The Love Monday Podcast

Send us Fan Mail A manager was struggling with a promotion decision because one of his employees became emotional and frustrated when work went wrong. At first, it looked like a performance issue. But after asking a few more questions, the real problem emerged. The employee wasn't creating the frustration—she was reacting to poor-quality work being handed off from another team. The issue wasn...

Send us Fan Mail Employee engagement, company culture, manager effectiveness, employee experience, leadership development, HR strategy—who actually owns these outcomes? In this Real-Life Sitch episode, Ryan shares a coaching conversation with an HR leader frustrated that her CEO didn't seem concerned about culture, compliance, organizational risk, or employee relations. The deeper they explor...

Send us Fan Mail Most managers think they have a communication problem. They don't. In this episode, Ryan shares a coaching conversation with a manager who believed poor communication was at the root of a difficult workplace issue. But as the conversation unfolded, a deeper truth emerged: the challenge wasn't communication at all—it was courage. Why do managers avoid feedback? Why do lea...

Send us Fan Mail What makes someone a true leader? Is it a title, authority, experience, or results? In this episode of the Love Monday Podcast, Ryan Houmand explores the simplest test of leadership: Would people willingly follow you if your title disappeared tomorrow? Learn the difference between compliance and commitment, why employee engagement is really a followership issue, and what great man...

Send us Fan Mail Why do good employees disengage, burn out, or quietly quit even under “good” managers? In this episode of the Love Monday Podcast, Ryan Houmand breaks down the three biggest leadership blind spots he sees in management today: emotional disconnect, coaching avoidance, and lack of employee advocacy. Learn how these management behaviors impact employee engagement, retention, culture,...

Send us Fan Mail Most leadership assessments stop at awareness. A manager gets a score, glances at a report, and nothing changes. In this episode of the Love Monday Podcast, Ryan Houmand explains why the real value of the Love Monday Manager QB Rating™ isn’t the score itself — it’s the coaching and action that happen afterward. Learn how dimension-level feedback reveals leadership blind spots, imp...

Send us Fan Mail What actually makes a manager effective? In this episode of the Love Monday Podcast , I break down the 9 core dimensions that define great management—based on real-world experience, employee engagement data, and what actually drives team performance. Most companies either don’t measure managers at all… or they measure the wrong things. The result? Inconsistent leadership, disengag...

Send us Fan Mail What if measuring manager performance isn’t enough? In this episode of the Love Monday Podcast , I build on last week’s concept of a “QB Rating” for managers—a simple, objective way to evaluate how effectively a manager is leading their team. But after pressure-testing the idea with a leader experienced in 360 feedback systems, something became clear: A score alone doesn’t develop...

Send us Fan Mail What if managers were evaluated like quarterbacks? In this episode of the Love Monday Podcast, I introduce the concept behind the Love Monday Manager QB Rating™ — a new way to think about leadership, employee engagement, and manager effectiveness. We’ve got stats for athletes, KPIs for businesses, and performance reviews for employees… but almost no meaningful way to evaluate a ma...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Love Monday Podcast, Ryan explores a powerful Service-Profit Chain case study through Epic Systems and founder Judy Faulkner. Learn how strong internal culture, employee experience, and long-term leadership thinking can create customer loyalty, operational excellence, and lasting business success. If you care about employee engagement, leadership strategy, custo...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of Love Monday Podcast, Ryan breaks down one of the simplest and most powerful frameworks in performance management: Do they know, or do they care? When employee productivity issues, quality problems, or missed expectations show up, great managers must diagnose before they react. Learn how to use the Coaching Cycle™ to uncover whether the issue is lack of training,...

Send us Fan Mail Are you stuck people-pleasing at work or in relationships? In this episode of Love Monday , we unpack how weak boundaries, conflict avoidance, and over-functioning can turn you into a hostage to other people’s moods, demands, and dysfunction. We explore why people pleasing feels noble—but often creates resentment, burnout, and loss of self-respect. Learn how to set healthy boundar...

