INTRO
TONY: Welcome back to the podcast. You know, we're living in a moment where leadership is under more pressure than ever. Teams are stretched. Expectations are high. Work is faster, more distributed and more emotionally charged than it's ever been. And yet, one of the most critical leadership skills is quietly disappearing—the ability to give honest feedback.
You know, most leaders, many leaders today, a preponderance of leaders are stuck. They see problems forming. They feel tension rising. I've been in the corporate world for three decades. I've seen it. But instead of addressing it directly, leaders hesitate. They're worried about damaging relationships, hurting morale, or saying the wrong thing in the world that feels increasingly fragile. Sometimes they go this way, sometimes they go that way. Sometimes it's blunt force trauma, and sometimes I'm afraid to say something. You know, person came in three hours late—let's give him a gold star. You know, things have just changed.
But, guys, the cost of that hesitation is enormous. Performance stalls, resentment builds. Strong people leave. Not because leaders were too tough, but because they weren't clear.
My guest today has lived this from every angle. Jeff Hancher grew up with very little. He built his career from the ground up. He spent twenty-four years inside a Fortune 500 organization and survived. He earned twelve promotions, and he developed dozens of leaders along the way. He's done quite well there.
And now he's an executive coach. He's a keynote speaker, and he's author of the USA Today bestseller Firm Feedback in a Fragile World. I am so interested in that. His work sits right at the intersection of emotional intelligence and execution, helping leaders say the hard things the right way without losing trust, authority or humanity.
Guys, if you lead people, if you're navigating tension inside your team, or if you've ever avoided a difficult conversation and felt the cost later, this conversation is for you. Let's get into it. Let's go bring him on. Hi, Jeff, welcome to The Tony D'Urso Show.
JEFF: Tony, so good to be on this show. I've been anticipating this for some time. And thank you, listeners for tuning in. It's an honor to be with you.
TONY: Oh, the honor is mine. There's a lot for me to learn. Not that I'm in the corporate world anymore, but as an entrepreneur and working for yourself, you still have teams, associates, people, subs, and you've got to—there's a balance. You go the wrong way a little bit and that's it. You've burned a bridge.
So what I like to do is we want to learn how we can tell the truth without breaking trust and how that balance of feedback can build a stronger team. And just before we kind of get into more of that, I'd like to know, Jeff, what led you into helping leaders deliver honest feedback and what did you get wrong early on about that, about leadership?

INTERVIEW – PART 1 (THE DEFINING MOMENT WITH SEAN)
JEFF: Well, I got a lot wrong about it in leadership. But I will tell you, my first meaningful experience was as a follower, not a leader. And it prompted me when I became a leader to make sure that I didn't get it wrong. And I think I'm still trying to figure it out, but I had a leader. His name was Sean.
And I finally got my big break into sales. You know, I was in a blue-collar truck driver job, and I got my big promotion into sales. Man, I learned that sales was really hard, and I wasn't that great at it. But I had a great leader, Sean, that made big deposits. I mean, this guy would role play and teach interest-creating statements. He knew a little bit about my background. I grew up in poverty, had very sick parents, and he knew one of my whys was I wanted to take care of my family.
And because of his coaching, I started getting pretty good at sales. I started having some success. I'm pacing to make President's Club. And one day I got a call from my dad that I'd gotten so many times, and it was to get to the hospital. Mom wasn't doing well. She suffered from lupus.
And that day was a day that was very defining, because it was a day that I would hold my mom in my arms for the last time and watch her pass away. And it rocked my world. I kind of gave up on work, I lost motivation, I went into a depression, and now President's Club was wavering and my career was wavering. I was just in a dark place, and Sean pulled me into the office one day and basically said, "Enough's enough. You can't act like that here. There's too much at stake for you, your family and the life that you want to build."
And it was in this moment—I mean, think about it. The grave dirt is still fresh. I'm frustrated. I'm sad. I do want success, but I'm not in a good frame of mind. But because of all of the relationship and deposits that Sean made prior to that moment, he earns the right to have a tough conversation and get me back on track.
Not only was it good for his numbers in the business, but it transformed my life. I went on to take eleven promotions, have success I couldn't have dreamed of. I became a leader myself, and I think back to that moment as a defining moment in my life. Forget about my career.
And so I learned that this firm feedback, when done the right way and we earned the right, we can have some pretty tough conversations that can literally change the trajectory of somebody's life.
TONY: That's very strong. While you're saying this, I'm thinking of when my own mother passed and what was going through—you just, you didn't mean to, but you kind of threw me in there. And I'm thinking of that, like to get that kind of a communication from a boss about what's going on. I mean, I get it, I get it, life has to go on. We can't stop. It's tough. Right? And I feel for you on that because I've been through similar. I totally get it. It's quite something. And it's almost a hard stop when you talk about somebody passing on.
