The $2.5M CEO Problem: Why Leaders Who Make Millions Create Employees Who Quit | Mita Mallick

0:00The McDonald's snack wrap is back. You brought it back. Ranch snack wrap. Spicy snack wrap. You broke the internet for a snack. Snack wrap is back. Why do people micromanage? You're under pressure from your boss. You think you can do it faster. The number one job of leaders is to grow more leaders. If you're doing someone's job for them, they're not learning.

0:34Amita, it's great to have you on the show today. Thanks so much for taking the time. Thanks for having me on. I'm excited for our conversation. Yeah. And congratulations, USA Today bestseller. That's tremendous. Yes. Amazing. I was celebrating with mom. We've been celebrating all week. Yeah. Wonderful. Yes. Wonderful. Wonderful. Well, we are here to talk about your book in particular because I think the topic is so incredibly timely. It's something that a lot lot of people deal with. And, you know, essentially, there's a premise in there that I think is very intriguing to me, which is bad bosses are made.

1:08So I'm very interested in the idea of how are they made? Because I think a lot of people might just think, this guy's a dick. He's always been one. You know what I mean? Like, that's the way he is. He was born that way, you know, whatever. But I don't think, and this is what really intrigued me about your work was, I don't think people think that they can be actually created, right? Like someone could be maybe a normal person and somehow become a bad boss because they're, they're made into that. So maybe we can start there. Sure. I believe we're all a product of our circumstances and experiences and backgrounds.

1:43And when I think about bad bosses, not being born and being made, I think about three moments when bad boss behavior shows up. The first moment I think about is there's some stress on the environment and stress in the business. I'm sitting in the US right now, lots of conversations around tariffs, government shutdown, all of these things that add stress and the worst behaviors can come out in us. Second, in my house, I have children. So we like to say poo-poo trickles down. Ryan, you work for me, first time leader. I'm a bad boss. You don't know any better. So you start emulating my behaviors because that's the only model of leadership you have access to in that moment.

2:21And then third moment, I see bad boss behaviors really come out is when you have a personal earthquake happen. You lose someone you love. You have a miscarriage, divorce, breakup. You're sick. Someone's sick. I can go on and on, but it is such a traumatic earthquake moment. We try to compartmentalize these things. You know, I lost my dad really suddenly in 2017. I talk about my bad boss moment and the double emails at midnight. You think you can put grief in the kitchen drawer, put it away, and just show up to work and try to operate as normal. And it doesn't work that way because grief is relentless.

2:52it'll come find you at least when you expect it. And that's when your bad boss behaviors can show up as well. I'd love to start with stress. Um, cause I think that one, uh, the other two, I want to get to as well, but in particular, I think every single human on the planet right now in some regard, right. It's feeling stress. Right. And I actually just had this conversation with a guest a few weeks ago, um, around particularly the impact of inflation in the U S and how I do not think that there is an honest conversation happening on either side of the aisle about the impact that the increased cost of simply living your life is having.

3:30And, you know, how do we, when we're feeling these, not acute stresses, but these dull ongoing stresses that feel like there's like, we don't have control over them. Like if you go to the grocery store and your bill used to be$150 a week, and now it's$250 a week, you feel like you can't control that. how do we manage that dull ongoing stress as a leader and not let it leak into how we perform in our job i love what you said i don't love that it's true but it's this constant state of stress that we're living in constant state of trust and stress and anxiety and it's like low levels and so some days i'm like why am i so stressed and perhaps because it's everything happening in the world and then it shows up in these moments one of the things i believe is the foundation to good leadership is to take care of yourself.

4:17And so taking those moments to stay off social media, taking those moments to make sure, I mean, it's the, it is the conversation around anti-hustle culture. Listen, I have a book coming out. It's come out. I'm in an intense drive period of my life, but as leaders, we have to be able to drive our teams through those drive periods and then rest. I'm not an Uber app. I can't be on demand 24 seven. And so this idea that they're, in those moments where I'm resting and recharging, I'm taking care of myself. I'm sleeping well. I'm exercising. I'm drinking water. I'm taking walks, all of those things that help replenish me.

