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09/18/2026

If you're about to promote someone into a role that requires building something new, here are two things you can do in 10 minutes:

1️⃣ Give them one small, undefined problem this week, something with no template attached, and watch what they do with it.

2️⃣ Ask them to describe one time they built a process or approach from nothing. Note that we're not asking them what they executed, but what they built.

Do this before the offer goes out, not after the struggle starts.

So often we're in a hurry to fill the role. Catch yourself and, instead, slow down and invest these 10 minute. I promise that what you'll learn will save you a year of quietly wondering what went wrong because you skipped these steps.

09/17/2026

This week's question arising from this week's The Permission Slip (Issue 26) which focuses on the emotional labour boundary is:

What's the job no one assigned you that you've been doing anyway because you believe you should without questioning if that is true?

Try naming just one.

09/16/2026

Sarah baked the cake herself, picked the balloons, and kept the surprise. An hour later she found the coworker's client proposal riddled with mistakes again. She spent two hours quietly rewriting it herself instead of giving the feedback that was needed, because it felt cruel to do it on someone's birthday.

I call what she was doing the emotional labour boundary: the unpaid, unassigned second job so many women who lead take on without ever applying for it.

This issue also tells you about the day I watched four men exit a meeting to avoid emotional labour, and what Gallup's newest data says about what carrying all of this is costing women in leadership.

The full issue is here: https://debbielawrence.ca/2026/09/16/youre-running-two-jobs-only-one-pays-you/

Prefer to listen? The podcast episode is live the same day on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major platforms. Search: The Compassionate Leader School.

09/15/2026

Give two leaders the exact same team member.

Check back in a year.

One holds the line the first time the work misses the standard. She names the gap, sets a deadline and gives the team member space to meet it or not.

The other tells herself the standard is too high, fixes the work herself, and calls it being supportive.

One year later, one of them has a team member who's grown into the role. The other is still doing two jobs.

Same resources. Very different year.

Which one have you been this year?

09/14/2026

I've coached a lot of women who built their teams around the "we're a family" premise. Here's the pattern I see most often, and my honest take.

1️⃣ They can't deliver hard feedback without over-explaining it first. It costs them the team's respect for because everyone can tell when a standard is being apologized for instead of stated.

2️⃣ They know intimate details about their team's personal lives, and use that knowledge to justify lowering the bar. It costs them the ability to lead that person at all.

3️⃣ They do the work themselves rather than have the accountability conversation. It costs them their own time and, eventually, their energy for the job.

When leaders start working on this, they always focus on being warmer.

But here's the hiccup: being warm was never the problem. What was missing is clarity.

Remember, clear is kind. Unclear is unkind.

09/10/2026

This week's action challenge is to find one piece of feedback you gave or received recently that named a trait instead of a behaviour.

Was it intense? perfectionist? too much? abrasive? emotional?

Run it through the checklist:

✅️ is it clear and direct?
✅️ growth-oriented?
✅️ relevant?
✅️ actionable?
✅️ does it say what you want more or less of?

If it fails, rewrite it with one specific example and one specific ask.

And if you'd like to share, comment and tell me what you found.

09/10/2026

For years, I kept getting the same note in different rooms and different roles:

"You're intense. You're a perfectionist. You'd go further if you loosened up a little."

I believed it for a long time.

Then I realized it was a personality judgment disguised as feedback.

This issue is about the cost of being both highly competent and easy to like.

The full issue is here⬇️

📖 Read it: https://debbielawrence.ca/2026/09/09/too-intense-to-be-liked/
🙉 Listen to it: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2aibiB3s6EDdHbGphxGHGS

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09/08/2026

For a full year, I did two jobs.

I had a new team member everyone was excited about who tried hard. He talked a lot about what he wanted to create but he just never created it.

Every time his work missed the mark, I quietly fixed it myself the night before the client meeting and called it "smoothing things over".

When I finally addresssed it, I got told my standards were too high. So I lowered my voice about it instead of the standard, and kept doing his job on top of mine.

A year later, we finally agreed the role wasn't working. That was a year I can't get back where I spent time teaching him the wrong lesson: that trying hard was enough because it wasn't enough.

Have you been quietly doing someone else's job and calling it help? If so, we should talk.

09/07/2026

If you've been leading with "we're a family here," here's the simplest way to start shifting it, without blowing up the culture you've built.

Pick one standard you've been letting slide because enforcing it felt "unkind." It might be a deadline, a quality measure that needs to be reinforced, or a boundary around your time.

Next time it's missed, name the standard, name the gap, and ask what needs to change to get it to where it needs to be.

Don't soften it with love-language. Add the warmth after, not before.

Remember that the standard has to apply to everyone, including the people closest to you. Otherwise it's a preference rather than a standard.

Do this with one person this week and just notice what happens when the conversation stays clear and direct instead of getting tangled in guilt.

You can do this🙌

09/03/2026

Yesterday, a community of women who lead learned the question I use now before I let something sit on my plate too long.

What would happen if I got hit by a bus tomorrow and physically could not do this? If the honest answer is "someone would figure it out," that's my cue to delegate the thing.

I still catch the pull of feeling needed. I don't think that instinct ever fully disappears.

The difference now is I notice it when I'm about to tackle a task I liken to doing a hundred hour jigsaw puzzle yet another time, not years later, so I can make a choice to delegate it this time.

Missed the written issue? Grab it here: https://debbielawrence.ca/2026/09/02/what-a-bridal-shower-taught-me-about-letting-go/

Prefer to listen? The podcast episode is live on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major platforms. Search: The Compassionate Leader School.

What's the hundred-hour puzzle you're still building alone?

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Truro, NS

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