EPISODE 4:  The Lazy Leader

Welcome back to Unstifled.

I'm your host, George Nijmeh, and this is episode four, The Lazy Leader.

And today, we're talking about that leader we have all met before, the one who has somehow equated hours spent in a building with actual productivity, and thinks that fear is the ultimate motivator.

Yup, I'm talking about those leaders who get their power trip from people's fear of losing their jobs rather than empowering their teams.

So, listen, if you're that leader who walks around like the clock is your best friend, this episode is just for you.

Okay, so before we dive in, and talk about all these lazy of laziest of the lazy leaders, I just wanna say thank you to all my listeners, and to everyone who has been emailing me with tons and tons and tons of support, and just absolute great advice, as well as a bunch, a bunch of future topics.

I really appreciated all the feedback, and I'm really trying my hardest to reply to everyone as quickly as I can.

So again, thank you for the outpouring of support.

I, seriously, I couldn't ask for better listeners.

I'm really, to be honest with everyone, I'm just happy that someone is listening, and that just, you know, really, really makes me happy.

Okay, so back to episode four, The Lazy Leader.

All right, here's the thing.

Lazy leadership doesn't look like kicking back on the beach.

No.

Lazy leadership is basically sitting in your office, barking orders, managing your team with that motto, better be here first thing and last thing, and calling that discipline.

But for real, watching the clock is not leading.

It's just pure laziness.

Lazy leadership is watching bodies walk in, and watching bodies walk out the door, and calling that results.

Lazy leadership is thinking you're motivating people by scaring them into working harder.

It just doesn't work.

You end up with a team fighting for scraps.

The team is watching their backs, and basically getting more stressed out than being effective.

If you're managing people based on when they clock in and out, well, congratulations.

You've officially set the bar to, is this person alive?

And is this person sitting at their desk?

Yeah, real high standards there, Bob.

No worry in the world if the team's fighting, if the morale is in the dumpster, or productivity is plummeting, as long as you have a lukewarm body in the building, and it's been there for more than eight hours.

Nine hours, if it's an unpaid hour lunch, of course.

But here's the plot twist you didn't expect.

Great leadership in 2024, right?

Almost 2025 is more than that.

The game has changed, folks.

People don't need to be threatened or belittle to do good work.

They just need support, right?

Dare I say, they need resources, okay?

You guys heard that before, right?

Support and resources.

They also need training.

They need all kinds of encouragement to learn from, both wins and mistakes.

And they need to know that you have their back at all times.

Look, all you lazy leaders out there, it's time to get with the program.

Show up for your team.

Ask them what they need.

Teach them how to reach goals without you watching over their shoulders every two minutes.

If that sounds like too much work for you, then too bad.

Maybe it's time for you to get out of the way and let someone else step in.

Someone who knows how to lead without a stopwatch in their hand.

It's really simple.

All right.

So leaders who support their teams are the ones who get results.

No one wants to work for a tyrant with a time clock obsession.

Today's employees want a leader who trusts them to deliver, who understands that quality doesn't come from hours logged, but the comes from how well you manage, how well you motivate, and how well you support.

Now, we're gonna dig into exactly why that approach doesn't work.

And not just in theory, right?

Not just, you know, because we're talking about it right now.

There's plenty of real life examples out there of how lazy leadership backfires.

And we're gonna talk about three of them.

And hopefully, I hope that these three are three that resonate with everybody.

I picked three that will resonate with every age group.

All right, so example one, Blockbuster versus Netflix.

All right, so this is a classic one, Blockbuster.

I'm gonna guess most of you know how Blockbuster went from just absolute dominating the video rental market to just completely vanishing off the face of the earth.

Yeah, there's a lot there, but one huge part of it was lazy, stubborn leadership.

Blockbuster's leaders had a very, how do you say, if it ain't broke, don't fix it attitude, especially toward their employees.

They were, all the leaders at Blockbuster were just strict clock watching leaders who only prioritized following all the traditional rules and operating procedures instead of adapting to the changes in the world around them.

They totally ignored the digital transformation.

Other companies like Netflix were moving fast to give customers what they wanted in a more modern way.

