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Leaders Leading Leaders: Daily Summaries Delivered
by John Espinosa
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.
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The most recent episodes — sign up to get AI-powered summaries of each one.
- 2 days ago19 min
Everybody Wants The Same Days Off. Here's How To Be Fair.
Everybody on your team wants the same days off, and you cannot say yes to all of them. Somebody has to work. Here is what most managers miss: your team will not remember who got the days off. They will remember how you decided. If holiday time off requests are already landing on your desk, watch this before you approve the next one. It is one of the first real fairness tests a new manager faces, and it comes around every single year.Researchers led by Jason Colquitt pulled together twenty-five years of research on fairness at work, 183 studies, and published it in the Journal of Applied Psychology. They compared two kinds of fairness: the outcome (did I get what I wanted) and the process (how did you decide). For job satisfaction, commitment, and trust in the people in charge, the fairness of the process mattered as much as the outcome, and a little more. And one of the strongest links to how people rated their boss was whether that boss explained the decision. The holiday schedule is not a scheduling problem. It is a fairness test, and your whole team is taking it at the same time.In this episode John Espinosa walks through The Fair December, three moves for handling holiday PTO requests so your best people do not walk into January resentful.ONE. SET THE RULE BEFORE THE REQUESTS.Decide how you will decide before the next request lands. A rotation, a deadline, or splitting the big days. Write it down, send it to everybody on the same day in the same words, and apply it to everybody, including you. Every case-by-case decision looks like a favorite to somebody.TWO. EXPLAIN EVERY NO.Do not just click deny. Every no gets three things, in person: the decision, the why, and what you can do instead. Do not hide behind the system or HR. If you made the call, you own the call. Then let them be disappointed. You do not have to fix the feeling.THREE. COUNT THE COVERS.Find out who covered last year and who has not asked for a single day. Go to that person first. Pay the coverage back in January, out loud, and take a turn yourself. The quiet ones who never ask are often the ones who end up covering everybody else.WHO THIS IS FORNew and first time managers handling holiday schedules for the first time, small business owners and shift supervisors juggling coverage, and experienced managers who want December to end without resentment.-------------------------------------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-hereReady to take your leadership to the next level?Join our Coaching Program and start building clarity, focus, and real momentum.👉 Apply here: https://www.thejohnespinosa.com/workwithjohn
- 5 days ago17 min
Your Team's Goals Won't Make It To February. Here's The Fix.
Your team's goals for next year probably won't make it to February. Not because your people stop caring, but because most goals get set in January with no plan for the week it gets hard. If you are heading into a planning meeting for next year, watch this before you write the first goal.Researchers Peter Gollwitzer and Paschal Sheeran pulled together 94 studies, with more than eight thousand people, on why people mean to do something and then do not. They published it in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology. They looked at one simple tool, the if-then plan: deciding ahead of time that if a certain situation shows up, then you will do a certain thing. People who made if-then plans reached their goals far more often than people who only set the goal, what researchers call a medium-to-large effect. And the plans did more than help people get started. They helped people stay on track when something came along and tried to knock them off course. That is February.In this episode John Espinosa walks through The February Plan, three moves for goal setting with your team so next year's goals actually make it to December.ONE. CUT IT TO THREE.Walk out of planning with three team goals, not ten. Give each one a single sentence of why: why it matters to the people doing the work, not to the company. A goal without a why is just an assignment. If you are stuck, ask which goal you would be proudest of if you only hit one.TWO. PLAN FOR THE HARD WEEK.Before anyone leaves the room, ask your team: it is February, we are already behind on this goal, what happened? Your team knows where the work breaks down. Turn each answer into an if-then: when this happens, we will do that. One plan per goal, written where everybody can see it. If the plan is try harder, it is not a plan.THREE. PUT FEBRUARY ON THE CALENDAR.Before the planning meeting ends, put a ten-minute goal check on the first Monday of every month, starting in February. Three questions: where are we, what got in the way, did we use our plan. Keep the goals where your team actually looks, and call out progress out loud, not just the finish line.WHO THIS IS FORNew and first time managers setting team goals for the first time, small business owners and team leaders heading into year-end planning, and experienced managers tired of goals nobody remembers by spring.-----------------------------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-hereReady to take your leadership to the next level?Join our Coaching Program and start building clarity, focus, and real momentum.👉 Apply here: https://www.thejohnespinosa.com/workwithjohn
