High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 764: Lead Your Best: Four Keys to Retaining Your Rock Stars with Joe Paulsen

Episode Date: July 27, 2026

In this episode of The High Performance Mindset, Dr. Cindra Kamphoff sits down with Joe Paulsen, leadership coach, EOS Implementer, and creator of the Great Boss Workshop, to explore how leaders can retain their best employees and build high-performing teams. Joe has spent years helping organizations strengthen leadership, improve accountability, and create workplaces where top performers want to stay. Together, they discuss practical leadership habits that help people feel valued, challenged, and inspired to do their best work. Episode Description Great organizations don't keep their best people by accident. They do it through intentional leadership. In this conversation, Joe shares the four keys to retaining rock star employees: genuinely caring about people, leading with humility, addressing people issues instead of avoiding them, and consistently modeling the behaviors you expect from others. Dr. Cindra and Joe discuss why difficult conversations are one of the greatest responsibilities of leadership and how balancing truth with compassion creates trust instead of fear. Joe also explains why accountability is often misunderstood. Rather than viewing accountability as punishment, he encourages leaders to see it as one of the greatest ways to show respect for their team. The discussion includes practical strategies like quarterly conversations, taking clarity breaks before difficult conversations, and using a Rockstar Retention Matrix to better understand where each team member needs support and development. Whether you lead a business, coach a team, or manage a small group, this episode reminds us that the best leaders don't simply manage performance. They intentionally develop people. You'll Learn: Why genuinely caring about your people is the foundation of exceptional leadership. What the four keys are to retaining your organization's rock star employees. How to balance truth and compassion when having difficult conversations. Discover why accountability strengthens trust instead of damaging relationships. Learn how quarterly conversations help retain top performers and uncover future goals. Build stronger leadership by modeling the behaviors you expect from your team. Strengthen your confidence in giving feedback that helps employees grow. Develop a practical Rockstar Retention Matrix to identify where your team members need coaching and support. Episode Resources & Links Joe's Website: https://retainrockstars.com/ Mentally Strong Institute: https://mentallystronginstitute.com/ Request a Free Mental Breakthrough Call: https://freementalbreakthroughcall.com/ Download the National Confidence Research Study: https://confidencestudy.com/ Pre-order The Confidence Habit: https://www.confidencetools.com/

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And here's the best part. Registration is only $39 and you'll receive your own hardcover copy of my new book, The Confidence Habit, published by Simon & Schuster. You can join us live on the morning of August 7th, or if you're listening after the summit, you can still register to get access to the replay

and receive your hardcover copy of the Confidence Habit. Go to the Confidence Summit.com to grab your spot. That's The Confidence Summit.com. The next version of you requires a new level of confidence. Come build it with us. I'll see you there at the Confidence Summit. Welcome to the high performance mindset podcast. I'm so excited to welcome you today to Joe Paulson. Joe is an expert EOS implementer, a leadership coach, speaker, and the creator of lead, four keys to retain your rock stars. And that's something we're going to be talking about today. Over the past 20 plus years,

he's facilitated more than 1,000 leadership sessions, which is incredible, Joe. He's helped organizations build stronger leadership teams, including our team at the Mentally Strong Institute, and he improves accountability and creates cultures where people love coming to work. So Joe believes that people don't leave companies, they leave managers, which again, we'll talk about today. And his work focuses on developing great leaders who know how to lead, manage, and hold other people accountable to ultimately achieve the vision of the organization. And so today, Joe and I are going to be talking about what separates great leaders from average ones, how high-performing teams are built, and the mindset shifts leaders need to make, really the ones they need to make to bring out the best in the people around them and to lead more effectively.

So, Joe, welcome to the high-performance mindset podcast. I'm so excited that you're here today with us. Well, being a big fan of the podcast, I feel so honored. to be here with you today. Thank you very much, Sandra. It's inspiring yet intimidating all at the same time. It's going to be awesome. I think you have so many great tools and strategies for people, so that's why I'm really excited to have you on. And retention is really important because it's so easy to look for like the next person on, you know, you want to hire, but you, you know, it's easier to retain the people that you already have.

