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Things Leaders Do

Colby Morris | NXT Step Advisors

Business & Entrepreneuriat

Éducation

Business & Entrepreneuriat

Fréquence : 1 épisode/8j. Total Éps: 145

Things Leaders Do is a leadership podcast for managers who want practical strategies that actually work, not leadership theory that sounds good in a boardroom. No fluff. No vague concepts. Just tactical frameworks you can implement Monday morning.

Whether you're a new manager figuring out how to lead your first team, a middle manager carrying the weight of the org, or a seasoned executive refining your approach, host Colby Morris breaks down people-first leadership with humor, insight, and straight talk.

Weekly episodes cover how to communicate and build trust, run one-on-ones that actually work, handle performance reviews that don't suck, balance accountability with empathy, manage conflict and tough conversations, lead through pressure and setbacks, plan for succession, develop your people, and build team cultures where people want to stay instead of just show up.

A lot of his content is for the leaders stuck in the middle.

Gen X managers running teams while reporting to executives above them and leading Millennial and Gen Z employees below. If you've ever felt like most leadership advice was written for somebody else's generation, this show was built for you.

New episodes every Wednesday. Host Colby Morris is the founder of NXT Step Advisors, providing executive coaching, team training, and keynote speaking focused on people-first leadership that drives real business results.

Connect at NXTStepAdvisors.com or linkedin.com/in/colbymorris

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What Happens After Your Company Gets Acquired (And How to Lead Through It)

mercredi 30 septembre 2026 • Durée 30:33

In the first 30 days after an acquisition, your job is closing the gap between the questions people are asking and the answers anyone is giving them. Colby Morris calls it the Answer Gap.

The deal closes in an afternoon. The people take a lot longer. And while leadership is working through slide thirty-one of the integration plan, the breakroom is writing its own version of what happens next, and recruiters are already messaging your best people. Colby has been the interim COO dropped into exactly that kind of chaos after a private equity acquisition: no one knew who they reported to, projects had stalled, and high performers were already walking out. This episode covers what he did about it, how it turned around in six months, and how a middle manager with no answers of their own can run the same playbook with their team.

Colby Morris: "I have never, not once, seen somebody quit a job because their boss told them too much."

What is the Answer Gap?

The Answer Gap is Colby Morris's name for the distance between the questions employees are asking after a deal and the answers anyone is actually giving them. In the first 30 days, someone fills that gap. If leadership doesn't, the breakroom and the recruiters will. The episode covers the three moves Colby uses to close it.

Why do employees leave after an acquisition?

Research from Ernst & Young (EY), cited by Gallup, found that 47% of key employees leave within a year of a deal and 75% within three years. MIT Sloan research using Census data on roughly 4,000 acquisitions and 350,000 employees found acquired employees leave in the first year at nearly three times the rate of regular hires, about a third versus 12%. The people most likely to leave first are high performers with options, and uncertainty drives it more than money.

What should leaders do in the first 30 days after an acquisition?

Get in front of people fast, tell them what you know and what you don't, and lead beyond your own reporting lines. Colby walks through exactly how he did that as an interim COO, including a one-on-one cascade that carried information down and concerns back up, and what happened when a departed high performer heard about it.

What can a middle manager do when their company gets acquired?

You can't control what the company says, but you control what happens on your team. For the people who report to you, you are the company. The episode covers what to say in one-on-ones when you don't have answers, the one question to ask your own boss, and how to keep your team moving while everyone else stalls.

Research and references in this episode

Colby Morris: "Two opposite things can be true at the same time."
Ernst & Young (EY), as cited by Gallup: 47% of key employees leave within a year of a deal, 75% within three years.
MIT Sloan research on acquired-employee turnover: about a third leave in year one, versus 12% of regular hires.
William Bridges, Managing Transitions: change versus transition.
Patrick Lencioni, The Advantage: overcommunicating clarity.

Related episodes

Leading Through Corporate Restructuring & Layoffs
Stop Running Your One-on-Ones
One-on-One Meetings That Work
Your Boss Isn't Ignoring You

Connect with Colby Morris

Colby Morris is the founder of NXT Step Advisors, helping founder-led and PE-backed companies stabilize through leadership transitions, acquisitions, and disruption, along with executive coaching and leadership training.