- 5 days ago20 min
Nobody On Your Team Is Quitting. Here's Why That's A Problem
Nobody on your team has quit this year. That feels like good news. It might be the worst news you have gotten all year. Right now a lot of people are not staying because they love the job. They are staying because the market is tight, AI has everybody nervous, and nobody wants to be the one who jumped at the wrong time. When that door unlocks, they will not leave one at a time.There is a name for this now: job hugging. People holding on tight to the job they have, not out of loyalty, but out of fear of what is out there. Researchers Jason Li, Thomas Lee, Terence Mitchell, Peter Hom and Rodger Griffeth studied exactly this in two studies published in the Journal of Applied Psychology. They called these people reluctant stayers: people who want to leave but feel they cannot. On the inside, reluctant stayers looked just like the people already walking out the door, with the same low commitment, the same low satisfaction and the same weak ties to the job. And for reluctant stayers, the usual warning signs, like how satisfied they said they were or whether they said they were thinking of leaving, did a poor job of predicting who would actually go.In this episode John Espinosa walks through The Locked Door, three moves for employee retention when nobody is quitting but your team has quietly checked out.ONE. DON'T TRUST THE QUIET.Your turnover number tells you who left, not who wants to. Watch for three quiet signals instead: the ideas stopped, nobody raises a hand for anything extra, and nobody talks about next year. One of these on a bad week is normal. All three across your team for a couple of months is a team that is waiting.TWO. ASK THE OPEN-DOOR QUESTION.Stop asking are you happy here. Ask this: say the job market opened up tomorrow and somebody called you with a good offer, what would make you say no? Then ask what would make you say yes. Do not defend. Write it down.THREE. EARN THE STAY.Right now the market is doing your retention for you. Pick one thing for each person that you can actually move in the next thirty days, a project, a skill, a seat at a meeting, one fix. Tell them out loud. Then say it: I don't want you here because the market's tough. I want you here because this is the best place for you to grow.WHO THIS IS FORNew and first time managers whose teams have gone quiet, small business owners and team leaders proud of low turnover, and experienced managers who want to know how to manage employees who are staying but have stopped bringing their best.-----------------------------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-hereReady to take your leadership to the next level?Join our Coaching Program and start building clarity, focus, and real momentum.👉 Apply here: https://www.thejohnespinosa.com/workwithjohn
- 1 weeks ago18 min
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-hereReady to take your leadership to the next level?Join our Coaching Program and start building clarity, focus, and real momentum.👉 Apply here: https://www.thejohnespinosa.com/workwithjohn
- 2 weeks ago18 min
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 FORNew 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-hereReady to take your leadership to the next level?Join our Coaching Program and start building clarity, focus, and real momentum.👉 Apply here: https://www.thejohnespinosa.com/workwithjohn
- 2 weeks ago21 min
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 FORNew 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-hereReady to take your leadership to the next level?Join our Coaching Program and start building clarity, focus, and real momentum.👉 Apply here: https://www.thejohnespinosa.com/workwithjohn
- 3 weeks ago19 min
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-hereReady to take your leadership to the next level?Join our Coaching Program and start building clarity, focus, and real momentum.👉 Apply here: https://www.thejohnespinosa.com/workwithjohn
- 3 weeks ago17 min
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 FORNew 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-hereReady to take your leadership to the next level?Join our Coaching Program and start building clarity, focus, and real momentum.👉 Apply here: https://www.thejohnespinosa.com/workwithjohn
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About Leaders Leading Leaders
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.
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