So why should people keep listening to us today? Yeah, you know, I think about your audience, your audience being for the podcast, are all high performers. And these are people that want to get better and want to pick up anything they can and are always hungry for that tip or nugget. And if today, if people can pick up one or two things,

I would be just totally honored that they were able to find that thing because that's what's going to make them that better supervisor, boss, manager, leader. And those are the things that their rock star employees really need from them and are looking for from them. That's true. That's true. And so I want to start with your story because I think it's really incredible like all the work you've done in leadership. So as I mentioned, you've facilitated more than a thousand leadership sessions. So what experience is really led you to dedicate this career to, you know, helping leaders become the kind of bosses that people want to work for. Yeah, I think it actually goes before implementing EOS. And so 24 years

prior to that and really coming right on of college, I started working for a family-owned manufacturing business and worked my way up from starting as a purchasing agent. Then I got into sales and then sales management and then operations and then the last eight years I was general manager and through all of those experiences that really is what kind of formed what where my interests have gone in terms of employees because from the days when I was the employee and the days when I was leading and managing employees that's always been the the toughest challenge the most fulfilling part of my career and all the leaders that I work with, I think they would say the same thing, but also mostly that's a lot of times the most challenging part.

And really perfecting that and finding that and how do you inspire those people to do the things that we need them to do? That's the ticket because we can only do so much. There's only 24 hours in a day. and if everything's dependent on us to get the product down to the door or to deliver the service or whatever, that, you know, we're limiting ourselves. And so our ability to grow leaders and make more leaders, that's really the, that's the mission. That's what we're after. That's what is going to give, get people to where they ultimately want to be in their careers.

Yeah, isn't that so true? And I, Joe, as I'm listening to, I'm thinking about the people I've had as bosses and sometimes they're people I love and I want to level up because of them. But then there's other people that I can think of that, you know, to be honest, I was fearful, sometimes intimidated to go talk to them. You know, sometimes I'd get an email or a message and be like, they don't even support what I'm doing. They don't even understand what I'm doing. Is there like a story that, you know, you can think of, of either a great boss or a tough boss that you've had? Yeah, I think probably in both cases, I've had great bosses. And I think in many cases, they were also tough bosses, depending on how you interpret that or how you define tough.

And I think the ones that probably inspired me the most, the ones that really elevated me to the levels that I got. to were those tough bosses that truly were great. They were tough, but yet they still had the compassion. They were still willing to hear me out, listen to me, consider ideas and things that I brought to the table. But yet still challenge and inspire me to do the great things that I need to do. And I think that's what I see, that common thread with the leaders that I work with, And what the great bosses are, you know, they're those demanding people that are looking for and

insisting on that great attitude, tying that together with performance and not just looking at performance. It's the whole package. Yeah. Yeah, excellent. You know, and I, one of the things I really like that you say is, like, people don't leave companies, they leave managers. So tell us why that statement is true. And what do great managers do consistently? What do they do different? than maybe average managers or average leaders. Yeah, I think, you know, there's lots of information and statistics and research that's out in the world. And the one that always kind of stands up to me, and I think this was Gallup,

where they did a survey of employees in the United States. And what they found is that 35% of employees said they would take a significant pay cut to see their boss fired. And so what that really is telling us is it's not about the money. And so many times I think that's what we think is that easy solution, just put more money into our people. And it's really, it's how are they, what's that relationship like with their boss? That's what's going to keep them there. And so that's really the opportunity.

And I think that's the part that gets missed because all of us, we have this discretionary effort that we want to give. It's free. That's what fulfills us. That's what makes things interesting to us, that above and beyond the stuff that goes beyond just the skill that we bring to the organization. And so many times bosses are missing that. They're focused more on getting the job done and they're not tapping into that discretionary effort that their employees are willing to give them. And it honestly won't cost them anymore. And actually, it's going to promote more loyalty that they're going to, that they're going to, that they're going to, to provide back to the boss or to the organization. You know, one of the things that I just heard you said, do you say one third of people would say that stat one more time from Gallup? Yeah, so it's 35% of U.S. employees would forego a significant pay increase

to see their boss fired. Wow, 35%. It makes me think about our national research study on confidence. And we did this study, Joe, last year, where we wanted to see really what was going on nationwide related to confidence. And we found some really staggering things. We found there's a confidence crisis in America today, particularly among like Gen Z, which is ages 18 to 29 and young millennials 30 to 35. But I was reminded of the stat yesterday that we found 66% of people would would take a lower ping job. for somebody who grew their confidence.