4:53And so in those moments of stress, are you doing those things? Like if I'm feeling stress, I'm just going to go out for a walk. I'm going to put on some dance music and have a silly dance party with my kids. What are those moments that I can reconnect with myself and spark joy? And if we don't take care of ourselves, I don't know how we're expected to take care of each other in our workplaces or in our communities. Yeah, I completely agree. We've been saying here on the show for a long time that health is a competitive advantage in business. Yes, it is. And far too few leaders actually, they may give lip service to that idea, but a lot of times, and I do a lot of entrepreneur coaching, startup coaching, and these guys are so tilted and by guys and gals, whoever the leader is.

5:37They are so tense. 24-7. They are just dialed all the time and they're not taught the coping mechanisms to deal with this. So they turn to things like, maybe it's they smoke pot every night before they go to bed because it's the only way to land the ship or something like this. And they don't realize the impact that's having on them the next day. So where do we go for information besides starting to learn about the problem in your book and in your work and in others like yours. Where do we go to get resources? Is it a mastermind? Is it a finding peers? Is it how do we actually start to educate ourselves on what we need to do to deal with this stress?

6:18I think have the conversation with the people you trust around you, particularly ambiguity and stress right now is constant. I grew up in a time in corporate America where leaders were supposed to have all the answers. You know, it's like that pyramid. I'm at top and here's everyone else. And I know everything. Those days are long gone. And if you can't show some level of vulnerability at work, I'm struggling it with this. This is also stressing me out. I need help with this. What do you think about this? And people will say to me, well, I'm not interested in having a therapy session. I'm not telling you to get into long therapy session conversations at work or trauma dump.

6:55I'm just saying, if you said, you know, yeah, the tariffs are really stressful. We're going to figure this out together. This is what we know now, and this is what we don't know. This is what we can control. How much better does that sound, that your leader just is saying that out loud versus just sweeping it under the rug? Yeah, that healthy vulnerability. Yes, I love that. Healthy vulnerability. Yes, healthy vulnerability. The opposite is obviously toxic vulnerability. Yes, yes, yes. Which I have experienced more. I had a boss who seemed, this was maybe seven or eight years ago, and before I maybe understood this concept, in retrospect, I understood what was going on.

7:34But he would literally dump every life problem that he had, from problems in his marriage to kids to all this stuff. And it's like it would almost stress us out more because now we're like, we have our own stuff. Yeah, and we have your stuff now. Every single thing that you have to deal with. Sure. And it was a way, and this is kind of what I would love for you to comment on, is like, again, looking back, retrospect, at the time, maybe I wasn't as sophisticated enough to understand or mature enough in my career to understand what was happening. But it was a way for him to justify the crappy things that he would do, say, etc.

8:13Because he'd be like, well, I got this thing going on between me and my wife over here. So, you know, I can just yell at you because I don't like the way you responded or whatever. So one, I guess, maybe from the teammates perspective, when you see this, we'll call it toxic vulnerability being used as an excuse mechanism for bad boss behavior. How do you deal with that? God, what you're talking about is like the get out of jail free card, the weaponizing vulnerability. This is my permission to treat you badly because I'm telling you about all this personal stuff going on and trauma dumping. One of the ways you could deal with that situation, and listen, it's context and situation matters, particularly when there's power dynamics.

8:54If your boss is obviously more senior to you, how do you handle this? I appreciate Ryan. I'm going to make you the bad guy. I appreciate Ryan that you're sharing all the things with me. I understand it's a hard time with you. I'm actually going to encourage you to go and talk to Modern Health, which is a benefit provider that we use. And there's opportunity to get coaching and counseling because I'm not equipped. I'm not an expert in this. I don't know how else to help you. just to offer other things and other services. The other thing is, it's really hard. You don't want to get into this counselor mode with your boss.

9:27And so to say, I'm sorry, that's happening. Pause. I'd love to now talk about this project, which is an awkward kind of transition. But I found myself, Ryan, I also can enable this behavior. If I'm sitting there allowing the person to go on and on and on and on in the workplace, and I'm not actually stopping it, that I'm enabling the behavior. What about someone who would push back and say, but if I shut that down, am I going to be penalized by it? I'm worried I'm going to be penalized by this person if I don't just take in all the crap they're dumping on me. And that's where context and situation matters because you can be.