Blockbusters leaders thought they're doing the right thing by sticking to their old habits and enforcing strict working hours rather than encouraging innovation.

So, what happened, okay, I'm sure you guys all know Netflix's leadership created a culture where employees were empowered to innovate.

They tried new things with no fear.

Everything they tried, they could try it without any fear.

Blockbusters leadership stayed glued to their outdated model, just absolutely crazy glued to their models.

They lost a chance to pivot and, you know, they lost.

Blockbusters lazy leadership, lazy leadership, it didn't just fail their employees, it cost them the whole company.

Right, so, lesson one here.

If you're that leader who just watches the clock and fears change, you're basically setting yourself up to be the next blockbuster.

All right, what's example number two?

You guys know Sears Department Store.

So let's talk about Sears.

So back in the day, Sears was just an absolute powerhouse in retail.

But a few decades later, they're not quite the retail giant they used to be.

Sears' leadership became absolutely obsessed with micromanagement.

They only cared about numbers, spreadsheets, cold, hard hours, rather than actually empowering their people to support new ideas.

Sears was also notorious for creating a culture where employees felt constantly under pressure.

They felt that they are being judged by hourly metrics and checked boxes.

I hate that.

There wasn't room for any kind of creative thinking or any innovation.

No room for problem solving, actually understanding what customers wanted.

So why make room for understanding what customers want?

Employees were just so busy meeting arbitrary benchmarks, there wasn't any room for innovation.

So, again, like we talked about at Blockbuster, what happened?

Their competitors adapted.

They leaned into the employee-driven ideas and model.

They created modern shopping experiences.

At the same time, Sears was just stuck with an outdated model.

The result was, of course, Sears went from being a leading brand to practically disappearing.

So what's the lesson with Sears?

If you're more concerned with controlling people's time than tapping into their potential, don't be surprised when your lazy leadership leaves your company irrelevant.

All right, example three, Kodak.

Everyone knows Kodak.

So Kodak is a big one on ignoring innovation and their team's potential.

So here's a story of what happens when leadership, all right, lazy leadership, ignores not just new ideas, but also the potential of their own team.

So I don't know if you guys know this, but Kodak had some incredibly talented employees who saw the rise actually of digital photography coming.

In fact, Kodak engineers, they are the ones who invented the first digital camera.

All right, so I'm sure a lot of you didn't know that.

They were the first engineers who invented the digital camera, but their lazy leaders, they just didn't care.

They were too invested in the current models, which their model was just selling film, and too focused on keeping employees in line.

Again, just follow the standard operating procedures that we have in place, then encouraging innovation.

The leaders, you know, lazy leaders, dismissed all the new tech as a fad and refused to support employees who wanted to develop digital products.

So what happened?

Kodak went from being the leader in photography to missing out on the entire digital revolution entirely.

They basically lost to their own innovation because their lazy leadership was just so lazy to take a chance and trust their team.

If Kodak's leadership just listened to their people, even just a smidge, and encouraged them and given them the resources they needed, the Kodak story could be told entirely different right now.

Obviously, instead, they buried their heads in the sand.

And today, Kodak is just a name in the history books, unfortunately.

Okay, let's get back to the main point.

The examples, those three examples, they're not just stories of failed companies.

They're lessons in why lazy leadership just doesn't work.

It doesn't inspire, it doesn't innovate, and it doesn't create loyal, motivated employees.

Being a real leader means trusting your people to get things done, and giving them the support they need.

That's it.

All right, so here's the big takeaway.

Lazy leaders who just rely on fear, clock watching, and micromanagement, right?

You're just living in the past.

Get on board with leading through support, empowerment, and a bit of trust.

Otherwise, you're gonna find yourself the next example of leadership gone wrong, like the three examples we just spoke about.

So here's what I hear a lot, right?

Oh, maybe it's just some disgruntled employees who just don't like being micromanaged because the employee is lazy.

All right, no, you're wrong.

That's not the case, right?

Yes, employees do like direction.

Everyone just absolutely wants some direction.

But, no, they don't want to be micromanaged, okay?

This is totally old-fashioned and just doesn't work in 2024.

So there's a lot of surveys about this stuff.