One third of people have actually quit a job because it was decreasing their confidence. Right? And so obviously as we're talking, I think, you know, from my perspective of just doing this research study on confidence, there's certain things that leaders can do to grow confidence and certain things they do to kill confidence.

And I'm sure you would say that's, of course, related to retention. But a couple of things I can share with you that leaders do to grow, confidence. Okay? So I just want to see what you think about this. Here's things that leaders should do to build confidence. They should help them set achievable goals that are stretch goals. They should help them recognize their achievements. They should create a supportive work environment. They should embrace failures and model authenticity and not having all the answers. Yeah.

What do you think about that? Is that consistent with like some of the research you've done about retention? Yeah, because, you know, what some, and again, some of the research that's out there that I've come across, there's really three primary things. I think they really tie in nicely to what you're talking about, that people, employees are looking for, from their, their boss, their supervisors. And that is to build, to have the trust, trust going both ways. And the three things that they're looking for is, number one, is that their boss genuinely cares about.

Yeah. That's kind of, that's the first one. And I always say this to clients and people that I'm working with. We all have this sixth sense. We can sniff that out in a second when people aren't authentic, when they're just doing it to manipulate or to deliver, get you to do what they need you to do. But we need to see that. We can feel that. We can sense that if they genuinely care about us. The second thing that the research has found that everyone's looking for is that the boss has to have integrity.

They have to walk the talk. They have to be willing to do the things that they're asking their people. And I think that's kind of what you're talking about. The fourth or the fifth one you mentioned that they have to model. They have to model the behaviors that they want to see from their people. They'll hear you, but they're watching you. And if those two aren't in alignment, they're going to go to what they're seeing versus what they're hearing. And so we've got to have integrity.

And then the third one, and this one's the big one, is that they have to be competent as a, they have to demonstrate competence. And what we're talking about there so many times, unfortunately, I think when people get promoted into that supervisory role of people, they got promoted because they were good at whatever that task was. So if it was sales, if it was they were the best welder, they were the best assembler, whatever those functions were that they had, that's usually what gets them recognized. And when that time for promotion comes, they're the ones who get asked to rise up and become that boss, that supervisor, manager of an area. But what we're talking about here, what employees are looking for when they say competence, it isn't the competence to do the things that they're needing done. it's competence as their boss. It's having the competence to do those things. And a lot of those things are those hard, squishy, soft skills that get overlooked and omitted

a lot of times because we have that tendency to focus on the tangible things that we can grab a hold of and change. Yeah. And I also think about, you know, I have a client who I coach who, um, who, sometimes doesn't want to, like, he's so task-focused in getting the work done, that it's like, I shouldn't ask you how your day was because, like, let's just get the work done, right? But when I think about this idea of, like, genuinely caring about someone, tell us what that looks like. Does that look like asking about their day, asking about their family, you know, and some people might say, well, that's like, that's like, I shouldn't,

I should just keep it strictly professional. What do you think about that? Yeah, and I think that is maybe some of the, what would I'd say, the erosion of good management is that there's this fear of getting too personal or asking those personal questions. But, I mean, these employees that work for you, I mean, I'd like to think in many cases are your friends, are people, confidants, at times, or whatever, however deep you want to go with them, of course, always making sure that we have that clear separation that we're their boss first. But to get to know people, and that kind of comes back to that discretionary effort that we're talking about. If you have a boss that you know clearly, it's all about the numbers.

That's all they care about. You're not going to give them anything extra. But when you do have that boss, it's going to ask you about what you did this weekend. How was your trip or just get personal in any way and be involved? vulnerable. And I think it's kind of a cop-out. I think everybody says, well, you know, HR says we can't have that conversation or whatever that might be or or they're worried about their reaction. Will this person feel that I'm intruding or whatever? I think that's where to be that great boss is to truly care about your employees, but also to know your employees. There's some employees you know

what makes them tick and what's going to resonate. And then when you do get to know them well, you know, the ones that probably are more, you know, just want to keep things more surface level. And so having that understanding of your people, that's our job. That's the stuff that we got to enter that danger at times to get to understand them better. Yeah, absolutely. And one of the things, you know, that Joe has helped us do is at Mentally Strong. We have been using EOS through Joe. So Joe's our EOS implementer.

