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In This Episode:
Our brains default to this-or-that thinking, and it quietly wrecks decisions, careers, and teams. This episode walks through the false binaries that trap leaders most often: good leader or bad, speak up or stay silent, short-term or long-term, leadership or management, and the big one, relationships or results.
What You’ll Learn
- Why binary, this-or-that thinking leads to worse decisions, and how a simple 1-to-10 scale reframes most “good or bad” judgments
- How the halo effect makes us see people, and leaders, as all good or all bad rather than complex
- Why adding a third option to a decision, instead of choosing between two, consistently leads to better outcomes
- The “fool’s choice” between staying silent and speaking up recklessly, and why there’s a skillful third path
- Why leadership and management aren’t opposites, and why “management is doing things right, leadership is doing the right things” is a weaker quote than it sounds
- Why relationships and results aren’t actually in tension, and what real accountability looks like
- Why avoiding hard feedback to protect someone’s feelings is often really about avoiding your own discomfort
Resources Mentioned
Jocko Willink and Jordan Peterson on accountability, Jocko Podcast episode 98:
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman (halo effect)
Decisive by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
Crucial Conversations and Crucial Accountability by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler
The Making of a Manager by Julie Zhuo