JEFF: Yeah. There's many examples of this. I mean, there's a lot happening in the world right now. You know, people are—I mean, there's literally a war happening, right? People are worried about that. There's anxiety about that. There's people listening right now that have a teenager that's going through drug addiction. You know, there's people right now listening that have heard that their mom is pre-dementia and they're not sure if they're going to have to put her in a home or bring her into their house. There's somebody right now that's gotten a bad doctor's report and is told that they have cancer and has to start chemo.
I mean, this is real world and these things aren't talked about enough. But I can tell you this, if we're going to draw as leaders the most potential out of people, it's going to be navigating tough conversations.
You know, Tony, you or anybody listening, if we were to think about our Mount Rushmore of leaders, these are four people that we would say, "Man, if they never came into my life, I wouldn't be who I was today." And we think of these people because they made such an impact.
As you're thinking of these people, here's my question. Were they tough on you? And the answer is always yes. And then the follow-up is, but did you know they cared? And the answer is always yes.
So what we prove is that this is possible. But what we also know is there's not a lot of—there's some teaching on fierce conversations and so forth, but this framework to equip leaders that are scared to death to have tough conversations because there's a lot at stake if this isn't done right. I think it's a real opportunity to raise our leadership impact.

INTERVIEW – PART 2 (ARE WE REALLY IN A FRAGILE WORLD?)
Gas prices rising. And I see so much of it. I see unpleasant things. Let's use that word in friends and family—things going on that, you know, you just wouldn't want ever to happen. You know, I get it TONY: You know, I'm thinking with this and I see all the trouble and all the fear and all the. I'm thinking, but we've got to survive. And is this world—you alluded to it a little bit in a different way. Is it—are we really that fragile? Do we really have to change how we are a leader now and how we lead teams because of it? Is it really that dramatic?
JEFF: Yeah. The hard stop is yes it is. You know, we're living in a time where people are much quicker to take offense. People avoid discomfort and disengage a lot when things get hard. And I'm not saying we're living in a soft world, but it is fragile, you know.
Leadership—whether we agree on what I just said or not, what we can agree on is leadership isn't getting easier, but it's getting more and more delicate by the day. You know, you got quiet quitting. That's costing the global economy nine trillion dollars a year. Retaining top talent is higher than it's ever been. Attracting top talent is harder than it's ever been. Pepper in some political distress. Pepper in some social injustice. There's a lot going on. And leading is very delicate.
Today's leader is not just managing performance anymore. They're navigating emotions. They're navigating perceptions. They're navigating reactions. And because of all of that, many have overcorrected. And how are they doing that? By avoiding hard conversations altogether in some cases.
But here's what we know to be true. Great leadership has always, since the beginning of time, required courage. That hasn't changed. That's never going to change. What's changed is the environment that we have to practice it in. Hence a fragile world.
TONY: We're going to go into that in just a little bit more. You've opened up a lot of questions. This is Jeff Hancher, and we're talking about how leaders tell the truth without breaking trust. Sounds almost impossible. We're going to find out more about that. And also why firm feedback is so important to build stronger teams. And you can find him, his book and more about him at JeffHancher.com. That's H-A-N-C-H-E-R, JeffHancher.com.

INTERVIEW – PART 3 (WHY LEADERS AVOID FEEDBACK)
of all, why do TONY: Let's get into this a little bit more. Let's talk about honest feedback. Why? Well, first leaders even avoid it? Why can't we just tell it like it is? Why can't we do that?
JEFF: Yeah. You know, everybody to some degree, I think is challenged with this. And the ones that are listening to say, "I have no problem giving feedback," you may sit on the aggressive side of leadership and you lack tact, right? We need to find our way to the middle of leadership effectiveness. And most leaders don't avoid feedback because they just don't care. That's not why it happens. They avoid it because they feel maybe unequipped or uncertain about what the outcomes might be.
In fact, a national poll told us that sixty-nine percent of leaders are uncomfortable communicating with their team. Sixty-nine percent. And thirty-seven percent of that same poll said that they actively avoid feedback. I mean, this is staggering. And this is honest truth, right?
And why does that happen? Well, leaders are asking themselves, "If I give this feedback because I know I should, but if I give this feedback, what if that person gets upset, especially a P performer? My gosh, we don't want to get a peak performer upset. And by the way, what if I say what I'm about to say, but I think I need to say to this person, and what if I'm wrong? What if what I'm about to say is going to damage the relationship? And then how about this one? What if I say this and they cry? We all have that person maybe on the team as well. And God forbid, what if I say this and they quit? We already have five job requisitions open. I haven't been fully staffed in nine months. Am I sure that I want to rock this boat?"
