarily some in-depth advice, but I mean, if someone was a new manager listening to this, Lex, how much of this do they need to— do they need to take all of it in?
Alexis ZahnerWell, it's an interesting one. And sort of what the 3 of you who kind of just elucidated there as well is that it's oftentimes not the content of the message, but the delivery. And I think, You can not have the answers, or you can be totally green to certain tasks, but it's how you go about perhaps asking for help, or how you go about expressing where the gap is for you, and how you might rely or lean on your team that can shift it from being, I'm incompetent, to, I'm empowering people, or, I'm hitting the freaking panic button, to, hey, we don't know the answers here, but we've got this. So, I think it's all in the actual delivery, the tone, the body language, how thoughtful you are in what the downstream impact of your communication might be so that you can sort of pre-plan the delivery of that.
Sally ClarkeCan I just give the example of a friend of mine who recently stepped into a leadership role and they'd come into a new department and there was some— they knew that there was some concerns from some of the people that they were going to be leading about their capabilities because they didn't have all of the technical skills. that a lot of the people in the department have. And they got some really great advice, I think, from their coach, which was to acknowledge in their sort of gathering the team together, first team meeting, to say, to acknowledge a couple of those things. Like, I know there's a bit here that I'm not up to speed on, and I also know that the team is far ahead of me in this particular way, and this is what I'm doing to bridge that gap, or this is the book I'm reading and this is the coaching I'm seeking so that I can be the best possible leader that I can for you. Because I think sometimes getting ahead of those Because knowing and getting ahead of those concerns that people have can be a really powerful way of proving, oh yeah, no, that's an intelligent person who's clear on what's going on here rather than some ignoramus who's coming in and just telling us that they're going to be a great leader.
Al ElliottSo Lex, can we come down one side or another? Is it truth? Is it a lie? Is it a bit of both?
Alexis ZahnerWell, it's a little bit of both. And one thing I do just want to acknowledge before we give our final verdict is I actually want to just double-click on Leigh's word there around emotional sort of regulation. One study that I also found was that when leaders lean on their team for emotional support as a form of vulnerability, this actually undermines their perceptions of competence from their team as well. So I think it again, it all comes down to the behaviors and how we express vulnerability in a really strategic way. So if we're oversharing or dumping on our team or gossiping and whinging about things that aren't going well because we think that. that we think that's vulnerable, these are all the kind of skills, or the kind of behaviors rather, that are actually going to undermine us. So the verdict is, I think vulnerability, when done well, when done thoughtfully, and when done with a bit of a plan in place around what it is you're trying to achieve as a result of expressing it, I think really can build bridges, build trust, and build psychological safety in your team. But vulnerability done thoughtlessly, done from a place of emotional reactivity, most certainly is gonna undermine your perceived competence as a leader. So that's my verdict.
Al ElliottFabulous.
Leanne ElliottBrilliant.
Al ElliottAbsolutely brilliant. Thank you so much for that. Before we go on to the Workplace Surgery, just wondering if you wanna tell the listeners a little bit more about your podcast.
Alexis ZahnerOh, sure.
Sally ClarkeSo Live and Work More Human is really conversations around how we can bring our humanity into our work lives and into everything that we do in a more empowered and aware way. We have lots of amazing conversations with incredible thought leaders, and we also have some conversations just, just the two of us sort of talking about our own experience and what we're seeing out there in the world. As you guys well know, we started as We Are Human Leaders, and we've shifted the lens to be less around just leadership because we really believe that everyone has the capabilities within them to be leaders. So it's inviting more people into the conversation and more of our lives into that space. Lex, what did I miss?
Alexis ZahnerNothing. Absolutely nothing. Love it. Ditto what Sal said. We'll leave it there.
Sally ClarkeGive us a listen.
Al ElliottFabulous guests on there. So go and look for Live and Work More Human Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.
Leanne ElliottWe'll leave a link in the show notes.
Al ElliottOkay, so it is onto my favorite time of the week. It's time for the world-famous Weekly Workplace Surgery, where I put your questions to normally Leanne.
Leanne ElliottNot this week.