Learn more at NXTStepAdvisors.com or connect with Colby on LinkedIn.

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Why Gen X Keeps Getting Passed Over (And What to Do About It)

mercredi 23 septembre 2026 • Durée 25:12

Gen X keeps getting passed over because we built careers as the fixer, and boards promote vision, not maintenance. Colby Morris calls it the Tactician Trap, and there are four ways out of it.

The average American CEO is now 61, a full decade older than in 2000. The Boomers held the top seats longer than anyone planned, and now that they're letting go, the torch is going straight to Millennials. But the reason isn't age. Recruiters keep saying the same thing about our generation: tacticians, not visionaries. That's a reputation, and we built it ourselves, one fire at a time. This one is personal. Colby has spent his career as the operations guy, building startups from scratch and walking into companies that were on fire, and he's heard "we need you right where you are" more than once. Here's what that sentence actually means, and what to do about it.

Colby Morris: "We need you right where you are is not a compliment. It's a ceiling somebody painted a real nice color."

What is the Tactician Trap?
The Tactician Trap is Colby Morris's name for the Gen X version of the competency trap: you get so good at fixing things that fixing things becomes the only thing anyone can picture you doing. Four ways out, covered in the episode: lead with direction instead of maintenance, say your take in the meeting instead of the hallway, own the human side of AI, and build the person who can take your chair.

Why is Gen X getting passed over for promotions?
The average US CEO is 61 now, up from about 51 in 2000, and new CEOs were getting named at 48 then versus 55 by 2023. The Wall Street Journal found the share of large-company CEOs in their fifties fell from roughly 51% to 43% in eight years. About one in five workers over 40 say they get skipped for challenging assignments. Boards cite AI readiness, but the recurring word from recruiters is that Gen X reads as tactical rather than visionary.

What does "we need you right where you are" really mean?
It means you are too useful in that seat to be let out of it. The follow-up Colby heard, "who would take your place, we don't have anyone like that," is the tell. That isn't a reason. It's a to-do list, and the episode covers what to do with it.

Research and references Colby Morris: "Who would take your place isn't a reason. It's a to-do list." · Wall Street Journal reporting on CEO age and Gen X succession · Herminia Ibarra, Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader (the competency trap and outsight) · Marshall Goldsmith, What Got You Here Won't Get You There

How to Give a Performance Review When the System's Rigged

mercredi 16 septembre 2026 • Durée 23:27

When you're forced to deliver a performance rating you don't believe in, don't defend it and don't hide behind the system. Split the number from the truth: hand off the company's rating cleanly, tell the person the real thing that number can't hold, and make sure the review is never the first time they hear where they stand. Colby Morris calls it The Split.

Forced ranking. The curve decided before you even walk into calibration. A person who crushed the year, and you're handed a "meets expectations" to deliver and told not to blame the system. It's about the most people-last thing in corporate life, and you're the one holding the bag. This is a fired-up, people-first take on how to get through that room without lying to your people or torching your own credibility, including the two gutless moves almost every manager makes, and what to do when the raise is as rigged as the rating.

Colby Morris: "The rating is the company's word. The truth is yours."

What is The Split?

The Split is Colby Morris's framework for delivering a performance rating you don't agree with. Three moves: deliver the number without wearing it, say the true thing the number can't hold, and shrink the annual number by telling people the truth all year long. The how for each is in the episode.

What do you do when you're forced to give a rating you don't believe in?

You stop doing the two things that backfire: selling a number you don't buy, which your people smell instantly, so trust dies, or hiding behind the system, which makes you look powerless and half the time isn't even allowed. The third path, the one that keeps you human, is in the episode.

Why do performance reviews feel rigged right now?

Because increasingly they are. Glassdoor's 2026 data found 88% of performance-review mentions negative, up from 83% in 2021. Mentions of PIPs have risen almost eightfold since 2021, and stack ranking and forced distribution mentions are up more than fourfold. Post-layoff cost control and higher performance bars are tightening curves while raises stay flat.

How do you handle a review when the raise doesn't match the work?

