The Compassionate Leader School Podcast

Debbie Lawrence
  • 5.0 (1)
  • Management
  • Updated Biweekly

How do I attract and keep the best employees? How do I create a workplace where people want to be, to stay, and beg their friends to join them? And how do I balance being a compassionate, thoughtful and fair leader while getting stuff done and making money? These are just some of the questions business strategist and master teacher Debbie Lawrence will dive into on The Compassionate Leader School podcast. Along with episodes that feel like you're sitting right there with her in the boardroom, Debbie's practical "Take Action Challenges" and valuable freebie resources will have you embracing your compassionate leadership style while building an amazing team and running a smart, profitable business!

  1. 4d ago

    What My Annoyance Knew Before I Did

    "I think I messed up the formula in cell F14. Can you fix it for me, please?" For three months, that email kept coming. Every time, I fixed it. It only took two minutes, and if I'm honest, it felt good. In this episode, I tell you about my client Courtney and the spreadsheet I built to help her track her projections against her actuals. Several times a month she'd break a formula, and several times a month I'd rescue her. Then one morning, three emails landed before 10:00 am, and I felt a small flicker of annoyance. That flicker knew something I hadn't let myself see yet. This episode names the pattern clearly: overfunctioning, Harriet Lerner's term for the person who moves in fast to advise, rescue, and fix. It looks like competence and feels like care. Underneath, it's a response to anxiety, and it has a partner. Every time one person does more, the other does a little less, and each move makes the next one more likely. I was training Courtney to need me, and I didn't see it. I also talk about why this dance is so much harder to leave when you're a woman. The research shows women get no credit for helping at work and get penalized for declining. Men get credit for helping and no penalty for saying no. Then I bring in Edwin Friedman's differentiated leader and talk about how this approach to leadership is the antidote to over functioning. In this episode: The spreadsheet emails, and the sentence from Courtney I almost took as a complimentWhat overfunctioning is, and why every fix makes the next request more likelyThe research on why stepping back costs women more than menThe differentiated leader, and what it means to stay steady when your team's anxiety pulls at youWhat I do now when I feel the pull to fix, and the pushback to expect when I stopThis week's permission: You are allowed to let someone carry what's theirs. You are allowed to feel the pull to fix it and stay where you are. You are allowed to care deeply about your people and still hand the problem back. To join the waitlist for the micro-training The First Boundary (The One That Changes Everything), click here.

  2. Sep 23

    The One Question That Tells You Who Stays and Who Goes

    You already know the answer. You've just been telling yourself you don't, because "gathering more information" feels safer than admitting you made this decision months ago and haven't acted on it yet. In this episode, I tell you about my client Elizabeth, who knew in month two that her new hire wasn't the right fit. Four months of performance plans, repeated coaching conversations, and quietly redoing his work every night followed anyway, because admitting what she already knew felt harder than the alternative. This episode names a pattern I call "coaching theatre", the performance of coaching someone you've privately already given up on. Documenting conversations for a file "just in case." Hoping they'll quit so you don't have to be the one who decides. Having the same feedback conversation every few weeks and calling it progress. None of it is coaching. It's a leader avoiding a decision she's already made. I also give you the test I use with every client who's stuck: one gut-check question that tells you, before your brain starts building a case for why you should feel differently, whether someone still deserves your coaching or whether you're just stalling the inevitable. In this episode: Elizabeth's story, and the four months she spent coaching someone she'd already decided wasn't rightWhat coaching theatre actually looks like, and the six behaviours that tell you you're performing instead of coachingThe one gut-check question that cuts through months of second-guessingTwo short lists that tell you whether you're still coaching or just stallingWhat I check for now before I let myself say "maybe with more time"This week's permission: You are allowed to trust what you already know. You don't need more evidence, more patience, or one more improvement plan to confirm an answer you decided months ago. Stop performing the coaching and go have the real, direct and clear conversation.

  3. Sep 16

    You're Running Two Jobs. Only One Pays You.