So there's actual proof that employees today want leaders with emotional intelligence, you know, leaders who get them.

They support them and they help them grow.

All right, it's about growth, showing the employee how they can grow at your company.

You don't want to just, you know, they don't want someone who's just going to watch them like a hawk.

So let's face it, right?

No one is waking up, and by no one, I'm talking about your employees, right?

People that you manage.

No one's waking up thinking, oh, I just can't wait to be micromanaged today.

All right, your employees, in fact, a recent survey show, their employees are practically begging for leaders who do more than enforce the ancient rule of more hours equals more results.

Surveys from companies like Gallup and others have consistently found that people don't want the lazy clock-watching leader.

They want a leader who's emotionally intelligent, right here by EQ all the time.

Someone who understands that people are human beings, not just cogs in some corporate machine.

Here's a bit of a shocker.

Employees actually prefer leaders who listen to them, who encourage them to develop, and who see beyond the nine to five, right?

Is that crazy?

Yeah, it's almost as if people want to feel valued at work.

What?

That's weird, right?

People actually wanting to feel valued at work.

Oh my gosh.

But the old school, right?

That lazy leaders, the ones who think managing by fear is still somehow effective, I have no clue.

They're just like blissfully unaware of these surveys and how unfortunate for them.

All right, going back to the main point again.

If you're gonna lead in today's world, you have got to embrace some emotional intelligence.

That means understanding your team's needs, caring about their growth, and actually valuing their ideas.

Because lazy, old school leadership, yeah, it's about as relevant as a flip phone in 2024.

And I wanna talk about that cool flip phone, because I think they're bringing back some cool Razer flip phones.

I'm talking about that old LG green screen flip phone with the T9 texting.

That's what I'm talking about.

All right, old school leadership.

Don't do it.

Say goodbye to lazy leadership.

The leaders who see hard work as staying late, okay?

If you wanna inspire people, you need to show them that you're invested in their success.

And if that looks like it's too much effort, well, maybe you're right.

Leadership isn't for everyone.

Get out of the way.

The last bit of advice I'm giving to the laziest of the lazies out there, if you're holding tight to those old school tactics, your employees are tired of it.

Believe me, they're rolling their eyes at you when you're walking by with your little clipboard, marking down just arrival and departure times, or just trivial little mistakes that you see them making.

And they're probably only making those mistakes because you're standing out there and you're normally not standing out there.

And they're probably thinking in their head, oh, why is this guy standing out here right now?

Or you're walking out there trying to figure out how many breaks they took.

They don't want to work harder just because you're in a bad mood today and decided to walk around.

They want a leader who's legitimately got their back, who trusts them to do their job without nitpicking every little thing they do.

Get out there and motivate your team and find out what makes them tick.

Get to know them.

Ask questions.

If you haven't seen them for a few days, a few weeks, or a few months, don't approach them and start asking them about work right away.

Okay, that's the biggest mistake you could possibly ever make in your life.

I've come across so many leaders who will go months without seeing some of their employees.

And the first thing they do when they see them is they ask them about work.

They'll ask them about some data.

They'll ask them about an email.

It's like, knock it off.

Like, my gosh.

You know, ask them, like, how are you doing?

How's your family?

Is there anything I can help you with?

How do you enjoy working here?

Bring some positivity to your meeting with this person.

I don't know, like, where some people went wrong in their upbringing, but this is out there, folks.

And if you think back and you feel like this is, you know, this is relatable to you, just take a deep breath and start the next week.

Don't do that.

Just don't do it.

Go up to your employees, get to know them.

Find out how many kids they have.

Just stop being lazy.

You know, talk to your employees, all right?

That's what I mean by find out what makes them tick.

Okay, not everybody is just looking for a salary increase.

They understand that the company can only give so much.

You know, but they also want to make sure that they feel valued and appreciated, and they need to know that their leaders actually care about them.

Okay, so that's it for today's episode.

Thanks for joining me on Unstifled for a nice reality check on lazy leadership.

If you're actually ready to lead, like really lead, then support your team.

Get out of the way when they're ready to innovate, and maybe leave the stopwatch and the little clipboard in the drawer this time.

All right, so catch you next time on Unstifled.