Why leaders should stop solving and start inviting change
Modern Mentor
Macmillan Holdings, LLC
4.3 • 726 Ratings
🗓️ 18 November 2025
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
873. Employees are waiting for leaders to fix work. Leaders are drowning trying to fix everything. Rachel explains why both sides are stuck in an outdated model - and how to break free.
Modern Mentor is hosted by Rachel Cooke. A transcript is available at Simplecast.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, it's Rachel Cook, your modern mentor. |
| 0:26.0 | I'm the founder of Lead Above Noise, where we help leaders rethink how the work gets done in ways that teams are able to be really productive and successful and people are able to feel |
| 0:31.8 | well and engaged. |
| 0:33.4 | If your organization or team could use a dose of inspiration and skills and tools to make this |
| 0:38.5 | happen, reach out today at leadabovenoise.com slash connect. |
| 0:44.0 | Okay, so recently my daughter and I were flipping through some old pictures of when the girls |
| 0:48.8 | were little. And she asked me, hey, why is it that you let me out of the house in that neon plus tie-dye |
| 0:55.8 | plus faux-fur ensemble? Like, did you hate me? It was a fair question. The fit was indeed |
| 1:02.6 | brutal, but it had been my salvation all those years ago. At that time, I had a toddler and a baby |
| 1:08.9 | who I had to get up, get dressed, and get out the door by 7.30 a.m. every day so I could get to work on time. It was a low-key nightmare. The experience was stressful for me, and frankly, not so much fun for my toddler, who would get really annoyed waiting for me to finish diapering her sister so I could get her dressed. I was overwhelmed |
| 1:28.2 | trying to do everything. She was frustrated waiting for me to get to her. And then one morning, |
| 1:33.2 | she just looked at me and said, can I get dressed by myself? And I stopped because, honestly, |
| 1:39.4 | that hadn't even occurred to me. I was so stuck in my assumption that, as the mom, this was my job. It just hadn't |
| 1:46.0 | occurred to me that she could probably do it herself. So I said yes, and a neon tie-dye foe for |
| 1:53.6 | situation ensued. But suddenly, setting aside my pride, I could breathe a little easier. |
| 2:00.0 | And my daughter was happy with the rhythm of the |
| 2:02.6 | morning. A little bit of the same is playing out in the workplace. Like not in my experience anyway |
| 2:08.9 | with the colors and the furs so much, but with the one party, thinking they have to solve it all |
| 2:14.5 | and the other party, feeling frustrated the solution just |
| 2:17.7 | isn't coming fast enough. |
| 2:19.8 | And me, wishing more people would just ask, can I do this myself? |
| 2:24.8 | We're using a 1950s playbook for 2025 problems. |
... |
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