10:04But I do think if you are sincere in saying, I care about what you're going through and I wish I could help and I actually think that you should go talk to this coach or counselor we have access to at the company, I think that's going to be much more helpful than me. And I think if you're honest and sincere about it versus like stop trauma dumping on me, or can we just go back to talking about the forecast? You know, it's just the way you say it. And I think if somebody hears it with sincerity, hopefully they'll receive it in the way in which you're trying to convey the message. Yeah, I love that point.

10:34I think that's perfectly put because it's very easy because of your own stress or your own timelines to get frustrated by that lost time. And I know early in my career, I had fairly severe ADHD diagnosed, not self-diagnosed. And early in my career, I didn't understand why I responded to people in certain ways. Right. Because like I would be like, I'm going like this all the time. And I'm like, why can't you keep up? Like, why are you wasting time? Like, you know, my brain is going a thousand miles an hour. And it wasn't until I like had a couple of negative experiences where I got fired from jobs that I loved because of this behavior.

11:13where I just wanted to go all the time that I went and got some help and came back. Okay. My point is, um, you know, we, we have so much going on in our lives. It's very easy to just snap at that person and now you get into a adversary or relationship with that boss. So, um, maybe how do we, and this is maybe being a little, uh, uh, selfish in this question only because, um, I wish I had spoken to someone like you before I said some of the things that I said in certain jobs when I was frustrated by the pace. When we do, let's say I do have a negative reaction, right? So let's say I am trauma dumping on you, right?

11:52And you got your own stuff going on and you snap back at me. And now we have some conflict. Now we have some hierarchical conflict, right? I felt like I was being authentic and vulnerable with you. And now I feel like dismissed or like you don't want to hear me. Hear that? That's me in Tokyo learning to make sushi from a master. How did I get here? I invested wisely. Now the only thing I worry about is using too much wasabi. Get where you're going with SPY, the world's most traded ETF. Getting there starts here with State Street Investment Management. Before investing, consider the fund's investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses.

12:27Visit statestreet.com slash IM for prospectus containing this and other information. Read it carefully. SPY is subject to risks similar to those of stocks. All ETFs are subject to risk, including possible loss of principal. Alps Distributors, Inc. Distributor. Now, how do we start to put that relationship back together? If both of us are coming at our core from a good place, right? Let's assume we're both good actors, but we now have that conflict. How do we start to distangle that? I don't know if distangle is a word, but I'm going to go with it. Detangle? Detangle? Detangle. Detangle is probably better, yeah.

13:00Detangle. I'm thinking of my daughter's hair I have to comb every night with detangling spray. Detangle. Detangle. Detangle. So, I love that question. And I believe apologies are the most underutilized tool in the workplace. And it's not the apology my husband gives me. I'm sorry I made you feel that way. Like, that's a non-apology. But it is the, Ryan, I slept on this. I was thinking about our conversation yesterday. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for the way I showed up. I'm sorry I snapped. And wow, all of a sudden, the balloon has popped. And then you say, I reacted negatively too. I'm sorry for my behavior.

13:35And if we could just do that, and it's not the I'm sorry for the check the box, right? It is the I'm sorry genuinely and let's start to repair this relationship and start again. If we could all own our actions a bit more in the workplace and also just show, I mean, we just need more kindness too. Kindness. You don't know what's going on behind the screen. You really don't know what's going on in someone else's life. And just to show some kindness or to say, Ryan, I know yesterday's conversation was tense. Are you OK? I'm sorry for the way I snapped and behaved. This was going on. And then you're likely to be like, wow, she came and she was open.

14:10I'm going to apologize as well. And I think that's one of the first steps to repairing relationships. Yeah. And I really like the way you, the idea of I'm sorry for the way that I showed up yesterday. Because I think what that does is for both parties, we're discussing what the problem actually is and not, it keeps the conversation from spreading into other things, right? It's this interaction that we had yesterday. I had X, Y, Z going on. I heard something. I reacted incredibly poorly. I shouldn't have been in that mindset for that meeting and whatever. And I apologize for that. That I think allows everybody to take and focus on what the issue is versus when we give that like the husband apology, which I'm as guilty of as anyone.