So instead of risking some short-term discomfort right now, they choose silence, but silence always—we know it comes at a cost later on.
You know, in the book I talk about the acronym F-E-A-R—the fear of having a hard conversation. You know, the F is for fallout. "What if I do this and they call HR on me? Or what if I do this and I don't do it perfectly and they call my boss? I don't want to get in trouble with my boss for doing the wrong thing."
Then you have E, which is the emotional side of it. You know, the crying, the aggressiveness, and the defensiveness. There's emotion that comes with tough conversations sometimes as well.
But then you have the A, which is amateur. And amateur doesn't mean you're necessarily new at leadership. It might be that you've never really been taught a framework of how to navigate a tough conversation. You know, you just do what you've seen modeled. Well, that doesn't mean that it's right.
And then you have R, which is retaliation. "Oh my gosh, do not let them retaliate against me. If I have this—I'm trying to build a brand here at this company. I don't need retaliation and people talking bad about me in the lunchroom."
And so we see this come up time and time again of what we call feedback avoidance. The best way around this is to get the proper mindset of not so much thinking about "What if I have this conversation?" Flip the script and start asking yourself this question: "What if I don't? What if I don't?"
And not only will the problem usually get bigger, but at the end of the day, you're holding people back from reaching their fullest potential. Everybody listening, everybody on planet earth—we are a product of the feedback that we've been given or the feedback that has been missing from our life.
Now imagine that if I could tell you, listener, I have a spreadsheet of all the times that a leader held back on feedback. I also have a graph that shows you had they given you the feedback, how much further ahead you would be. Wouldn't you be so disappointed in that leader that they held back that gift of feedback?
And as leaders, we have to understand that although giving a tough conversation can be very, very hard, it's the path to helping people get to their potential. And that's the key right there. Because when feedback is missing, people don't grow. And when people don't grow, everything else starts to slow down.

SPONSOR BREAK – NOTION
TONY: And a lot of times it's not a lack of intent. It's a lack of clarity and organization around what needs to happen next. If you're leading a team or even just managing your own work, you already know how quickly things can get disorganized. Notes are in one place. Tasks are somewhere else. Updates are buried in messages. And before you know it, you're spending more time trying to track things than actually moving anything forward.
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You should try this. Try custom agents now at Notion.com/Tony. That's all lowercase letters. To try custom agents today. And when you use our link, you're supporting our show. Notion.com/Tony—N-O-T-I-O-N dot com slash T-O-N-Y.
And now back to our chat with Jeff. Talking about how avoiding feedback can hold people back and why staying silent as a leader comes at a cost.

INTERVIEW – PART 4 (THE BAD BREATH ANALOGY: EARNING THE RIGHT)
TONY: I totally understand that. And after all my years of working in corporate and as an entrepreneur, I have found almost—most of the time, which is not bad, not the right or the best grammar, but a preponderance of the time—the leader, the person in charge, the manager doesn't know what's going on with the person and gives them the harshness a year late or whatever. "This isn't done right" or "Your work"—has no clue what's going on with this person's life.
You know, the person's loved one could be in the hospital and they go to the hospital every day before they come to work as just a quick example. You have no idea yet. You get this harsh—you know, "Profits aren't up and we've got to make more money and we've got to do this." And you know, its do or die. "Get in there." And you know, I've been read the riot act. I've been there, done that.
And so I understand the harshness. But there has to be a line. There has to be a point where when do you open up your mouth? How do you open up your mouth? How do you address it? I think that is very, very key. You're the expert, you've written the best-selling book. But I'm just kind of scanning my corporate life and I'm thinking there's got to be a balance because most of the times when the leader yells, he's yelling about the wrong thing. He has no idea what's going on.
JEFF: It's so well said, it's so true. And if you think about it, when you earn the right—and let me preface "earn the right." When you earn the right, you can say the toughest things because those four in our Mount Rushmore, our Leadership Hall of Fame, they said some tough stuff to us, but we never questioned once did they care and what was their motive?
We can say hard things if we earn the right. It's about how are we framing it? What have we done leading up to the moment to give the hard conversation? And here's a good analogy that every listener will probably never forget. And Tony, role play with me. I know you're a good sport, Tony.
If I and you were going to go to a conference in Nashville, a leadership conference, and we're going to have a booth there to talk about our services and my book, and we got a plan and marketing and displays. And we're paying a lot of money to be there, too, because there's some people in that room that we need to maybe impress as potential clients or whatever it might be.
And so this is the setting and I say, "Tony, hey, before we get off the strategy call, if we're walking into that conference in Nashville in two weeks and maybe I happen to smell some bad breath, maybe too much coffee or whatever. Tony, would you want me to let you know before we got to our booth?" What would you say?
TONY: That's a very nice, polite question that usually doesn't seem to happen. But the answer would be yes.