Send us Fan Mail You’ve got the tools—now how do you actually use them together? In Part 2 of this Love Monday series, I go beyond individual frameworks and show how Development Ranking, the 5 Talents of Great Managers, Gainers & Drainers, and Career Drivers work as a system . Because great managers don’t use tools in isolation—they connect the dots. I break down how to integrate these tools t...

Send us Fan Mail Most managers wait too long to act—and their teams feel it. In this episode of Love Monday , I break down real-world management tools like Development Ranking, the 5 Talents of Great Managers, Gainers & Drainers, and Career Drivers—and more importantly, the signals they give you . Because these tools aren’t just for tracking—they’re your early warning system. If you know what...

Send us Fan Mail What if your biggest customer at work isn’t external—but internal? In this episode, we break down Internal Service Quality (ISQ) at every level of a company—from CEO to manager—and show how leadership behaviors drive employee engagement, customer experience, and ultimately profit. Building on the Service-Profit Chain , we introduce the 5 drivers of ISQ— clarity, capacity, capabili...

Send us Fan Mail Support the show For more information on how to love Monday just like Friday, got to: LoveMondayLikeFriday.com . Find more information from Ryan on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-houmand/ Get the book! "A Passion for Monday"  

Send us Fan Mail Internal Service Quality is the hidden driver behind exceptional customer experience—and most organizations are getting it wrong. In this episode of the Love Monday Podcast, I break down how employee support, trust, and empowerment directly impact customer satisfaction, loyalty, and business performance. If your customer experience is struggling, the problem might not be your cust...

Send us Fan Mail Most organizations think they have a customer service problem . But in my experience, they actually have an internal service quality problem . In this episode of the Love Monday Podcast , I walk through the connection between how employees experience their workplace and how customers experience the company . Drawing on the principles behind the Service-Profit Chain , I explain why...

Send us Fan Mail Yesterday I had one of those moments that reminded me why I do the work I do. I walked into a restaurant where, years ago, I helped the leadership team work on employee engagement. Part of my fee back then was paid in trade… so every once in a while I still eat there for free. But that’s not the interesting part. What struck me was the service. Attentive. Friendly. Anticipatory. T...

Send us Fan Mail I hear it constantly in my coaching work: “It was great here… until my coworker got promoted.” In this episode, we explore one of the most common—and costly—mistakes organizations make: promoting top performers into leadership roles without ever testing their ability to lead. It’s the real-world version of The Peter Principle —and it’s still quietly wrecking teams decades later. W...

Send us Fan Mail How will you make sure you don’t Get Another Bad Boss? Have you ever left a job—not because of the work, but because of your manager? You’re not alone. Gallup research shows that managers spend nearly 40% of their time doing individual contributor work , which means many leaders are promoted without the skills to actually lead. In this episode of the Love Monday Podcast, Ryan Houm...

Send us Fan Mail What are the real odds you’ll end up with a bad boss—and how can you avoid toxic leadership before accepting your next job? In this episode of Love Monday Like Friday, Ryan breaks down workplace culture, employee engagement, and management mistakes using three real company models: healthy organizations, average companies, and private-equity-pressured workplaces. You’ll learn how b...

Send us Fan Mail In a world that rewards busy, loud, and more, this episode makes the case for the opposite. We talk about slowing down, saying no more often, and bringing your full self to the work that actually matters. Not half-focused. Not spread thin. Fully present. Intentional. Sharp. Because real impact doesn’t come from doing everything—it comes from doing the right things with care, depth...

Send us Fan Mail What’s the thing you do that actually changes people’s lives? In this crossover episode of the Love Monday Podcast, Ryan shares the only time he ever saw Zig Ziglar speak—and why that moment changed everything for him. Not because it was flashy, but because it was useful . That experience became a lens for Ryan’s own work: how he discovered and developed the 7 Bridges framework ,...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode of the Love Monday Podcast, we explore what happens when people lose their sense of purpose after a job change—and what organizations lose when mission becomes nothing more than revenue targets and deliverables. On the individual side, I unpack why tying your identity and purpose to your job title is a trap. Roles change. Assignments shift. Layoffs happen. Purpose,...