Leaders Leading Leaders

John Espinosa
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John Espinosa is an educator, dynamic speaker, frontline leader, and podcast host dedicated to serving others. With a passion for helping individuals reach their goals, John is known for his down-to-earth approach and commitment to making a difference. Follow him on social media for inspiring content and insights that reflect his mission of empowerment and service.

  1. 1d ago

    Your Year-End Review Could Make Them Worse. Here's The Fix

    Your year-end performance review could make your people worse. Not because you are a bad manager, but because of how most reviews get written: the night before, from whatever happened in the last six weeks, full of labels about the person instead of examples of the work. If you have a stack of reviews coming due, watch this before you write the first one. Researchers Avraham Kluger and Angelo DeNisi pulled together decades of studies on feedback, more than six hundred results, and published it in Psychological Bulletin. On average, feedback helped. But in more than a third of the cases, it made performance worse than no feedback at all, and that held for positive feedback too. The difference was where the feedback pointed. When it kept people focused on the work, it helped. When it turned the spotlight onto the person, it backfired. A year-end review, with its ratings and labels, turns the spotlight onto the person unless you are careful. In this episode John Espinosa walks through The Whole Year, three moves for how to write a performance review and how to deliver it so your people walk out better. ONE. PULL THE WHOLE YEAR. Before you write a word, scroll your calendar back to January, pull your one-on-one notes and search your email. Then write down three things: the best thing they did, where they grew the most, and the one thing that would make next year better. If anything on that list would be news to them, have that conversation before the review. TWO. POINT AT THE WORK. Find every sentence about who they are and rewrite it about what they did. Not a team player becomes two handoffs came in late on the March project. Rock star becomes you rebuilt the schedule and nobody missed a shift. Give the rating if you have to, but spend the conversation on the examples. THREE. HAND THEM THE PEN. Let them talk first about how their year went. Then share your three things. Before they leave, they write down the one thing they want to get better at next year and the first step, in their own words. If they can tell someone what they are working on next year, they walked out better. If all they know is their score, they walked out with a grade. This is performance management for new managers and experienced managers heading into review season who want the performance appraisal to be the start of next year, not a verdict on last year. -------------------------- Get my coaching frameworks behind the scenes. One idea and one small shift to your inbox every week. Start here: https://www.thejohnespinosa.com/start-here Ready to take your leadership to the next level? Join our Coaching Program and start building clarity, focus, and real momentum. ๐Ÿ‘‰ Apply here: https://www.thejohnespinosa.com/workwithjohn

  2. 5d ago

    Your Team Is Already Using AI. Here's What To Say First.

    Your team is already using AI. Right now, whether you have said one word about it or not. And some of them are hiding it from you. Not because they are cheating, but because they are worried about what you will think. If you have walked up behind someone and watched them click a window closed, this episode is for you. The question is not whether your team uses AI. It is whether they use it out in the open, where you can help, or in the dark, where you cannot. Researchers at Duke ran four experiments with more than four thousand people and published the results in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2025. People who got help from AI were judged as lazier, less competent and less diligent than people who got the same kind of help from another person. Employees expected that judgment, so they were less likely to tell their managers. But managers who used AI a lot themselves stopped penalizing it. In this episode John Espinosa walks through The Open Tab, three moves on AI for managers: what to say when your team starts using it, where to draw the line, and how to judge the work. ONE. GO FIRST. In your next team meeting, tell your team one real way you used AI this week. Say you checked it before you sent it. Say you would rather know than not know. Then ask what they are using it for that you do not know about, and watch how you react. TWO. DRAW THE LINES. Give your team three lines simple enough to repeat. Use it to start, not to finish. If it cannot go on the break room wall, it does not go in. Tell me when it touches a customer or a person. Put it in writing and call it version one. THREE. OWN THE OUTPUT. Stop asking did you use AI. Ask do you own this, and find out with three words: walk me through it. If they cannot walk you through it, it is not done yet, no matter who wrote it. This is AI for leadership at the team level, for new managers and experienced managers working out how to lead a team that already has AI on every screen. WHO THIS IS FOR New and first time managers whose teams have started using AI, small business owners and team leaders who have not set any AI rules yet, and experienced managers who want their people using AI with them instead of around them. Get my coaching frameworks behind the scenes. One idea and one small shift to your inbox every week. Start here: https://www.thejohnespinosa.com/start-here Ready to take your leadership to the next level? Join our Coaching Program and start building clarity, focus, and real momentum. ๐Ÿ‘‰ Apply here: https://www.thejohnespinosa.com/workwithjohn

