Your Preshift

Some of the hardest leadership decisions aren’t about the person who is obviously failing. They’re about the person who’s doing okay. You’ve coached them. You’ve had the conversations. Maybe you’ve seen some improvement. Maybe they get decent results. And every time you start wondering whether it’s time to make a change, there’s a perfectly reasonable argument for giving them a little more time. S...

We want people to take ownership, make decisions, and solve problems without constantly asking for permission. But give people too much freedom without enough clarity, and empowerment can quickly turn into everyone doing their own thing. In this episode of Your Preshift , Ryan explores the tension between autonomy and alignment . How do you give people real room to lead while still making sure eve...

What happens when someone on your team falls short of the standard, but you also understand exactly why? In this episode of our Managing Leadership Tensions series, Ryan explores one of the hardest balances in frontline leadership: holding a high bar without losing sight of the human being trying to reach it. We look at why leaders tend to drift toward one of two extremes under pressure: becoming...

In this teaser episode for High Standards and Deep Empathy, we look at why balancing uncompromising performance standards with genuine care is one of the oldest and hardest tensions in leadership.

In this episode of our Managing Leadership Tensions series, Ryan tackles one of the most practical tensions every leader faces: When do you coach, and when do you simply give direction? Lean too heavily on directing, and your team becomes dependent on you for every answer. Lean too heavily on coaching, and people can become frustrated, confused, or left to struggle when they really needed someone...

Every day, leaders are pulled between competing priorities. Move faster or slow down and coach. Hold people accountable or show empathy. Give more freedom or create more structure. Most of us treat these as choices, and that's where the trouble starts. In the kickoff to this new series on Managing Leadership Tensions , Ryan explores why leadership feels like an endless game of Whack-a-Mole. You so...

Ryan continues the From Buddy to Boss series by exploring one of the biggest mindset shifts new leaders face: realizing their job is no longer to do the work, but to create the conditions where others can succeed. He unpacks why so many new managers struggle to let go, how credibility is built through consistency rather than expertise, and why coaching, trust, and protecting a team's capacity ulti...

One of the most popular series on Your Preshift returns. Ryan kicks off From Buddy to Boss by exploring one of leadership's toughest transitions: going from being one of the team to leading it. He unpacks the hidden shifts in responsibility, relationships, identity, and expectations that catch so many new leaders by surprise, sharing lessons from his own early mistakes along the way. If you've rec...

Ryan explores what it takes to enter and lead a true turnaround. Drawing on research from psychology and organizational behavior, he explains why struggling teams often become either helpless or defensive, how to identify the quiet employees who hold the most valuable institutional knowledge, and why fixing relationships is often the first step to fixing performance. The lesson: move quickly on br...

This week on Your Preshift , Ryan explores one of the hardest parts of leadership: walking into a team you didn’t build. Whether you're taking over a restaurant, a department, a school, or a shift, the pressure to prove yourself can push you into changing things before you understand them. Ryan unpacks why organizations are more like archaeological sites than blank slates, how old processes often...

AI is making answers easier to find than ever before. The problem is that every answer demands attention. Ryan explores why frontline leaders are feeling overwhelmed, how too many priorities create instability, and why the future of leadership is less about finding problems and more about creating priorities, focus, and sustainable change.

This week, Ryan explores what happens when AI makes everything look polished, but not everything is actually well thought out. Through stories from the workplace, the luxury industry, and a simple paper airplane, he argues that the real value of leadership is found in the messy middle, the questioning, judgment, and decision-making that AI can't replace. The episode offers practical ways to pressu...

In this episode, Ryan tackles "responsibility abdication", the habit of blaming a higher power to avoid tough conversations. While managers used to blame "Corporate," the predictive scheduling and automated tracking tools of 2026 have created a new hiding place: "The system did this." Ryan explores the psychology behind why we hide behind algorithms and challenges leaders to reclaim their authorit...

We're rewinding a classic for the AI era: In this kickoff to the Lead Like a Gardener series, we explore why so many leaders default to pressure, control, and quick fixes, especially in fast-paced environments. Drawing on the contrast between mechanic-style leadership and gardener-style leadership, this episode unpacks how true growth doesn’t come from tightening bolts, but from tending to the soi...

"I lead you because I’ve done your job." For decades, this has been the ultimate safety net for frontline leaders. But in the era of AI, that safety net is disappearing. In this episode, Ryan explores a massive shift in leadership identity where functional authority is no longer the leadership currency . Drawing on insights from a recent LinkedIn discussion with leaders like Tonya Witherspoon and...

In the age of AI, Ryan argues that frontline leadership is splitting into two distinct classes. On one side is the Receiver, the leader who treats new tech as a set of instructions to follow, often using AI to solve symptoms while ignoring the real problems. On the other is the Creator, who uses the tools in their pocket to hunt down root causes and redesign the system itself. In this episode, Rya...

Ryan kicks off a new series on AI and frontline leadership, starting from a place a lot of people can relate to, he was late to take it seriously. What once felt like fantasy is now showing up in real ways across everyday work. In this episode, he breaks down what AI actually is, how it’s shifting from a tool to something that can act alongside you, and why that changes what it means to be valuabl...

Why do talented leaders end up with average results? This episode looks at how systems, not people, usually cause the slide, rigid rules, busy work that doesn’t use your brain, and losing your say in how things run. It also gets into the shift happening right now with technology, where holding onto the old work can actually keep you stuck. The challenge is simple: step out of the “machine work” an...

A seasoned restaurant leader shares a story from early in his career, when the pressure to hit numbers led him to game the system, not out of defiance, but because he didn’t actually understand what he was being asked to do. This episode unpacks how easily leaders can fall into the same trap, asking for results without creating understanding. When numbers become the focus, behavior starts bending...

In this episode of Your Preshift , Ryan challenges a common leadership habit, chasing numbers as if they’re the problem. Using the metaphor of trying to hold an inner tube underwater, he shows why pushing metrics only creates new issues somewhere else. The real shift is learning to see numbers as signals and symptoms, not causes. Every metric is the result of human behavior shaped by the environme...

In this Preshift, we talk about a simple question for every leader and organization: are people actually better off for having worked with you? This one is also a small tribute to Bob Chapman, whose work in Everybody Matters shaped how many of us think about leadership and human dignity at work. Bob believed the way we lead impacts the way people live, and that shows up most clearly in the day-to-...

When you step into a struggling team or organization, it’s easy to focus on fixing the numbers. But most of the time, the numbers are just a reflection of something deeper, the beliefs, behaviors, and patterns that have taken root over time. In this episode, Ryan explores what it really means to lead a turnaround. Drawing on ideas from Spiral Dynamics and real-world examples like Barry-Wehmiller a...

Leaders don’t just lead differently, they see the world differently. And the way we see people shapes the kind of workplace we build around them. In this episode of Your Preshift , we explore a powerful question: What kind of organization are you growing? Drawing on the work of Frederic Laloux and the Spiral Dynamics framework, we walk through five common ways organizations operate: Red, Amber, Or...

How does your team feel when they see you coming? Do they breathe easier, or brace for impact? This episode takes a look at one of the truths of leadership: your presence, your reputation, arrives before your words do , and your team already has a reputation for you, whether you’ve named it or not. We explore how your internal view of leadership shapes the way you show up either from the “mechanic...

Why do smart, well-intentioned leaders look at the same struggling team and come to completely different conclusions? In this opening episode, Ryan explores how leaders don’t just disagree on solutions, they disagree on what the actual problem is. One sees accountability. Another sees burnout. Another sees broken systems. Same facts. Different stories. Drawing on Spiral Dynamics and Karl Weick’s r...