15:01Right. What ends, that opens the door to, but then you did this thing the other day and three weeks ago you did this and now all of a sudden we're down this spiral that just is not productive. Yeah, absolutely. And it's the, I'm sorry, that's it. If you can't say I'm sorry for the way I behaved, I'm sorry, full stop is an apology. No, but if, and when, I'm sorry for how you behaved, Ryan. No, right? And so that's what I want people to just take the accountability and help repair your part of the relationship. Yeah. The best advice I ever got was from a mentor about, well, it's probably eight years ago now.

15:38He said, go find a counselor that you respect and just see them every other week for the rest of your life and consider a life expense. Whether you're in a good spot, bad spot, doesn't matter for the rest of your life. And she always said, so I go see this woman. Her name is Margie. She's amazing. She's 84 years old. She's an absolute rock star. you would never know, uh, uh, you know, that she's 84. She's got all this life experience. And she always says to me, you know, she goes, any, I'm sorry. That's followed by a, but is not an, I'm sorry. It completely against everything you've said completely cancels.

16:10Like, so she's like, don't ever say I'm sorry, but like, even if you're in your head, there is a, but just don't let it come out of your face. Like, don't like you can say the butt in your brain. Yes. Don't let it come out of your face. Cause the other person stops listening. It washes it away. All right. I want to dig into a particular part of, and we're getting a little minutiae here, but the idea of micromanaging. And I would love to start with the boss side of this, right? And I get, you know, a lot of times when I'm talking to someone who's in a leadership position or a founder, et cetera, the excuse for micromanaging will be, I know how to do it better, or this is a really important time in my business, or insert, you know, two or three others.

16:56but it's like they're excusing for just sitting on top of somebody and watching every move. And then they wonder why that person either doesn't become a high performer or it doesn't get done exactly the way they want. So how do we break down this idea from the boss side of micromanaging and why? I mean, maybe there are use cases where micromanaging works, but I have never experienced one, nor have I ever heard one. And we're looking at almost a thousand interviews on this show now. So I'm yet to see a receipt for micromanaging. Yeah. Listen, if you're listening to this episode and you worked for me years ago, I'm sorry.

17:33I was micromanaging, Nina. And I also hate to be micromanaged. So how interesting is that? And there's nothing like micromanagement to squeeze the joy out of work for me. And what I've studied is you think about the workplace, Ryan, and you think about the history of workplaces. And I was always chasing the corporate America dream. I wanted a glass corner office with the city view, bathroom, fridge, hopefully a mini bar, a couch. And I get to look out and see all the people reporting into me, right? Like this empire building. And a lot of individuals are not interested in leading, but they're forced to lead because that's how much of our workplaces were built.

18:08That if you're going to get promoted, you're getting a title money and all that stuff, but you're going to have to actually oversee more people. And so this idea that you go from individual contributor to a boss leader, you are not doing their jobs for them. You're coaching them. But many of us were never taught that. The first assignment I got to lead, it was like, congratulations, here's your team. And it's like, is there a manual? Like, what am I supposed to do now? Right? So there's that. But I also think we go back to stresses. Why do people micromanage? You're threatened by your team. You're threatened that you're going to lose your job.

18:43You're under pressure from your boss. You think you can do it faster. All the things that you said. And what you have to realize is the number one job of leaders is to grow more leaders. And so if you're doing someone's job for them, they're not learning. You have to coach, teach, and train. And I've been guilty of this. I've sent back a client proposal redlined. Ryan, here you go. And Ryan's like, oh, my God, I worked on this for hours. And there's no like, why did you do this? This was the first version. Here's what the second version should look like. There's no conversations around that. And so that's important.

19:18And I will tell you, for much of my career, I demanded excellence, but I didn't coach excellence. And there's a difference. And so thinking about how are you in that coach mode to help people understand what your standards are is so important. Love that distinction. we used to say in my company, it's not about being right. It's about getting it right. It's all that matters. We're of service of each other. And this is how I coach founders today, because exactly what you say, they look at it and it's like, you don't realize CEO is a job. The president is a job. It's not sales. It's not marketing.