And EOS, by the way, entrepreneurial operating system. So you kind of have to explain what that is, Joe. But the way I would say it from like a person going through the other end and our company went through the other end, it's like, you know, I think you're helping us get on track and to set big goals and to hold ourselves accountable. And we have this huge goal, Joe, that actually last year at this time we wrote it. And it was a really big, huge audacious goal of. positively impacting 10 million people in the next 10 years to be mentally strong.

And Joe, to be honest, like, I had, when we wrote it, I was like, this is so audacious. Like, I don't even know, I don't even know how we're supposed to do this. And I think about this goal a lot. And every time in the last year, I've thought about it, I'm like, there's, I don't know, there's no way. And sometimes I wouldn't even think about it because it was too overwhelming. So I just got this opportunity around my new book, The Confidence Habit, to be on Good Morning America, August 29th. So everyone who's listening, you've got to put it on your calendars Saturday morning, August 29th. And guess what, Joe?

Guess how many people watch Good Morning America on Saturday mornings? One million. 2.94 million people. How about that? So then all of a sudden I'm like, okay, I just got to get it on the Today Show and Good Morning America. You know, all these shows three times and then we got the 10 million people. Yes, yes. Isn't that awesome?

How cool is that? Yeah, and that's just that thing is, and it kind of comes back to some of the research you found before is to have that vision and to put that out there, have that goal that everybody can see, everybody can rally around. And when it's known, the likelihood of it happening is much greater. Because people can see it just like you were saying, how you've been thinking about it. And you know, you're thinking about it every day or every quarter at least. You know, it's top of mind. And it's top of mind in your team. And so when those opportunities present themselves, that's when those things come together.

I had a – Oh, I'm sorry. I was just going to finish – I had a football coach just when you're saying that. He always had a phrase that he says, luck is opportunity, is preparation meeting opportunity. And just being prepared, knowing what you need to do and have that opportunity, a lot of times people look at that as luck, but you were ready for it. And getting that opportunity, I think that just speaks volumes of your preparation and what you're looking for. And that is going to help you get to your ultimate tenure target to your goal.

Yeah, we're going to do it. And what's cool is like, I think, you know, sometimes people just, they don't set that big, huge audacious goal because they're so nervous about like, and if I wouldn't have said, okay, let's go for it. No, we have to reduce it to $3 million or something, you know. And I think that anxiety was probably a good thing because it made me just kind of keep pushing. And one of the things that I've been supporting you on is your coach is like getting out there more with your keynote and really solidifying that and leveling that up. And then also helping you be a better coach through EOS, you know, because we can all improve in our coaching skills.

So one of the things that you do in your keynote, right, is your keynote is called Lead for keys to retain your rock stars. I'd love for you to tell us, like, what rock stars mean? Like, who are we trying to protect? and why do so many leaders unintentionally overlook those rock stars? Yeah, yeah, great question. So, you know, the rock stars, and this is, I purposely choose or have chosen that name versus superstars. So you get your superstars who are your high performers, but a lot of times their attitude doesn't come with it.

Rock stars is a combination of both. You're going to have those people that have that they're high performers, and they couple that with the great attitude. These are the people when you drive into the office or the plant and you see their car in the parking lot, there's a smile that comes on your face because you just enjoy working with them and seeing them and interacting with them. And you also know that they're the ones that are getting the job done. You can count on them.

And so many times what ends up happening is when we have, you know, the emergencies of the day, are not associated with those people. Those are the people, they're head down, they're working hard, they know what they need to do. There's not a lot of drama. And unfortunately for most of the supervisors, managers, bosses, we need to focus. We spend more of our time on the other people, the problem employees, the people that aren't there. And so those rock stars get neglected. And, you know, my big plea to all of all of the bosses out there that have people reporting to them is we got to focus on those people.