JEFF: Right. It sounds like you're leading into something else. Because most of us, when we go to conventions, probably all of us, I've never experienced that. And I've been to a lot of conventions, so it doesn't seem as real. Maybe today. I haven't been to a convention for a while, so I don't know. But here's the point. If I have seen some people not dressed well, so we could go that route or something's wrong. If you say yes that you want to know, I have just earned the right to tell you because now we have agreement.
Now, I would take that one step further and I would say something like, "Tony, why would you want me to tell you that?" And you would say something like, "Because my brand is important to me. My image is important to me. How people perceive me is important to me. That's why I would want to know."
TONY: Sure I would, but we already know each other. I'm not some person brand new that you hired.
JEFF: That's right. You know me. You know what I'm like. You know if there's something wrong with my attire or presentation already.
TONY: You wouldn't necessarily ask that unless you suspected something could go wrong eventually.
JEFF: But I would ask it to validate it. Okay. So we can do this in the one-on-one setting with employees by asking questions like, "Why is success important to you?" Right? But if we were walking into that—after I set the table and I understand, because the reason I ask "Why is that important to you?" I already know the answer because yes, I do know you. But as soon as you say it to me, it now validates.
You know, Simon Sinek says it best when he says people will work for their what, but they'll die for their why. What you just told me by responding is the why behind why you want fresh breath.
So if we're walking into this conference in two weeks, and I do smell a strong coffee breath and I say, "Hey, Tony, a couple of weeks ago you asked me to mention to you, should I smell bad breath? You said you wanted to know and I wanted to let you know that yes, there is some." And I pull a mint out of my pocket and I hand you the mint. What are the first words that you say to me after you take it?
TONY: That sounds wonderful. Thank you, thank you.
JEFF: It was meant to be very wonderful. Now think about this listener. I just told a grown man that he has bad breath and he said, "Thank you." Why? Because I earned the right. Because if I'm in a convenience store and I've never met Tony in my life and Tony's behind me in line, never met this man a day in my life. And I smell the same bad breath. And I turn around and I say, "Sir, I just want to let you know your breath stinks." Now I'm offensive.
And Tony might say, "I didn't ask you. What is it your business to tell me anything?"
Now listen. Watch this. The data in both scenarios is exactly the same. It's the same. The bad breath is equally the same in both scenarios. In one scenario, I might get punched in the nose or cursed at. And the other scenario? I'm thanked for saying it.
You know, if it goes down to people and the relationship they have, I mean, come on, we've all seen friends and family say bad words to other family members and they laugh and go, "Ha ha ha." And they love the banter. But you can't go out in public and say that.
TONY: We gotta earn the right. It's a matter of knowing the person, earning the right, because I guess you've lived with this person for long enough. So there's a way you could say the same thing. Either it's either firm or harsh. That's kind of where we're going.
JEFF: That's exactly. I like firm. That's why I titled the book Firm versus Harsh. Harsh—there's no place for harsh in leadership. The best leaders that have the biggest impact, they all have one thing in common. They're composed. They're not emotional. They don't see feedback as harsh. Matter of fact, the best leaders, best in class, they don't see even feedback as good or bad. They see it as information.
They don't psychoanalyze feedback. It just is. Now, the goal is not to be right in leadership because the guy in the convenience store, I turned around and I said, "Hey, your breath stinks." I'm right. I'm right in saying that. The data is telling me that this is true. But the goal is not to be right. It's to be effective.
So when I set the table and how we talk about it, the first part of that framework that I teach is expectations. Two weeks before that conference started, I set an expectation that if this happens, we're going to talk about it. And then what happened? I gave Tony some feedback and when I gave him the feedback, he said, "Thank you." That's because we already did some of the heavy lifting prior. And so the expectations have to be the thing that happens first.
TONY: So if you go into a conference or you're going somewhere with an employee and you kind of get an idea of what they're like, yet, for example, it could be a good producer, but they don't dress well. Well, when you're going to a conference, you definitely want that person to dress well. So you find a way to introduce that. "Hey, we're going in. We're going to meet some big rollers, heavy hitters, whatever the term is for your business. If you're not dressed right, do you mind if I bring that up?" You know something?
JEFF: No doubt about it. That's right. And I mean, look, this can start day one onboarding, by the way. You know, day one, day two, here's a couple questions, leadership questions that I love to set for the future. One, "Why is success important to you?" And now I'm hearing it. And by the way, that's different for everybody. "Why is success important to you?" "Well, I want to be able to pay for my kids to go to college because I never had an opportunity to do that." Whatever their answer is, is their answer.
But here's the follow-up question to that. "Hey, thank you so much for sharing that with me. I'm going to do everything I can as your leader to help you get there. If there was ever a time that you were behaving in a way, acting in a way, looking in a way, or speaking in a way that I felt from my perspective would hold you back from achieving that success. Would you want me to tell you?"