  3. Oct 27

    Hiring Someone For The First Time? Don't Make This Mistake

    Hiring someone for the first time? Maybe the interviews are already on your calendar, or a stack of resumes just landed on your desk. Here is how most first interviews go. You read the resume five minutes before they walk in. You wing it. You talk for forty-five minutes, laugh a couple of times, and walk out thinking, yeah, I like them. Then you hire the person you liked the most, not the person who can do the job best. Sometimes that is the same person. Sometimes it is an expensive surprise ninety days later. An interview is not a conversation. It is a measurement. A 2022 review of decades of hiring research in the Journal of Applied Psychology found that the structured interview, the same questions asked the same way to every candidate and scored the same way, came out on top as a predictor of how people actually perform on the job. It predicted about twice as well as the casual, let's-just-talk interview. And with candidates walking in with AI-polished answers, the first answer tells you less than ever. In this episode John Espinosa walks through The Real Interview, three moves for how to interview someone when you have never hired before: what to ask, what to listen for, and how to tell if they will actually fit. ONE. DECIDE BEFORE THEY WALK IN. Before you read a single resume, finish one sentence: ninety days from now, this person is great if they can... Write down three things. Then write one tell-me-about-a-time question for each, and ask the same questions in the same order to every candidate. Otherwise you are not comparing candidates. You are comparing conversations. TWO. ASK THE SECOND QUESTION. The first answer is the rehearsed one. Listen for I, not we, and listen for details. Then follow up: What did you do next? What happened after that? What would you do differently? And score every candidate right after the interview, before they all blur together. THREE. TELL THEM THE HARD PART. Sociologist Lauren Rivera found that when interviewers hire for fit, it often means like me: same hobbies, same background. Fit is not would I grab a beer with this person. It is will this person work the way this team needs to work. Then tell every candidate the hardest part of the job, out loud, and watch how they react. These are the interview questions to ask candidates, and the hiring process behind them, whether you are a new manager making your first hire or a small business owner learning how to hire good people. WHO THIS IS FOR New managers making their first hire, small business owners who want to know how to hire employees without guessing, and experienced managers who want a hiring process that picks the right person instead of the most likeable one. ------------------ Get my coaching frameworks behind the scenes. One idea and one small shift to your inbox every week. Start here: https://www.thejohnespinosa.com/start-here Ready to take your leadership to the next level? Join our Coaching Program and start building clarity, focus, and real momentum. ๐Ÿ‘‰ Apply here: https://www.thejohnespinosa.com/workwithjohn

  4. Oct 23

    You Can't Give Everyone Equal Time. Here's What To Do Instead.

    How many people report to you right now? And how many of them did you have a real conversation with last week? Not a hallway hello. Not a status update. A real conversation, about them. If that second number is a lot smaller than the first, you are not a bad manager. Your team got bigger, and nobody gave you more hours. You are not imagining it. Gallup tracks how many people report to the average manager. In 2013 it was about eight. By 2025 it was about twelve. Same 24 hours. And when the team grows and the time doesn't, your time goes to whoever is loudest, whoever is struggling, and whoever is standing in your doorway. The quiet, steady people get the leftovers. Here is the good news. Gallup found that the size of the team is not what decides whether people stay engaged. What decides it is whether each person gets meaningful feedback from their manager every week, and it does not take long conversations. Fifteen to thirty minutes, done consistently, is enough. A bigger team does not need more of you. It needs you spent on purpose. In this episode John Espinosa walks through The Wide Team, three moves for how to manage a large team when you can't give everyone equal time. ONE. SORT BEFORE YOU SPREAD. Every Monday, before you open your email, take ten minutes and sort your team into three groups. Stuck: they need you this week. Stretching: they need a challenge, not a check-in. Steady: they need to know you see them. Then make sure your quietest, most reliable person hears one real thing from you before Friday. TWO. SAY IT ONCE. Stop repeating the same update in twelve one-on-ones. The news goes out once, to everybody, at the same time, in one short weekly huddle: here's what changed, here's what's coming, here's what I need from you. Then your one-on-ones open with this: the updates are covered, this time is yours. THREE. DON'T BE THE ONLY DOOR. Pick one or two people from your stretching group and give them a piece of the people work, like being the first stop for a new hire's how-do-I questions. Not a title. A piece of the work. Then tell the team out loud, because if you don't say it out loud, it's not a role. This is people management for the team you actually have: sort your time, say it once, and make sure nobody on your team has only one door to knock on. --------- Get my coaching frameworks behind the scenes. One idea and one small shift to your inbox every week. Start here: https://www.thejohnespinosa.com/start-here Ready to take your leadership to the next level? Join our Coaching Program and start building clarity, focus, and real momentum. ๐Ÿ‘‰ Apply here: https://www.thejohnespinosa.com/workwithjohn

  5. Oct 20

    Two People On Your Team Can't Stand Each Other. Now What?