Those are the people that deserve and need our time and attention. And the reason being is that this is another Gallup survey that's done every year. They do their annual employee engagement survey. And in that survey, they have found that 51% of employees. are either considering or would consider taking a new job. Yeah, wow. And that should scare everybody. And I think we can all see this because these recruiters are getting very, very good at finding the best employees.

You're rock stars. And if you hired that recruiter, that's who you'd want them to recruit for your company. And so that's who they're going after. And if we're not plugged into those people, those are the people that we're going to lose. And not just plugged into them to get to know them, but to take the tough actions, to have that competency as their boss to do the things, address the people issues, address the concerns, the things that are aggravating and agitating them. We have to be willing to do that. We can't push that off and just focus on the problem issues. We've got to be proactive and see these things and make sure that we're plugged into those great rockstar employees that we have.

Hi friends, Dr. Sindra here, and I'm so excited to announce that my new book, published by Simon & Schuster, is now available titled The Confidence Habit. Our national research study on confidence showed there is a confidence crisis in America today. One in two Gen Zers and young millennials feel like they are not enough. Women still scored lower on all markers of confidence compared to men. And this book provides the tangible research-backed strategies to grow your confidence, and I can't wait for you to read it. You can head over to Confidence Tools.com to purchase your copy where there's over $594 of bonuses over there. Again, check it out at ConfidenceTools.com, and I can't wait to hear what to think about it. So, Joe, your keynote is called Lead Four Keys to Retaining Your Rockstar.

So I'm curious, like, I completely agree with everything you said about rock stars, but what are those four keys to retaining our rock stars? Because I want to retain my rock stars on my team. So I'm going to listen to you in that way. Yeah, yeah, great. Yeah, thank you for asking that question. So the four keys. Number one, we kind of already talked about this. You have to legitimately care about your employees.

Again, it has to be authentic. You have to legitimately care. And this is that other thing. When people are considering if this is the right occupation for them, as they get that opportunity to be promoted, if that isn't in your wiring, if, you know, caring for people. And that's not saying you're a bad person.

It just, this isn't going to be the occupation that's going to work for you. So number one, you got to legitimately care. Number two is you have to exhibit humility. You have to be willing to put yourself under what is needed for your employees. You have to be humble. Again, they're seeing that. We all can see that. Nobody wants to work for that arrogant boss that everything is just for them.

And then the third one, and this one I think is the biggest of all, we have to be willing to address people issues. That's what I see in working with all the clients that I work with. Actually, just was working with the one yesterday. Great leadership team, wonderful people. They get it. They're strong tactically and everything. But they have people issues that they're just trying to find ways of not addressing them and we have to be willing. A rock stars are expecting us.

They don't want to work for those lower performers. Your rock stars, your A players, I think Steve Jobs said it, originally said A players want to work with A players. B players want to work with C players. And if we're just focused on those B players and neglecting the A players, we're going to end up just with C players. And then the fourth is that we have to demonstrate our expectations. We have to model the things that we need, the behaviors that we expect and need from our people. And so, again, they're watching you more than they're listening to you. You can say what you need to say, but again, they're looking, are your actions in alignment with those words?

That's what they're searching for. That's what they're validating. Yeah. You know, and I agree with what you're saying that it's, when I think about these, for me, right? I care about the people I lead. I'm humble. I realize I don't have all the answers. But that number three is actually pretty hard to address people issues.

And so what advice would you give for people who are thinking, all right, I need to give my employees feedback or there's somebody I really need to address? I know that's a really broad question, but is there any best practices or anything that you think about that could be helpful? I think it's kind of turning the tables and looking at what would you want if you were in their shoes. And so Patrick Lanchone has a quote that I like to use. He says, if you remove truth or love, it's cruelty. And so that truth and love, we need to provide both. So first of all, let's look at love. You have to be compassionate.

You have to have empathy. but you can't have so much empathy that you're unwilling to share the truth. And so we got to tell people the truth in a compassionate way. And if people aren't meeting our expectations, they're not doing what we need them to do, instead of complaining, talking behind their back, talking to our other peers or our spouse or whomever, we got to tell them. Just like if the tables were turned, at the end of the day, yeah, it's not what you want to hear, but it's what you need to hear.