The answer is always yes when there's not high emotion. The answer is yes. Why? Because in the heart of every human being, I truly believe it, they want to know and they want to get better. But if we do this when the stakes are high and emotions are high, it's seen as an attack.
You know, feedback with the relationship is a gift. Feedback without earning the right, it's an attack. It's not about the data. It's about the work that we put in getting to the moment. We have to earn the right. When we do, it's transformative.
TONY: Very controlled, very structured.
JEFF: Yes. With that structure, we can get things done. Without it, it becomes a free-for-all.

INTERVIEW – PART 5 (WORKING WITH NON-EMPLOYEES: INFLUENCE VS. AUTHORITY)
TONY: So that's part of the company doing better. So I get that. But leaders still struggle with that. They could—we talked about this early on. How can they—well, you're saying with employees, right? Okay. So let's just take that. You could put it in their onboarding. Okay, I get that. That's a simple thing. But you're not necessarily going to have that position with subs, agents, brokers, and people working for the company or other company representatives that work with you as some sort of partners. It's a different setting.
How can you work with that without losing authority? You're not in charge of these people, but you still have to be the leader because to get the sales or the products or whatever produced for your company. So you kind of have to work that out. How do we do it?
JEFF: Yeah. Well, you got to start with the right mindset because, you know, when we talk about they're not your employee, what we're actually saying there is if it's an employee, we have appointed authority. If it's an employee, we are appointed authority over them.
But here's what we know about influence. Influential people, they don't rely on appointed authority. They rely on earned authority. And so especially when it's subcontractors or peers in the corporate world, right? We need to be people of influence beyond the title.
And so I think it starts with a very profound question that everybody can be asking: What do I want for this person? Not from this person. What do I want for them? Not from them. And this starts to shift mindset immediately, you know, because we could say, "Well, who am I to tell a vendor what to do? Who am I to tell a customer what to do?" Well, that still has to be a harmonious relationship.
And then we got to get clear on a few things. We got to get clear on expectations, right? What actually is happening and why does it matter? Because feedback, regardless of who the person is, it's not about emotion. It's about information that helps somebody improve their next action.
You know, if I were boiling feedback down to one definition, that is it. It's information that helps somebody improve their next action. That's what we're trying to do because clarity creates confidence. And when we're clear and we're going into a hard conversation, we have a little more confidence. And confidence is a leadership superpower, right? Because of everything that's happened up to that point, and confidence will give you empathy for this situation.
Because we're not going into the tough conversation with a vendor, with a subcontractor—I have these 1099, W-2 conversations a lot, and it's like, "Jeff, we really can't do that because they're not really an employee. They're a 1099 contractor."
Well, even more so, I would say, because you're actually—you're their customer. So even more so it should be this way. Whatever the relationship is, we have to start with that question of, "Man, if I'm thinking about that person, about that human, what do I want for them? Not from them."
They're acting off. They're acting in a way that's not professional. They're not following up properly, whatever that thing is that needs addressed. What do I want for them? I want them to improve. Not what I want from them. Changes the heart posture immediately, changes the communication immediately as well.

SPONSOR BREAK – SHOPIFY
TONY: And that shift right there, what you want for someone instead of what you want from them that changes everything about how you lead. And interestingly, that same shift shows up when you're building something from the ground up.
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And now back to our chat with Jeff, talking about how shifting your mindset from control to influence changes the way leaders communicate.

INTERVIEW – PART 6 (THREE TYPES OF FEEDBACK: DIRECT, COLLABORATIVE, SUPPORTIVE)
TONY: Okay. It's what I want for the vendor, the sub, the 1099, whoever, the partner company in another country. Okay. And I get that feedback is important, but we still misunderstand it. And I'm wondering, did we cover—we covered why, but what are some of the—I guess where I'm kind of searching for is what are the big misunderstandings about feedback?
Because we still have leaders today. They're set in their ways. And just listening to this conversation so far may not give them that aha moment, because people don't generally think that something applies to them until they hear it a few times. But yet they can and do misunderstand feedback.
Our bosses, you know, wherever you are, you have a boss, somebody that you answer to, and you may not like the way that they communicate to you or they're not giving you the right feedback. How can you get that right feedback? And how can you give that right feedback? I mean, it's the mindset thing that it's needed.
JEFF: Yeah. When I'm working, I appreciate good feedback, but I don't appreciate bad feedback because it does no good saying "You stink. You didn't do well. You did—" These things don't mean anything.
TONY: That's exactly right. And man, we break that down in depth. You know, what we do know is all feedback is not the same. It's not the same because every person is not the same. Every environment is not the same.