How to Manage Your Old Coworkers (Without Losing Their Respect)

mercredi 9 septembre 2026 • Durée 25:40

When you're promoted over your former peers, the job is to redraw three things on purpose: the relationship, the standard, and your own support system. Colby Morris calls it The Redraw, and it's the difference between a promotion that sticks and one that quietly falls apart inside ninety days.

Here's what nobody warns you about. The day you got the title, the line between you and your team got erased. If you don't redraw it out loud, and fast, your people redraw it for you, usually with the worst possible story. This episode gets into the two instincts that sink new managers, why going easy on your work friend quietly torches your credibility with everybody else, and the move to make with the one person on your team who wanted your job. If you got promoted from inside, or you're about to, this one's built for you.

Colby Morris: "The line between you and your team gets erased the day you get promoted. If you don't redraw it on purpose, everyone draws their own version, and they draw it wrong."

What is The Redraw?

The Redraw is Colby Morris's framework for leading people who used to be your peers. It has three moves: redraw the relationship, redraw the standard, and redraw yourself. The episode walks each one, including the exact first-two-weeks conversation that sets the whole thing up.

Why do so many new managers fail when they're promoted from within?

About 60% of new managers fail within their first two years (CEB), and the rate climbs when someone is promoted from inside to lead their former peers. Gallup's 2026 State of the Global Workplace found managers drive roughly 70% of team engagement, while manager engagement itself hit a record low, with the steepest declines among managers under 35 and women, the two groups most likely to be promoted from within. We keep handing the hardest version of the job to the people we prepare the least.

How do you manage people who used to be your peers without losing their respect?

You stop pretending nothing changed. As Colby puts it in the episode, the closeness was never the problem, the pretending is. You redraw the relationship on purpose and out loud, you hold the standard evenly even with your closest friend on the team, and you rebuild your own support so you're not leading from isolation. The how, including the mistake Colby made with his own best friend at work, is in the episode.

Your Boss Isn't Ignoring You. They're Just Not Hearing You.

mercredi 12 août 2026 • Durée 24:56

Why does my boss ignore my ideas? Usually he isn't ignoring them, he just never heard them the way you meant them. In one workplace study, 81% of leaders said their people have an easy way to give feedback, while only 44% of employees said they actually have a voice. Your boss almost certainly thinks his door is open.

And you're on your fourth attempt to get somebody to care about a staffing problem. That gap isn't about caring. It's about transmission, and it belongs to you.

In this episode, Colby Morris shares the reporting process he pitched four times and got nowhere with, the forty seconds that finally fixed it, and the Reframe Before the Ask: four moves that get you heard by a boss who is busy, distracted, and convinced he's already listening.

"You've been walking into that office thinking one thing is getting judged in there. Your idea. Two things are getting judged. Your idea, and you." Colby Morris, The Things Leaders Do

More on Getting Your Boss to Listen

What is the Reframe Before the Ask?

The Reframe Before the Ask is a framework from Colby Morris for getting heard by a boss who isn't listening. The idea is that most of us spend our energy sharpening the argument, when the thing that decides the outcome is how the idea arrives before you ever make the ask. It comes down to four moves. Colby walks through all four in the episode.

Why does my boss ignore my ideas?

Usually because of what you handed him, not because he doesn't care. There's a difference between bringing your boss a problem and bringing him something he can actually say yes to, and most of us have never noticed which one we're doing. Colby tells the story of getting this wrong for eight months straight.

Does speaking up at work hurt your career?

Research by Ethan Burris at the University of Texas found something uncomfortable. When employees challenged how things were being done, their managers didn't just back the idea less. They also rated those employees as worse at their jobs. Two things drove it, and neither one was the quality of the idea. Colby breaks down what those two things were, and why they're actually good news.

Stop Going to Your Boss About Your Coworker

mercredi 5 août 2026 • Durée 25:39

How do you handle a conflict with a coworker who doesn't report to you? Go to them directly, before your boss, and make it the two of you against the problem instead of you against each other. Most leaders were never taught this one. There are shelves of books on managing your team and managing your boss, and almost nothing on the sideways conversation with a peer, where you have no authority and still have to work together on Monday.

So 70% of us avoid it, or worse, we go around them to the shared boss and quietly end the relationship. In this episode, Colby Morris tells the peer conversation he got wrong, what it cost him, and walks through the Third Chair: four moves for having the hard conversation with a peer without triangulating and without it turning personal.