And so we would all want to hear that, but again, our expectations would be, please do it in a compassion manner. Just to hit somebody up alongside the head, you know, with the truth. That's not right. But to make sure that we're doing, we're finding the right time.

We're making, we're staging it, we're making sure that it is the right environment to really share that important information that we need to tell them. Yeah, absolutely. you know, when you think about giving feedback and retaining your rock stars, you know, in your experience, what is the biggest mindset shift that you think leaders need to make if they truly want to retain great people instead of just like constantly replacing them?

Yeah, I think, again, it's having that focus on and understanding what are the needs of those rock star employees. And so one of the tools that we use in EOS is what we call a quarterly conversation. And that's exactly what it is. Once a quarter, having a conversation with all of our employees, but in particular, making sure you're having those with your best employees, your rock star employees, and plugging into them. And just asking them those maybe vulnerable personal type questions,

you know, where do you see yourself five years from now? What, you know, and maybe they come back and say, I want your job. Wouldn't that be wonderful? If they want that and, okay, great. Let's put a plan together. How can we get you there? I want to see you elevate to that level. Or you might find out that they, you know, that their intention, they want to retire in five years or three years or whatever that is.

The thing that just always kind of drives me crazy is when I hear about an employee that is retiring typically and they give a two-week notice. Well, I don't think that typically came out in the last couple weeks that that was their, They had this in their mind all along. And if we get to the root cause, why didn't they feel comfortable enough sharing that with their boss? And getting to that route, did the boss give them that opportunity and ask them that question? Because wouldn't that be nice for that, would that have been nicer for that boss to know that this is coming and to plan for it and have a nice succession transition versus all of a sudden the floor? opens up and you got two weeks and it's over. Quarterly conversations, so important.

And you just said something earlier that I want to dive a little bit deeper into, Joe, in terms of like how do you actually put this into place? And you said, you know, balancing love and truth with the people that we lead. I think that's actually really a powerful idea. And I'm just kind of curious when you think about like everyday leadership and especially in those difficult conversations. Like, can you tell us more about how you actually. might go about.

Yeah, I think actually another tool that I would employ is what we call a clear, to take a clarity break. If we try to figure this thing out in the hustle bustle of the day and say, yeah, I need to have a conversation with Cinder about, about this thing that, that, that I need her to know about. And I, and it's a kind of, you know, a more sensitive type thing. And I'm trying to do that where people are coming into my office, the phone's and doing all that, I'm never going to do my best work. But if I leave the office, I find that place

of solitude, it might be a coffee shop, it might be a library, it might be if your home environment's not chaotic, maybe at the kitchen table or something, but where I can really do my deepest, best thinking and just let your mind go where it needs to go, it will find that solution, that path to to accomplish what you're after. And so, and then I think the biggest thing, it's kind of the golden rule, just put yourself in their shoes. How would you want that, how would you want this topic approached if you were on the receiving end?

I think by doing that, you know, nine times on a 10, you're going to probably come up with the solution and the right answer. Yeah, I think I would want to know that the person still cares about me, you know, and deeply cares about my success, but I would want to know instead of not knowing, you know, what areas that I could improve on. You know, through this idea of like retaining your rock stars and helping you be the best great, great boss that you can be, right? I know you talk a lot about accountability.

I think accountability is like really misunderstood, to be honest. I'm curious, like, how can leaders hold people accountable while also creating this workplace where people feel cared for and trusted and valued and motivated because we know that's what leads to high performance. So tell us more about accountability, what that means to you, and how can you balance both accountability and caring? Yeah, I think so many times we, this is our own head trash, where we think that, you know, people don't want to be held accountable or are going to be offended if we are holding them accountable. And I don't know that that's really the case. And I'll use a Brian Tracy quote here.

He says leadership is the ability to get extraordinary results from ordinary people. And so that's leadership. And so holding people accountable, accountable people expect that. They just want you to hold everyone else accountable and be consistent in that. So if you're just holding one person accountable or whatever and you're letting other people skate, that's more on you. You've got to have that consistency. And so just I think getting over that and realizing, you know, it's the Ronald Reagan quote, you know, trust but verify. It's okay.