Al ElliottNot this We're gonna put the questions to the guests. So we're gonna start off, I think, because this is about burnout, Sal, I think it's gonna be for you, isn't it?
Sally ClarkeYeah.
Al ElliottSo I'll read the question. Uh, so this person's writing in and basically the problem is that their team's burning out and so are they. So they write, I can see my team is burning out. The energy's gone. People are just going through the motions, and a couple of my strongest performers have gone quiet in a way that worries me. The problem is I'm not in a great place either. I'm supposed to be the one fixing this, but I'm running on empty myself. I don't want to be fake, but I also don't know how much of my own burnout I should share with the team. How do you lead through burnout when you're feeling it too? Sal, floor is yours.
Sally ClarkeGreat question, and one that I get with remarkable and increasing frequency, Al. I think the first point that I would say is to leaders to seek some outside help for themselves immediately, and I mean pronto, now. Engage a coach, perhaps a therapist, get a support team, get an entourage around you to support your own Wellbeing at all levels, because your wellbeing is critical to that of the team. So that is your really your first starting point. Secondly, I would say schedule in some one-on-ones with your team, and if you're not doing this already, just start to have those conversations around how they're doing. But be more specific than just how's it going, because you'll probably just get a fine, nothing to see here. But really digging into some questions around how their workload's going, where they're finding challenges, and what you can do to support them in this particular week or period of work. So some So asking proactive and specific questions that are really going to elicit answers around how you can support them better is really a really helpful place to start. Once you've been able to get to a point where you're feeling a bit better, then it's time to look at some of the system stuff, some of the broader picture, because that's going to be a really important piece if you want to sort of prevent burnout from happening upstream. But as a sort of emergency alarms flashing, red light, red flags flying everywhere sort of approach. Start with self, start with conversations, and focus on exactly what Lex just referred to, that sort of discernment in your vulnerability as well.
Al ElliottLex, anything to add?
Alexis ZahnerI mean, just to really build on the system stuff, Sal is really our expert here on burnout, but I think the one thing I've experienced as a leader, and it's, it's a saying I use all the time now, of everything is a priority, nothing is a priority. So the first point of call is to just clarify and cut the crap. Cut and defer low-value work, give people permission to just not be working on faffing stuff. Like, what are your needle movers? How do you just dial in the focus so that people don't feel like there's a million and one deliverables and there's just too much on their plate? So I think that's kind of the start, the key start for the systems change side of things, just looking at why are people so laterally spread and what do we really need to be focused on?
Sally ClarkeWell said, Lex.
Al ElliottYeah, absolutely love that.
Leanne ElliottAnd the irony is that the word priorities is pluralized, which just seems Just that in the question, they said, I need something like, I know it's on me to fix it. And I think that can be a burden managers and leaders can put on themselves. And you're not the only one who's— do you mean it's not your sole responsibility? You're working within an organisation where there should be other, other support and advice available. So, I think it's— I see this, and I hate to say, go back to generations, because I think it's a generational thing.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottThere isn't that much, when we actually dig into it, difference between us. But I do hear our Gen X colleagues talking about this more, like holding that responsibility to fix it. And I think, yeah, I think maybe just reflect on that a little bit and take some of that accountability off your shoulders. You are part of the solution, but you're not all of it.
Al ElliottFabulous.
Sally ClarkeAnd can I give 2 points? I'm sorry to keep going. 2 points there, Lee, to build. One is to put your own oxygen mask on first. And that's a really important thing for leaders, that kind of, I need to help all my people, really start with your own self-care as well, but also engaging some outside support. If you have any budget at all to get, um, you know, really expert consultants— I'm not going to name names, but, you know, I can think of some— um, to come in and help you with understanding stress management, understanding nervous system regulation, so that it's not on you as a leader to be delivering that information or coaching or, you know, therapizing people through this, but getting that external support in, making them aware of the EAP, all that kind of stuff as well.
Al ElliottFabulous. And Sal, what's the name of your book?
Sally ClarkeProtect Your Spark.