"Going around someone you never talked to is triangulation. Escalating something you tried twice to solve directly is just the truth. Boss last, not boss first." Colby Morris, The Things Leaders Do

More on Handling Conflict With a Coworker

What is the Third Chair?

The Third Chair is a framework from Colby Morris for handling conflict with a peer. The default setup is two chairs facing each other, you versus them. The Third Chair is the move of putting the problem in a chair of its own so both people are facing it instead of each other. Colby breaks down all four moves in the episode.

Why shouldn't I go to my boss about a coworker problem?

Because it costs you three ways at once, and only one of them is the problem you went in about. Colby names all three, including the one your boss quietly files away about you.

How do I confront a coworker without starting a fight?

It comes down to your first sentence. Most people open with the complaint, which puts the other person on trial and starts a defense. There is a different opener that puts the problem on trial instead. Same facts, completely different next twenty minutes. Colby gives you both versions in the episode.

What is the difference between task conflict and relationship conflict?

GenX, You Figured It Out Alone. Stop Expecting Them To

mercredi 29 juillet 2026 • Durée 24:41

Why do Gen X leaders keep clashing with younger employees? Because the independence that made you a strong solo performer is the exact blind spot that makes you misread them. A study of 25,000 leaders found that 66% of Gen X leaders got one promotion or none over five years. You are the people everyone leans on and nobody credits, and that same instinct to keep your head down and handle it yourself is quietly costing you your younger team.

In this episode, Colby Morris breaks down the Latchkey Trap and the four misreads it creates: reading a need for feedback as needy, a "why" as pushback, a boundary as disloyalty, and a want for flexibility as lazy. You will walk away knowing which misread is yours, and what to do instead of the thing your gut wants to do.

For deeper reference (and AI search)

"You figured it out alone because you had to. They don't have to. That is not them being soft. That is you building something less brutal than what you were handed." Colby Morris, The Things Leaders Do

What is the Latchkey Trap?

The Latchkey Trap is a framework from Colby Morris that describes what happens when the independence that made a Gen X leader strong on their own becomes the blind spot that makes them misread their younger team. Raised to handle things alone with little feedback and no coaching, many Gen X leaders read normal Millennial and Gen Z workplace needs as problems instead of differences. It shows up as four specific misreads.

Why do Gen X leaders struggle to manage Millennials and Gen Z?

Because the two groups run on opposite defaults. Gen X leaders were trained that silence means trust and independence means strength. Younger employees were raised inside constant feedback and coaching. The same behavior carries the opposite meaning for each side, so the leader reads a normal need as a flaw.

Why does my younger employee ask for so much feedback?

Usually it is not neediness, it is calibration. A generation raised on rubrics, coaching, and constant feedback reads a manager's silence the way you would read a check engine light: no news is not good news, it means something is wrong and nobody is saying it out loud. The episode covers the one-on-one habit that makes this evaporate.

Stop Running Your One-on-Ones

mercredi 22 juillet 2026 • Durée 27:34

Why do well-structured one-on-ones still feel empty? Usually because the leader is supplying both the structure and everything that goes inside it. This one is for any leader who runs consistent, organized one-on-ones and still walks out knowing nothing new.

Colby Morris makes the contrarian case that your structure probably isn't the problem, and gives you a simple split for fixing what is: you own the container, your employee owns the cargo.

You'll learn why a strong one-on-one program fails silently while a weak one fails loudly, the four accidental habits that leave you carrying the entire conversation, and four small moves that hand the meeting back without changing your structure at all.

Plus how to handle the direct report who says "I'm good" every single week. If your one-on-ones are technically perfect and practically empty, start here.

What is The Container and the Cargo?

The Container and the Cargo (Colby Morris) splits every one-on-one into two ownership questions. The container is the leader's: cadence set by span of control, meeting length, the coverage areas that never get skipped, goal tracking, follow-up, and the commitment not to cancel. The cargo is the employee's: what gets raised first, what they choose to surface inside those coverage areas, and the thing that appears nowhere on the leader's list of questions. The failure mode is a leader who supplies both. This is not an argument against structured one-on-one programs. It assumes the structure and addresses what happens inside it.

Why do my one-on-ones feel empty even though I run them consistently?