And I think so many times we think that the other person is going to take offense to that. But again, if you're doing it in the right way, all of us are willing to be held accountable for the things that people expect of us. Yeah, that's true. And what would be some language you would suggest in terms of, let's say, someone does follow through with a project or a task. And I think honestly, sometimes as leaders, we just tolerate some of that and then we just do it anyway, right? But then we're undermining the person, right? And we know that one of the most effective ways you can grow confidence is to delegate, but then empower others. So is there a particular language you would encourage us to use?

Yeah. I think, again, it's just kind of coming right at it and make sure that you, sure that, you know, you're always, when you're criticizing, it's always in private, when you're being critical and you have that harder conversation. And then I think as far as the language is just to put it out there and just to put it from your perception, I'm seeing this. You, you know, actually just had had a situation where employee that isn't, isn't doing the work that they used to do to tell them, hey, you know, this is what I saw previously, and something's shifting here. And so to be that mirror, to reflect back to them how you're seeing them through your eyes, I think that's really the opportunity, and that's how they're going to

receive it. If it's just all, just stop doing this or you have to do this better or whatever, but to really personalize it and say, hey, I know you've done this other way and you've performed at this higher level. And recently I've been noticing that, you know, you're not quite, you know, the same. There's something different and really getting curious and digging down to get to what's the root cause. Yeah, I think that that actually does show that you really care about the person, you know, by just sharing your observations. And again, what great coaching skills that leaders need to keep developing? Okay, a couple more questions for you, Joe. If you could coach every new manager for just five minutes before they started and they stepped into leadership,

what are two or three of the most important things you'd tell them? I think I kind of touched on this earlier. The very first thing that I would say is to really make sure that this is the job. this is the role that they want to take. And again, if people, if the things I talked about before that you genuinely care, you, you, you have integrity and you have competency as that leader, if those things aren't interesting to you, this is never going to work. And so just to be honest with yourself.

And again, I kind of go back to that, that familiar promotional ladder that people have. They're really, really good at their tasks. They come in, they're, you know, doing all this great work, and they get recognized for doing that great work, and then they get asked to be the boss, the supervisor of that area. And if that's not in your wiring, that's not what, what is fun for you, fulfilling for you, don't do it. Even though, you know, the title's cool and the wage is going to be wonderful, you know, really look at what's going to be best for you and make sure you live in that. So that would be the first thing. And then after that, it's how can I best serve my employees? How can I help them become everything that they want

being and making sure that, in addition to that, making sure that I'm crystal clear on the expectations, the things that I need them to do. And how can I help them? How can I help them accomplish everything so that this becomes that win-win type situation where I'm getting their discretionary effort. They're giving me that discretionary effort. That's going to be to the benefit of the company. That's going to be to the benefit of their peers.

It's going to be the benefit of the customers in many cases. So it's like a five-win type cascade that takes place when we really, when we really do drill in and help our employees that way. I love it. All right. And final question. We always like to leave, you know, the listeners with something practical. So if there's one leadership habit that someone could start this week that would immediately

make their team stronger and increase the likelihood that their best people stay, what would be that one leadership habit? Yeah. I think what I would suggest, and this is really. plugging in and taking that clarity break, finding that place of solitude where you can really assess your team and what their needs are. And one of the things that I've developed, I call a rock star retention matrix. And it's real simple where you're just going to take a vertical line and you're going to put attitude on that. And then on the horizontal line, you're going to measure performance. And in the

upper right hand corner, those are your rock stars. Those, those great people, those great employees that you have, awesome attitude, always getting the job done, populate or plot them in the upper right. And then from there, just move everybody else to where they belong. You're going to have some people that, yeah, attitude, so-so, something great, but, you know, they're kind of middle of the road. You're going to have people performance. Sometimes they get the work done, sometimes they don't.

Then you're going to have the people that, yeah, the attitude is not right. or you have the performance. And in doing that, I think it starts to really point to where your opportunities are. And so we need to move everybody up to that upper right-hand quadrant. How do we get them in that rock star box? And then start and be honest with yourself. What are those steps you're going to need to take? What are those conversations that you're going to need to take with the people to be crystal clear on what you need from them?