Al ElliottThere you go. So that's also a very good resource. Great. Okay, now question number 2, how do you lead the right culture when the organization won't? So my organization talks a lot about values like psychological safety, and I genuinely believe them. But this person writes, when I try to lead that way with my team, I get pushback. If I give people autonomy, I'm told I'm being too soft. If I push back on deadlines to protect them, I'm told I'm not a team player. I feel stuck between doing what I think is right for my team and what the wider organization seems to reward. So, I think this is probably one for you, Lex. How do you build the right culture in your team when everything seems to be pulling you in a different direction? Thoughts?
Alexis ZahnerThis is both a simple and a really complex answer, but I think it's a dilemma we see really often, and it's often because we hear organizations, like the amount of times we have organizations Coming to us with a pre-diagnosed problem that demonstrates that they're really fluent in the language of what a good culture should be, but they are awful at actually rewarding the behavior that creates it. So culture really simplistically is what you do consistently. So if you are consistently rewarding overwork, staying at the organization too long, toxic behaviors like undermining colleagues or whatever it may be, these are all of the things that actually are the summation of your culture. So I would say the most simple place to start is observe the behavior that's accepted and observe the behavior that's being pushed away. Again, a lot of organizations say they value psychological safety. It's just the hottest word in leadership right now— trust, wellbeing, autonomy. But if you're promoting things like urgency or presenteeism— we've had a conversation today about productivity and productivity proxies— Bums in seats, doesn't equal good work. If you're prioritizing micromanagement, controlling what your employees are doing, there's just an incongruence between what you're saying and what you're doing. And we call this the intention-impact gap. So when that happens, employees also, you have to recognize, have quite a good bullshit detector. So they're very aware then when what you say and what you do don't align. So this is just going to continue to sort of snowball your culture in the wrong direction. It's going to create insubordination. All of these things that are just going to feel like the culture's spiraling more and more outside of your control. So, I would say the foundational element in understanding what your culture actually is, is to understand what behaviors are actually being rewarded, and then you can recalibrate from there. But until you have that awareness, I think there's no point in looking at workshops or training around psychological safety or this and that, because you don't even understand what needs to be changed first and foremost.
Al ElliottFabulous. Any thoughts, Sal?
Sally ClarkeI'd support everything that Leanne Thanks. Just shared. The only build that I'd have is potentially the listener said that they're being told these things. I'd be really curious who's telling them, because if that's things that the feedback that they're getting from their team on these initiatives that they're trying to take, then I think there's perhaps a little bit of lack of understanding from the team side why these things are important and why it matters. So there might be some like values or vision alignment training that'd be really helpful to get everyone on board and understanding why these behaviors matter so much to us. If that pushback is coming from your leadership, then there's bigger issues at hand, and that's a very different conversation.
Al ElliottFabulous. Leanne?
Leanne ElliottI agree with everything. 10 outta 10. Brilliant. Nothing to add.
Al ElliottFull marks. Fabulous.
Alexis ZahnerNo notes.
Al ElliottThank you so much. No notes. Okay, so onto question number 3. It's about hiring, whether you're hiring wrong or not. When I started my business, I hired people just like me. I'm sure we'll have some comments on that. Same value, same energy, same way of thinking. It worked really well at the start. Now we're growing. I'm being told I need to bring in different perspectives. People will challenge how we do things, but every time I try, it creates friction and they don't seem to last. So I'm questioning this. Is this a problem with my hiring approach, or am I the one struggling to adapt? Guys, who wants to take this first?
Alexis ZahnerI mean, the short answer is it's both. It's probably your hiring approach and your adaptability. And I think just to really drill down into human behavior here, we all say we want people around us who challenge us, but often that means challenging us in ways that feel comfortable. But to truly invite divergent thinking and diversity and things like that into your organization is uncomfortable. So you need to be willing to adapt to things not looking, feeling, sounding like you. That's just the bottom line there. So I think there's an element of developing your capacity to sit in the discomfort of difference, which, you know, these are just cognitive biases and human comfort. That's just how we're wired. And then the second thing I would say to that is that this is where the distinction between what you say you value in your organization and working styles really, really matters. Because if you're talking core values such as, I don't know, they might be integrity, care, accountability, excellence, they're the typical things we see, you know, stuck on the walls of organizations, get really clear on what those mean because you can have people with very divergent thinking styles from very different backgrounds from yourself that share those core values because you're really clear on what behaviors model those core values. So that means someone might have a different communication style to you, a different velocity of work, or a different way of solving problems, or even a different office setting that they like. But if they're modeling the behaviors that underpin your values, They are a culture fit. It's just that the culture's now growing and evolving and looking different to cater to these people. So what we're seeking in hiring is not conformity, but an opportunity to bring new and different people into an organization who share in our core values, because what those core values mean to us is really clear and explicit, so everyone can actually understand that from the get-go.