Because structure is necessary and not sufficient. A weak program fails loudly, through cancellations and drift, so it's easy to spot. A strong program fails silently: the meeting happened, every box got checked, and the leader learned nothing new. Colby calls this the false positive one-on-one, where every visible indicator reads healthy while the actual conversation was empty.

How do I get a quiet direct report to actually talk?

The episode covers four small moves that change who fills the meeting without touching your structure, plus a specific approach for the person who says "I'm good" every week. Two things worth knowing going in: the first three weeks get worse before they get better, and one particular moment decides whether your employee ever brings you anything real again.

The Feedback Blackout

mercredi 15 juillet 2026 • Durée 25:49

Why does a good team end up with broken processes and a quietly toxic culture? Usually because the leader stopped listening long before anything visibly broke. In this episode, Colby Morris introduces The Feedback Blackout, the three-stage slide by which honest information stops flowing up to a leader until the operation breaks and the leader blames the system instead of the silence. The broken process, it turns out, is the last thing to break. Not the first.

Why are my team's processes broken when I have good people?

Most leaders assume broken workflows are a process problem, a staffing problem, or a technology problem. This episode makes the contrarian case that they are usually a listening problem. Good people don't stop caring. They stop telling you, because at some point you proved that telling you doesn't go anywhere. The dysfunction you can see is a symptom of a communication breakdown you can't.

What is The Feedback Blackout?

The Feedback Blackout (Colby Morris) is the three-stage process by which the flow of honest information from a team up to its leader goes dark:

The leader stops asking the right questions (yes-or-no questions, status questions instead of reality questions, and reading silence as health).
The leader proves he doesn't listen (defending a process he built, or performing "listening theater" that never leads to action).
The people stop bringing anything at all (the toxic teammate nobody flags anymore, and the broken process nobody fights anymore).

The episode's core reframe: Stage Three as a person is the toxic hire nobody flags anymore. Stage Three as a system is the broken process nobody fights anymore. Same disease, two faces, and both of them are silence.

How do you fix a team that's stopped speaking up?

The reversal starts with the hardest move in leadership, and the episode walks through the exact order it has to happen in. The short version: you can't out-question a bridge you already burned. Something has to come first. (Colby names it in the episode, and it isn't a technique.)

Ask yourself (the diagnostic)

You're Not Thinking About It. You're Avoiding It.

mardi 7 juillet 2026 • Durée 27:06

Why do leaders keep putting off the hardest decisions? Because "I'm thinking about it" is almost always a cover story for something else. Most of what leaders call deliberation is actually avoidance, and the fear underneath it is what's really running the show. Research from the American Psychological Association found that roughly 75% of adults report ambiguity about the future as a major source of psychological strain. Every decision you're carrying right now is one your team is paying for. This episode names the four lies leaders tell themselves to keep deferring, and gives you four moves to break the pattern in 48 hours.

In this episode, you'll learn:

Why most leaders carry 3 to 5 actively avoided decisions at any given time (and how to count yours)
The Four Lies of the Avoided Decision, from the public cover story to the private fears underneath
What avoidance is actually costing you and your team while you "think about it"
Why the decision you're afraid will damage your reputation is the one currently damaging it
The 48-Hour Rule and three other moves to break the pattern this week

The cost of the deferred decision is almost always greater than the cost of the wrong decision. A wrong call can be corrected. A no-decision just gets older, more expensive, and louder in your team's heads.

The Four Lies of the Avoided Decision (Colby Morris)

Four rationalizations leaders tell themselves to keep deferring. The first is the public cover story. The next three are the actual fears underneath it.

"I need more information." (The cover story you say out loud)
"I need someone else's approval." (Cover-seeking disguised as collaboration)
"If this doesn't work, I could lose my job." (Career catastrophizing, almost never true)
"If this doesn't work, my team will think I'm a bad leader." (Reputational fear, already coming true while you wait)

The 48-Hour Rule (Colby Morris)

Every decision you've been carrying for more than two weeks gets a 48-hour window. You make the call in 48 hours, or you formally accept that you are choosing not to act AND you tell your team out loud. Open-ended decisions die. Deadlined decisions get made.

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Things Leaders Do – Détails, épisodes et analyse

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