    Two people can hold the exact same title. Only one of them is quietly doing a second job no one put on the org chart. You plan the birthday. You read the room before the meeting starts. You carry what someone told you in confidence and can't put back down. None of that is in your job description yet, for women who lead, all of it is expected. In this episode, I tell you about a management meeting where I was one of six women left at that table following a call to exit for some of the attendees. It's the first time I remember asking myself what I was saying yes to, just by staying in my seat. This episode explores the emotional labour boundary, the line between the care you choose to give your team and the unpaid, unassigned work you've absorbed simply because you got there first. I also bring in my client Sarah, who spent the two hours after a coworker's birthday party quietly rewriting that coworker's failed client proposal instead of giving her the feedback she needed, because it felt cruel to correct someone on the day her team had just celebrated her. The research backs up what both of us lived. Gallup's newest workplace data shows women in leadership reporting burnout at nearly double the rate of men, and the gap barely moves whether or not they have kids. Whatever's driving it is older than daycare pickups. In this episode: The moment I first saw the second job I'd been running without ever signing up for itWhat Gallup's newest data says about the burnout gap between women and men in leadership, and why it isn't about parentingSarah's story, and the birthday party that cost her two hours of unpaid rewritingThe one question I now ask myself before I pick up work that was never mine to carryA simple test for knowing whether you've set a boundary, or just stopped caring out loudThis week's permission: You are allowed to care about your team without being their emotional processor. You are allowed to notice someone's struggling without owning the job of fixing how they feel. You are allowed to put the cake down. And if you'd like to be on the waitlist for the upcoming micro training, "The First Boundary: The One That Changes Everything," here's the link: https://debbielawrence.ca/waitlist-boundary-course

  4. Sep 9

    Too Intense to Be Liked

    For years, across different roles and different managers, I kept getting the same note. Not the same words every time, but close enough that I started to hear it before it was said. "You're a perfectionist. You're intense. You'd go further if you loosened up a little." I remember sitting with that last one the longest. Loosen up. It was stated as if the thing that was responsible for the stellar work I produced, the thing I was actually being paid for, was also the thing standing between me and being liked.  Nobody ever told me to loosen up on the deliverables. It was just on myself and that distinction mattered a lot. In this episode, I tell the story of how I learned that what I was receiving wasn't really feedback at all. It was a personality judgment presented as performance feedback.  This is the pattern that shows up again and again for women in leadership: the qualities that help men look decisive and strong often get women labelled as difficult, abrasive, intense, or too much. The same behaviour that gets men promoted gets women told to soften, be more agreeable, and be easier to like. The real problem is that leaders are using language that confuses a person's traits with a performance issue. Once you have the language for it, you can see it everywhere. In this episode, I talk about: Why the feedback wasn't about my workThe competence-likability bias and the social cost of being both capable and warmThe difference between a trait and a behaviour, and why that distinction mattersThe five-part test I now use before I give or receive feedbackThe practical rewrite process that turns vague judgments into actionable guidanceI also walk through the research that makes this pattern impossible to dismiss.  The most important distinction here is this: a trait is a label. A behaviour is something someone can actually do differently. A person can learn to change a behaviour. They cannot develop themselves out of the personality category someone else has assigned to them. This is why I got serious about a new standard for feedback, which I share in this episode. This week's permission: You are allowed to reject the version of feedback that asks you to shrink yourself to be easier to manage. Being effective is not the same thing as being easy. Being clear is not the same thing as being difficult. And the part of you that makes your work land is not a flaw to be corrected.

  5. Sep 2

    What a Bridal Shower Taught Me About Letting Go

    Somewhere in your business is a hundred-hour puzzle you built and are proud of. And you're the only one who's allowed to touch it because you're good at it and you keep telling yourself no one could complete it quite the way that you do.  In this episode, I share the years I spent running a college registrar's office, building the entire class schedule myself, three times a year, close to a hundred hours a shot, convinced I was some kind of unicorn nobody else could replace. Then I tell you about the event that changed how I saw all of it. It's the choice I still carry. This episode names the pattern clearly: what looks like competence is often just control wearing a more palatable outfit. The women who hold on longest to work they should hand off are typically the most capable people in the room, which is exactly what makes "nobody else can do this like I can" so easy to believe, even when you're the one saying it to yourself. I also bring in my client Nicki, who ran her own version of this for eight years, sixteen hours a month across three retail stores.  In this episode: The question I ask myself now that finally gets me to loosen my grip on something I'm holding too tightlyWhy "nobody can do it like I do" is almost always a control story Nicki's inventory story, and the moment she admitted that letting go felt like operating in the dark The math behind her sixteen hours a month, and what it added up to in working days at her peak with three storesA simple tool for deciding how much to hand off and to whom, so you're not stuck choosing between doing it all yourself and dropping it completelyWhat I'd say to the version of me still sitting in that office that pivotal afternoon This week's permission: You are allowed to let something be done well by someone other than you. Being the only one who can do it isn't a compliment. It's a cost, and you're the one paying it.