19:59It's not HR. It's a job in and of itself to come behind them and make those positions as good as they can be. Cause that's what they do. HR does HR sales, right? And, um, that is not taught anywhere, right. Or just not enough in my opinion. And to your point, like you got this position and they were just like, here's a bunch of people go make them successful. Right. And there's no, there's no training on being that. And even a lot of management training is like all about and I'm not knocking measure what matters, but I feel like people read the title and get the concept completely wrong. Right.

20:39They're like, we need to measure everything and all that matters is measurement. And it's like, well, yeah, I mean, you got to hit numbers. You're a business. You need to be profitable, obviously, but that's not actually what produces results. And so to me, it comes back to, and this is, you know, in, in, in your work and I was diving into some of the articles you wrote and stuff. And I feel like we're aligned here, but I really want to get your ideas. Like, Like so much of what I teach is just ego. Literally, when I'm talking to people, it's about removing ego. My TED Talk that I did was 100 % about how ego impacts our ability to lead.

21:12And we have almost no education on how to deal with our own ego. And so much of this comes back to, do you agree with that premise that ego is a big part of it? I agree. Ego, personal agenda. I mean, look at what's happening in the marketplace right now. I mean, change is constant, layoff is constant, KPI is changing, all these things. And I watch companies and I'll work with leaders who, you know, I thought that project was canceled. But because of ego, it's continuing on. Because I, Amita, think this is so important. Even though the company has said this is not our top three priorities anymore for 2025, we're going to land in 2026.

21:52And it is the ego. And because I think so much of us, unfortunately, I've been guilty of this, we derive a lot of value from our title. And it's so much becomes a part of our identity. Like you think about you. I love the ego piece that you brought up when you're at a cocktail party or you're out somewhere and meeting people for the first time. It's like, what do you do for a living? Like what do you like that? That becomes who you are. So your ego becomes so tied to it, unfortunately. And I actually had a I got into a debate about this the other day. I was keynoting and then I was talking to a few people afterwards and I brought up this idea of ego on stage because again, it's a lot of the work that I do.

22:32And someone, you know, someone brought a really interesting point to me and I, and I, and I, I responded, but the more I think about it, I'm just not exactly sure where I, where my head is at yet. So I'm gonna put it to you. So they came up to me and they said, appreciate everything you said, whatever. Amazing job. Cause I'm an amazing keynote speaker. everyone. I have my show. I can say whatever I want. They came up to me and they said, you know, whatever, but, but, right. I got the, but, which, which is my favorite type of post talk comment is when the buck comes. And they said, uh, this particular individual said, but people respond to you based on the title that you have.

23:15So if you are, you can talk about ego, but if your title is junior analyst, people treat you one way. And if your title is senior manager, they respond to you a different way. So chasing, you know, I had brought up this idea of chasing the title or whatever in the talk. And they said, but so while I agree with you that ego is a problem, if you want to make more of an impact and get a better response from other individuals, oftentimes that that title is kind of your your your pass you know behind the rope in certain instances what do you think about that how do you manage that i didn't have a great it was a it was something that i hadn't actually wrapped my head around enough to have a great response to but i'm very interested in where you stand on that i'm curious to see in five years where the world's going to be in terms of job descriptions and titles right i i think like we're moving to a place where we're going to all many companies will be in like a consultancy mode.

24:16And so then what do titles matter? It's going to be like you have Mita has this skill set and it's not even a job description. We just know these are our highest value projects for 2026. So we're going to move her there. Isn't that interesting? And I think the whole title conversation is blowing up. I do think if you're in smaller companies, I think titles matter less. I'm not going to say that at a Fortune 50 titles don't matter. But also here's the thing. We all know who the most influential people in the org are. We just know. And it's not always the title, right? It's really interesting. Chief of Staff, they're some of the most influential people in the company.

24:50EAs, EAs are overlooked. Let me tell you, you become best friends with an executive assistant. I hope they're not all becoming, you know, bots in a few years. But some of the, oh my God, I have gotten so much from EAs who I've developed really strong relationships with. So I would counter that. And I think it's yes and right I hate the but I'm like yes and is what I like no I think that's a wonderful way of positioning it and I think that's a really interesting idea around the titles I to me to me like I think my brain is slightly broken because like those kinds of things have literally never mattered to me so I've experienced people and I have experienced it on the side of like you know when I was a junior you know I was junior in certain organizations you get treated differently than you do in other times.