    Two people on your team can't stand each other, and everybody knows it. The short answers in the meeting. The eye roll. The long way around the office. And you are hoping it blows over. It won't. And while you wait, the rest of your team is paying for it. Here is the part most managers miss about workplace conflict. It is never just between the two of them. It is in every meeting, every handoff, and every person stuck in the middle. It is the whole team's problem. It just has two names on it. Researchers Frank de Wit, Lindred Greer and Karen Jehn pulled together more than a hundred studies on conflict inside teams. Disagreements about the work were not the problem, and sometimes they helped. Personal conflict, people who just don't like each other, hurt trust, commitment and performance over and over. Conflict is not the enemy. Your job is to pull it back to the work. In this episode John Espinosa walks through The Same Side, three moves for conflict resolution in the workplace when two people on your team can't stand each other. ONE. DON'T WAIT FOR THE BLOW-UP. The test is not whether they have had a big fight. It is whether the team is working around it. If people are going through you, leaving somebody off emails, or being careful about who works with who, it is already time. Start with each of them separately: I'm not here to take sides. I just want to hear it from you. TWO. PUT THE WORK ON THE TABLE. Don't play judge. Open the meeting with this: you don't have to like each other, but you do have to work together. Ask each of them what they need from the other to do their job well. Write it down, get both to agree, and put a date on the follow-up. THREE. DON'T LET THE TEAM PICK SIDES. Stop taking the stories, stop splitting the team up to keep the peace, and say one thing to everybody else: don't carry it, we're one team. And never vent about either one of them. This is how a manager resolves conflict at work without making it worse: listen first, pull it back to the work, and keep the team together. WHO THIS IS FOR New managers dealing with conflict between employees for the first time, first time managers stuck in the middle of two people who don't get along, and experienced managers who want better conflict management skills before the team splits into camps. ------------------------------- Get my coaching frameworks behind the scenes. One idea and one small shift to your inbox every week. Start here: https://www.thejohnespinosa.com/start-here Ready to take your leadership to the next level? Join our Coaching Program and start building clarity, focus, and real momentum. ๐Ÿ‘‰ Apply here: https://www.thejohnespinosa.com/workwithjohn

  6. Oct 16

    You Have To Fire Someone Tomorrow. Here's What To Say

    There is a meeting on your calendar for nine o'clock tomorrow morning. Fifteen minutes. You have already talked to HR, the paperwork is done, and you have been rehearsing the first sentence all night. This is the first time you have to fire someone, and nobody ever showed you how. Most new managers think firing an employee is the meeting. It is not. Letting somebody go is three things: everything before you walk into the room, the first minute once you are in it, and the next morning with the people who are still on your team. Most of us only get ready for the middle one. Researchers Allan Lind, Jerald Greenberg, Kimberly Scott and Thomas Welchans interviewed almost a thousand people who had just lost their jobs to find out who decides to fight it. Money mattered, but what stood out most was how people were treated on the way out. People who felt treated with dignity and respect almost never went after their employer. People who got no explanation were far more likely to. How you do it is not the soft part. It is the part that matters. In this episode John Espinosa walks through The Clean Exit, three moves for the first time you have to let somebody go. ONE. NO SURPRISES. If they would be shocked, you are not ready to fire them. You are ready to have the conversation you skipped: your job is at risk, here is what is not working, here is what has to change, here is when we will look at it again. Then talk to HR, know the answers to their questions, and write your first sentence down. TWO. LEAD WITH THE DECISION. No small talk. Say it in the first minute: I have some hard news. We have made the decision to end your employment, and today is your last day. Give the same reason they have already heard. Do not argue, do not make it about you, and let them leave with their dignity. THREE. ANSWER THE QUESTION THEY WON'T ASK. The next morning your team is wondering one thing: am I next? Get them together, say what it means for the work, do not share the reasons, and make one promise. Nobody on this team gets blindsided. This is employee termination done the way a good manager does it: honest before, clear in the room, and steady with the team after. WHO THIS IS FOR New managers facing their first termination, first time managers dealing with an underperforming employee, and experienced managers who want to let someone go without losing the trust of the team that stays. --------------------------------- Get my coaching frameworks behind the scenes. One idea and one small shift to your inbox every week. Start here: https://www.thejohnespinosa.com/start-here Ready to take your leadership to the next level? Join our Coaching Program and start building clarity, focus, and real momentum. ๐Ÿ‘‰ Apply here: https://www.thejohnespinosa.com/workwithjohn

  7. Oct 13

    Your Employee Knows More Than You. Here's How To Lead Them.