You know, the framework we talk about how to navigate tough conversations or how to give this firm feedback, it's three pillars and they're in this order: expectations, feedback, and then comes the accountability. But in that middle ground is the feedback piece. And that's where we should be spending most of our time is consistently giving feedback.
Where leaders may go off sometimes is that they deliver the feedback the same way to everybody all the time. We have leaders listening right now that would lean in the camp of aggressive. So they would say, "I give very direct feedback." We have also passive leaders that might be listening, and they would say, "I always just give very supportive feedback."
Well, if you do it the same way all the time, you're not going to be right all the time. We need to see feedback as a tool belt. You know, none of us would go try to put a nail in wood with a screwdriver. Could you? You could, but it's not the right tool for that.
There's three feedback styles that I talk about a lot and I break down in the book. You have direct feedback, you have collaborative feedback, and you have supportive feedback. These are the three that I need to be thinking about at all times.
For example, you're onboarding a brand new employee. That's direct feedback. They don't know what they're doing. We need to teach them the way. We need to show them the playbook. You know, we don't want to go to a brand new employee and say, "So what do you think we should do today?" That would frustrate them.
The place that we use direct feedback is brand new employees or impending events like a safety issue. Because imagine you go to a twenty-year peak performer and give them direct feedback, how's that going to go? Not too well. They know how to do the job. They've performed at a high level for a long time. Don't go give direct feedback. It's going to turn them off. It's going to shut them down.
That employee, we need to go with collaborative feedback. Collaborative equals questions. We're asking questions so that we can draw out communication, so that we can give collaborative types of feedback. We're now on the journey with them and helping lead them to the answer.
Then you have supportive feedback and supportive feedback definitely has its place because maybe in that one-on-one setting, I'm asking an employee, "Hey, the last couple months, your results haven't been normal. You've really taken a dip. Is everything okay?" And they say, "Listen, my wife has a brain tumor, and it's not looking good, boss."
Okay. Here comes some supportive feedback. So we have to know, because what we can't do is go direct feedback in that moment and say, "Sorry to hear that, but we have a job to do." We have to be able to pivot as leaders.
Leadership tact is very hard to teach, isn't it? But we have to—one, know our people. We have to know that there are different types of feedback to offer. I mean, look, we do eight-hour workshops on this subject matter, but I at least want the listener thinking about how do I give feedback?
Well, first, the expectation has to be clear. I'm earning the right to give it. Now it's time to give feedback. There's multiple tools in that feedback tool belt, but over time, if we consistently are giving feedback and they're unwilling or falling below standard, we have to pull in the last piece of the framework, which is the accountability.
TONY: You know, we spent a little bit of time talking about feedback, which kind of almost can be generic, general out there in the air. And as we've drilled this down, even though it's been a short period of time, I'm really getting this, I'm really understanding this and its application. I mean, sometimes you don't really understand something until you dig in. And as we're diving down, it starts making more and more sense and why it's so important.
Now I get that your three key pillars, if that was the wording you used, the three key feedback—very, very important. Normally you would just use the first one for new employee’s onboarding and the others, or companies or partners, you probably would use the other two. I'm getting that and that now makes much more sense. I didn't understand that.
I didn't read your book before we did this interview, because I came in curious. I always like to be curious because if I read the book that I know everything, then why do the interview kind of.
JEFF: So true. And I love what you said about "I'm really getting with this now." How important—
TONY: Go ahead.
JEFF: I know. I love that, Tony, because again, leaders come in all shapes and sizes. They've been influenced differently. They've been mentored differently. You know, you do have that leader right now that's the aggressive—they throw chairs. "When I say jump you say how high." And by the way that's worked for them. They got great results.
That leader would say, thinking of the three pieces of framework—expectations, feedback, accountability—that aggressive leader has the accountability thing down pat. They are good. Somebody sniffs the wrong way, they're coming in, right? What they forgot was the expectations and the feedback. And now what they've driven into their culture is compliance versus engagement. And it's working for them. So they think it's the right way, but it's not. There's so much left that they could do to impact people in their business.
The passive leader thinking about that three-part framework, the passive leader, they love setting expectations because they think that's kind. And they also love giving feedback, but they only really like one kind of feedback. And it's supportive. "Tony, you're doing a great job. Tony, I really appreciate the extra effort. Tony, is there anything that you need from me? Is there anything that I can do to help you? I know Friday is your birthday. I'm bringing a sheet cake in for you."
They love that piece of the framework. But when it comes to accountability, that passive leader, that might be a people pleaser, that might be a doormat, they are running for the door because they can't even imagine. They're ready to throw up thinking about having this hard conversation.
In the middle, we pull that aggressive leader to the middle. We pull that passive leader up to the middle. Now what we have is assertive leaders that are making impact on human beings like never before. It has to be those three frameworks simultaneously happening all the time and knowing what kind of feedback there is and when to use it appropriately.