And that kind of comes back. Again, we got to balance that love and truth. We got to tell them, tell them the things that they need to hear. We got to do it in a compassionate manner. And if we do those two things, they're going to, they may not like the message always, but they're going to understand the message. And they're going to respect you at the end of the day. They may not, I don't really tell you that,

but I think they're going to have more respect for you doing and explaining what your concerns are. and also showing them that they have the opportunity. And they're their biggest fan. You're rooting for them to get into that upper right-hand quadrant. So just stepping back, analyzing, assessing, and then putting your plan together. You don't have to do it in one week, one quarter. It might take you several years to ultimately get there, but that should be the drive that every great boss wants to have or wants to do.

Great job, Joe. Thank you so much for just helping us think about retention and leadership today and what we can, what we can do to be even stronger than we are. I loved today when we talked about the importance of just like caring for your people and what that actually means. And so, you know, the best leaders aren't just tough, but they have compassion. I loved the ways we talked about, the importance of trust, genuinely caring, right, having integrity. And of, of course, course that leaders need to be competent. We talked about the four keys to retaining your rock stars. And I love this idea of balancing truth and love and asking ourselves like, what would we want?

I think that's really powerful. One of my people, Heidi, who's our director of operations at Mentally Strong Institute, she just went through your great boss workshop and she actually loved it. She talked about how it's really helped her think about how she can lead our coaches more effectively. So, Joe, tell us about your great boss workshop and also your keynote around lead, retaining your four rock stars, and anything else you'd like to share with us on how we can reach out to you and get to know you and follow along with what you're doing. Yeah, thank you. I'd love to do that. Yeah, so the Great Boss workshops I do, at this point, most of them are virtual so that I can reach more people. and we keep them pretty intimate, where there's, we cap it at 20 participants.

And it really is covering a lot of the same things that we talked about here, using a lot of the EOS tools to accomplish that to become that great, great boss and do, and make sure that we have that ultimate focus on our rock stars. And so those great boss workshops, you can go to, you can go to retain rock stars, retain rockstars.com or if you want you could email me at joe at retain rockstars.com and we'd be happy to get you signed up for that. Yeah, I loved having Heidi on the last great boss workshop and being able to engage with her and she was such a great participant to help a lot of the others and that's one of the powerful pieces of that yeah i'll share the tools and and help

where where i can but the collaboration piece is is just so powerful learning from from other other great bosses that that are in attendance because we all struggle with the same things and i think so much of that really comes back to uh to the work that that you're doing uh with confidence and i think that is that it's such a needed thing i need that i need that i think all of our great bosses out there need to continually focus on how do we boost our confidence. And so I'm so excited to dive in and get when your book comes out and to learn and continue to learn from you as I feel so fortunate to have you as my personal executive coach as well, Sandra. So thank you very much for having me.

It's very nice of you to say. Yeah. It's going to be awesome for all of you to go check out Joe's great boss workshop in his keynote. Again, you can go to retain rockstars.com. And Joe, is there any other piece of feedback, advice, final comment you'd like to share with us as you wrap a bow on retaining rock stars? Yeah, I think just the last thing, as we've said multiple times, is just be vulnerable. Put yourself out there, plug into your people. they want to know that you're human.

They want to know that you have empathy, that you care, and do what, have those conversations to really tap into that discretionary effort that they freely want to give you. And, of course, you want to receive that because that's what's going to make your job better. That's what's going to make, that's going to allow you to accomplish all the goals that you have and give you those peaceful. night when you know that you're surrounded by all right people in the right seat. You have right, you have those rock stars at every position underneath you. Joe, thank you so much for joining

us here on the high performance mindset today. Thank you, Cinderra. Keep doing all the great work. Way to go for finishing another episode of the high performance mindset. I'm giving you a virtual fist pump. Holy cow, did that go by way too fast for anyone else? If you want more, remember to subscribe and you can head over to Dr. Cinder for show notes and enjoy my exclusive community for high performers where you get access to videos about mindset each week. So again, you can add over to Dr. Cindra. That's D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A.com. See you next week.