    You just got put in charge of somebody who has been doing this job longer than you have. Maybe a lot longer. So you rehearse answers in the car, you jump in first in meetings, and you try to sound like you know more than they do. They can tell. Everybody can tell. When you manage someone who knows more than you, it is easy to think your job is to catch up. It is not. There are two jobs in that relationship. Their job is to know the work. Your job is to lead the team. Most new managers mix those up and either compete with the expert or cave to them every single time. Researchers Bradley Owens and David Hekman studied leaders at every level, from CEOs to frontline supervisors, to see what humble leadership looks like when it actually works. It came down to three behaviors: admitting what you do not know, pointing out the strengths of the people around you, and being teachable where people can see it. They also found humility cannot be faked, and that leaders who were still proving themselves got less credit for it. Humble is not enough. Humble plus doing your job is what earns it. In this episode John Espinosa walks through The Two Jobs, three moves for leading someone who knows more than you do. ONE. SPLIT THE JOB. Sit down one on one this week and say it out loud. You know this work better than I do. My job is not to know more than you. My job is to make sure this team wins, and to make the call when a call has to be made. Then ask what you should know that nobody is going to tell you. TWO. LEARN OUT LOUD. Stop asking quietly behind a closed door. Ask in the open: you have seen this before, what am I missing? Then give credit in the open, by name, when their idea works. THREE. KEEP THE CALL. Their experience is your best input, but it is still input. When you go a different direction, go back to them first: here is what you told me, here is what I decided, here is why. And if you were wrong, say so. This is new manager leadership at the point where it shapes the whole team: not whether you know the most, but whether everybody knows whose job is whose. WHO THIS IS FOR New managers leading people with more experience, first time managers inheriting a seasoned team, and experienced managers who still lead people who know parts of the work better than they do. -------------------------------- Get my coaching frameworks behind the scenes. One idea and one small shift to your inbox every week. Start here: https://www.thejohnespinosa.com/start-here Ready to take your leadership to the next level? Join our Coaching Program and start building clarity, focus, and real momentum. ๐Ÿ‘‰ Apply here: https://www.thejohnespinosa.com/workwithjohn

  8. Oct 9

    They Used To Be Your Friends. Now You're The Boss.

    You got promoted, and the people you are leading now are the same people you used to grab lunch with, complain about the boss with, and text on the weekends. The group text got quiet. Somebody looked at you a little different halfway through a joke. And you are wondering whether you are still one of them, or the boss now. You are both. That is the hard part. When you get promoted over your friends, the title changes overnight and the relationships do not. Most new managers handle it one of two ways. They pretend nothing changed, or they go cold overnight. Both fail for the same reason: they let the title do the work. Harvard Business School professor Linda Hill has studied what happens to people in their first year as a manager. One of the biggest myths she found is that new managers believe their authority comes from the position. It does not. It comes from credibility: character, competence, and whether people trust you to do the right thing. Your friends already know who you are. What they do not know yet is what kind of boss you are going to be. In this episode John Espinosa walks through The New Seat, three moves for leading the people who used to be your friends. ONE. NAME THE WEIRD. Sit down one on one with every former peer this week. Here is what is not changing. Here is what is. And I am going to make the calls the same way for everybody, including you. Then ask what they need from you. Start with the person who wanted the job. TWO. CLOSE THE BACK CHANNEL. From the new seat, venting up turns into undermining, sharing what you know turns friends into insiders, and extra access looks like favorites. Keep the friendship. Quit the back channel. THREE. PASS THE FIRST TEST. Somebody will test the new line, usually in the first month. Do not go easy and do not overcorrect. Ask whether you would handle it the same way with anybody else on the team, handle it privately, and then go back to normal. This is first time manager leadership at the point where it shapes your whole team: not whether you stay friends, but whether everybody knows where they stand. ------------------------------- Get my coaching frameworks behind the scenes. One idea and one small shift to your inbox every week. Start here: https://www.thejohnespinosa.com/start-here Ready to take your leadership to the next level? Join our Coaching Program and start building clarity, focus, and real momentum. ๐Ÿ‘‰ Apply here: https://www.thejohnespinosa.com/workwithjohn

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About

John Espinosa is an educator, dynamic speaker, frontline leader, and podcast host dedicated to serving others. With a passion for helping individuals reach their goals, John is known for his down-to-earth approach and commitment to making a difference. Follow him on social media for inspiring content and insights that reflect his mission of empowerment and service.

Information

  • Creator
    John Espinosa
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    352
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    ยฉ John Espinosa
  • Show Website
    Leaders Leading Leaders