INTERVIEW – PART 7 (TODAY'S CORPORATE WORLD & QUIET QUITTING)
TONY: Jeff, as I probably mentioned before, I've been out of corporate for a couple of decades. What's it like out there these days? I probably mentioned a little bit of that. I touched it in the intro because today what I've seen—and not in the corporate world, but what I've seen in just working world—caring of people, they're being rewarded for just showing up. I know it's probably the second time I've said that. Is that the new corporate world business environment out there in the world today? Is that how things are running usually?
JEFF: Yeah. I mean, it depends on the company and the culture. I've been out of the corporate world now for six years, but I still have scars on my back from it. So I can tell you, thankfully, I can report this publicly—I worked for a fantastic company by the name of Cintas for twenty-four years, and the culture of this place was unbelievable.
But I'll tell you where I really got doses of what you're talking about is as now I'm a business consultant now. And I typically get called in when things aren't going so hot. Right. And I can tell you—you're talking about paying people for showing up. Yeah. Quiet quitting is a real thing. I threw that stat out earlier. That's a real stat. Nine trillion dollars a year. And this is this concept of do as little as possible and get paid on Friday, right?
And there's so many cultures that I go into and I hope it's not you listening, man. How do we get past this? "I'm just glad people are showing up and doing something."
Here's what we know. We can create a culture—now look, let me preface by saying pay people fairly, but what we know is we can create cultures that people are passionate about performance beyond the pay. Here's the missing piece. When performance is not tied to purpose, we start to get an erosion of culture.
We also have a lot of leaders that are compromising standards. And what we know is you can either lower the standard, right? That's an option and let things go how they are. Or you can raise the standard and stretch people. But there's really no in-between to this.
And I am here to tell you the biggest competitive advantage, I believe in the marketplace today is leadership effectiveness, because it's pretty crazy out there right now. And I am seeing a lot of what you're talking about, Tony, which is why I think the book has had so much success, because we need to equip leaders to navigate tough conversations. And sometimes that means you can't be on the team. And that's where leadership gets real, because at some point, standards matter and decisions have to be made.
TONY: And before we continue, I just want to take a moment to thank you for being here. Your time and attention truly matter to me. There are a lot of things you could be doing right now, and the fact that you've chosen to spend part of your day here learning, thinking, growing—that means something.
If today's episode is giving you something to reflect on, something you can apply, I invite you to follow the show wherever you're listening. That way you don't miss what's coming next. Because every week I bring you conversations with people who've built something, who have faced real challenges and who share what actually works.
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And if you want to go a little deeper, you're always welcome to join my Elite Entrepreneurs newsletter. A couple of times each month, I share insights like this along with practical ideas you can apply right away. Clear, simple, useful. You can find it at TonyDUrso.com. That's Tony D-U-R-S-O dot com.
And I truly appreciate you being here. And now back to our chat with Jeff talking about leadership, accountability, setting standards and making the tough decisions that build strong teams.

INTERVIEW – PART 8 (MAKING DEPOSITS TO EARN WITHDRAWALS)
TONY: I tell you right now, one thing we need is we need your book out there, that's for sure. I mean, we really need that to bring back that culture because I'm really getting it. I've been through the good, the bad and the indifferent, whatever. I really see that.
And I'm thinking for the entrepreneurs, business people that we have in the audience today, what do you recommend they do to improve themselves and how they interact with their people now? Now, not everybody thinks they're a leader or a manager, but somewhere along the line in a business or company, generally, there's somebody that you have to direct or say, "I need this." When you do that, you're kind of being a little bit of a manager or a leader.
"I need more buns for the hot dogs. I need more napkins. I need more parking space, I need more whatever." You're kind of directing something and in a little way, you're a manager. You may not realize that. What can we do to improve ourselves? Yeah. You know, how can we move forward? What would you suggest us to work on?
JEFF: Business is demanding. We know this. You know, business is demanding. And that never stops. We never rest. We never take breaks. You know, the balance sheet demands more, right? We know this. And so oftentimes we do find leaders that they're constantly taking withdrawals. "I need this, I need this, I need this. I need more, go faster. I need it quicker. I need it yesterday."
We know this is the case in a successful business environment. We know this—what we call these are withdrawals. We're withdrawing from people. "I need, I need—can you stay late? Can you get up earlier?" These are withdrawals.
The key is if we know that a withdrawal moment is coming, we got to ask the question: What deposits have we made? What deposits have we made? So that when the moment comes that the withdrawal comes—because by the way, there's not a single leader listening to this show, and I'm putting myself in the camp. None of us are perfect. We're going to say the wrong thing. We're going to blow it. Things are going to happen.