Al ElliottFabulous. Sally, thoughts?
Sally ClarkeI think it is— we saw some language change a few years ago, this shift from culture fit to culture add, as being not just hiring a carbon copy of ourselves, but seeking people who add that diversity of thought to avoid things like groupthink. I would say that if people are rapidly leaving your organization, as you've suggested, that's a massive red flag for me. And I would be fairly confident in saying that it probably has a lot to do with you as a leader. And if this is your response, your discomfort is probably rippling out through the organization. and making it really difficult for that person to find a sense of belonging and finding a sense that they are welcome there. So I think there's some hard conversations perhaps to have with a coach and potentially completely support everything that Lex said around looking at values and really understanding how you want this organization to be and why, so that the next diverse hire is welcomed in and you can start to really build that culture that's thriving, that's robust, that's different, and that's actually—
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Sally ClarkeFabulous.
Al ElliottLeanne, have you got any thoughts?
Leanne ElliottI agree with Lex and Sal. I think there's lots of organisations out there that will recruit for culture fit without really having taken the time to understand what behaviours are associated with their culture. So, culture just becomes people like you and me, whether that's how we think or look or where we're from. So, I think defining culture and getting that, those behaviours nailed down is really, really important. The thing I'd add to then is that we know culture fit is a really useful thing for employee engagement and belonging and job satisfaction. People who are a good fit with our culture tend to stay in it longer, and they're happier for it. That doesn't necessarily mean they're going to be good at their job. So, are these people leaving the organisation because they're not a culture fit, because they're not very good at their job? Because in recruitment processes, culture fit is predictive of about 2% of future job performance, whereas something like a structured interview that's really diving into the the competencies of the role and the behavioural aspects of the values, we're gonna get somebody in that very robust recruitment process that is good at the job and is a culture ad fit, however you wanna call it. So, I think it's, yeah, figure out what your culture is and then really look at your recruitment process. And my favourite thing in the world, job analysis. If you've not done it, do one now.
Sally ClarkeNerd. I know.
Al ElliottFabulous.
Alexis ZahnerNo, I love that. Love that, Leigh. And just, I just want to add to that because I hear this all the time, that hire for attitude. And I think, you know, this is like a slogan we see bandied around all the time, but I do really think you need to be hiring people with the right skill set to achieve what it is you need that role to achieve as well, as well as being, you know, an alignment for culture fit. So yeah, I love that.
Al ElliottFabulous. Thank you so much. Okay, so I think that's the end.
Leanne ElliottCan we do this every week, please? Please? Yeah, brilliant.
Al ElliottThis would be brilliant. If you have your own questions you want us to— want us— me to put to Leanne, or potentially other people who we have in the surgery in the future, then the links are in the show notes, the emails in the show notes. Um, also make sure you do check out the show notes because it's the first time that you actually do need to check out the show notes because you need to go and find Lex and Sal. Now you need to go find the podcast, you need to go and subscribe, like, leave a comment, tell your mum, do everything that you need to do. Uh, it's normally at this time I would tell you what was going on on Thursday, but I have no clue. Absolutely no clue.
Leanne ElliottIt'll be a surprise for us all.
Al ElliottIt's a surprise for everyone.
Leanne ElliottIt's someone really great, though.
Sally ClarkeOf course, cliffhanger, cliffhanger.
Al ElliottExactly. Exactly. So thank you so, so, so much, Alexis, Sal. Anything to add before we say goodbye?
Sally ClarkeOther than I love having you both.
Alexis ZahnerYeah.
Al ElliottIt's so good. Thank you so much. And we will see you next week.