  6. Aug 26

    The Bow Wasn't Big Enough

    People pleasers can't be trusted. They're not dishonest on purpose. They're someone whose "yes" comes from the fear of disappointing you rather than saying "no". In this episode, I share the story of a December I spent hand-painting a 4-foot Christmas trunk for my boss's sister, night after night, into the early hours of the morning, on top of one of the busiest stretches of our year. I said yes in about 30 seconds and resented every hour of it. And when the bow wasn't big enough, I painted a second one. This episode names the pattern clearly, which is how saying yes when you mean no doesn't make you kind or helpful. It makes you unreliable, because the people around you can't trust an answer that was never a fully  explored decision. I get into why so many smart, capable women who lead default to yes this fast, and why flattery is one of the most effective delivery systems for an unreasonable request. I also walk through a client's story: an invitation to speak on a panel, a friend doing the asking, and the opportunity-cost math that turned an automatic yes into an honest no, without losing the friendship. In this episode: Why worry starts to feel like loyalty, and how that keeps people pleasing women who lead saying yes to things they don't want to doThe sequence I use to turn an automatic yes into an actual decisionThe two questions I ask before committing to anythingThe client story of declining a friend's invitation to speak, and the exact words she used to say no without damaging the relationshipWhat I do differently now when I feel the pull of flattery or the instinct to say yes too fastThis week's permission: You are allowed to say no without an essay of reasons attached to it. A clean no protects a relationship. A resentful yes can wreck it.

  7. Aug 19

    You're Spending Your Best Hours in the Wrong Circle

    She lies down at 10 at night. At 1 in the morning she's still running scenarios. The rollout. The training schedule. Who's going to quit over this.  Every one of those is getting the same grip, the same attention, and the same tightness in her chest including the ones that were decided 1,200 kilometres away by people whose table she wasn't invited to join. In this episode, I share the story of my client Juanita, a branch manager who found out by email that her company was rolling out a new software system, four years after the last rollout went badly enough that people still talk about it. She'd been asked for her input early in the process and then later she spent a week working a full-time second job in her head on a decision that had already been made. This episode explores what is happening when something big lands on us and we don't sort it. Instead, we carry the parts we could move today with exactly the same grip as the parts that were never ours to even influence let alone control, so the things we can actually change end up with whatever energy is left over. And the leaders who do this most are rarely the avoidant ones. They're the most conscientious people on the team, which is what makes it so hard to catch in yourself. I get into the three beliefs underneath it, all of which sound completely reasonable from the inside, and the exercise I walk clients through with a sheet of paper and 15 minutes.  In this episode: Why worry starts to feel like loyalty, and what it costs to keep the fire going as proof that you still careThe difference between preparing for something and rehearsing it on a loop at 1 a.m. when you can't sleepWhy confusing having a voice with having a vote is the most expensive mistake of the three, and how it disguises itself as accountabilityThe three circles exercise, what Epictetus and Stephen Covey each contributed to it, and the third circle I addedThe question I now ask myself out loud when I catch myself spun up about somethingThis week's permission: You are allowed to put it down. Being aware of something and feeding it are two different things, and your best two hours belong to the work that's in your control.

  8. Aug 12

    I Had the Hard Conversation. Then I Let It Slide.

    In this episode, I share the semester I spent chasing an instructor in my faculty for every report he owed me, the conversation I finally sat down and had with him over the break, and the four months afterward when I watched him slide right back into the pattern and said nothing.  This episode is about how the conversation is one afternoon and holding the line is every day after it. When someone slips back and you stay quiet, rather than thinking you're not being generous with them, understand that you're teaching them that your standards have an expiry date. And most of the leaders doing this aren't avoidant by nature. They're the ones who care most about being fair, which is exactly what makes it so hard to see in yourself. I get into the three reasons this happens, the ones that sound completely reasonable from the inside, and the accountability ladder I use now so that a missed standard has somewhere to go besides another round of the same conversation. In this episode: Why the first slip after the conversation is the entire ballgame, and what your silence in that moment teaches the other personThe difference between nagging and accountability, and why one comes from powerlessness and the other from a prior agreementWhat letting it slide costs you with your strong performers, long before it costs you anything with the person who missed the deadlineThe four-rung accountability ladder, with a script framework for each rungThe one thing I now do during the conversation, while the person is still sitting in front of meThis week's permission: You are allowed to bring it up again. The conversation you had was the start of something, not the end of it, and following up on an agreement someone made with you is the job of being a leader.

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How do I attract and keep the best employees? How do I create a workplace where people want to be, to stay, and beg their friends to join them? And how do I balance being a compassionate, thoughtful and fair leader while getting stuff done and making money? These are just some of the questions business strategist and master teacher Debbie Lawrence will dive into on The Compassionate Leader School podcast. Along with episodes that feel like you're sitting right there with her in the boardroom, Debbie's practical "Take Action Challenges" and valuable freebie resources will have you embracing your compassionate leadership style while building an amazing team and running a smart, profitable business!

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