And when that happens, are they looking at the action that the leader made, or are they looking at the heart of that leader? If they're looking at the heart of that leader, they can see past the flaws. It's not that that allows you to just be rebellious and a renegade and ruthless. But if you've made the right deposits, you earn the right to make the withdrawals.
And so the passive leaders are saying, "See, I told everybody, we gotta love people more." The aggressive leaders are saying, "That's not my thing." When people are out of line, I get a bigger stick and hit them.
No. Here's the key—when you make big deposits so that you can make big withdrawals, you never lose sight of accountability. People will attempt to take advantage of a leader that makes big deposits, right?
A handwritten letter, sends it to their house. These are deposits. These are recognition. Giving them this most valuable thing, spelled T-I-M-E. One-on-one development coaching sessions. I mean, this guy Sean that I told you about, this is a guy, my sales manager. When my mom died, this guy spent hours in the car with me, helping me role play, helping me do interest-creating statements.
He drove me to Joseph A. Bank once and told me how to dress like a professional. I spent about an hour in the men's bathroom so this guy could show me how to tie a Windsor knot. These aren't things that I grew up learning. He told me what a collar stay was. I'm talking about a guy that went above and beyond to help me win.
So when the critical moment came and the grave dirt is still fresh on my mom's grave and I'm literally having a mental breakdown, this guy could pull me into his office and have a tough conversation and say, "It's time to snap out of it, Jeff. You're built for more." Why? Because of all of those things that happened, holding me accountable at the same time.
And really, if I were to boil it down to four things, Tony, it would be these four things. You got to have clear expectations. You got to have strong relationships. You got to be giving consistent feedback. Not good, not bad. You've got to be giving information. And number four, you have to have consistent accountability.
Where we go wrong is we're heavy on one and not heavy on the other. We're heavy on this one, we're not heavy here. We have to be very consistent leaders. And when we can do this, we create healthy cultures. And most importantly, we help people reach their potential. Not only is that good for business, but for a guy like me that grew up in poverty, it's life-changing.




OUTRO
TONY: Those are some great points. I want to thank you so much, and I really have great respect for that sales manager who invested a lot of time and energy to show you how to do things right and proper. And when the time comes that he had to be tough or firm, let's use that word. It's a good word we're using today. Firm. You accepted it because, you know, he was real. He was genuine. He wasn't trying to be mean or a bully. He wasn't—you know, "I don't like you. So I'm going to tell you whatever," you know.
Because he had the pattern that he invested in you. And so you accepted that because firm feedback with good intentions is probably what we need to put in the show—with the good intentions, we can accept that and understand it because we know the quality, the character, the value of the person who's given us this information.
JEFF: So good. Tony, can you imagine your life right now if those four leaders that we talked about earlier never came into your life, who you would be today? Every leader listening has the opportunity to be somebody's Mount Rushmore and be life-changing. And so we know it's possible because we've experienced this from other leaders. And every leader listening has the opportunity to make that happen.
And I can tell you, feedback is the eighth wonder of the world. No question about it.
TONY: I love it, I love it. I hope we get more feedback on all this. Once again, this is Jeff Hancher and we spoke about how leaders can tell the truth, how they should, why they should tell the truth. Should they tell the truth without—how to do it, without breaking trust? And why firm feedback is the key to building stronger teams, stronger companies, stronger—whatever—stronger family. Firm feedback is so important.
Jeff, I just want to thank you so much. It was very good advice. It actually penetrated in my skull a little bit. I'm going to really go back through this again because you've got some great points, some good aha moments. Some of "Oh, I hadn't never looked at it that way" sort of point. So these are very good. I just want to say I really appreciated that and I appreciate you.
JEFF: Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity. And thank you to the listener for bringing us on your leadership journey.
TONY: All right. Thank you sir. Wonderful. Wonderful, wonderful.
Well, there you go, guys. Wow, I like that. It really got into my head. It really got me thinking about different things. But before I go further into that, if you like this, share this with your friends, tell them about Jeff Hancher. Tell them about firm feedback. Tell them about some of his stories, maybe some of my stories. Doesn't matter—some of any of the stories. Because this is all designed to help you, your associates, your company, your business do better.
And guys, wherever you're getting this, please follow the show. It helps to bring more amazing guests to you. It's free. It doesn't cost anything. You know, by sending some people this way, more people can get good information from great quality guests who've lived such a good life.
I mean, for Jeff as an example, what he's done in the corporate world and to then come out and spend his time to give this to us. This is a gem, so I hope you all appreciate it as much as I do.
All right, enough said. Let's use this and let's help you move on your journey to success. Thanks. Remember, just take action. Success awaits those who persevere and remain steadfast despite the odds. Sow good seeds, do good deeds. And I'll see you on the next episode.