Business Owners Radio · Craig Moen & Shye Gilad | Business Owners | Entrepreneurship | Small Business

CULTURE | How to be the boss your people deserve. w/Barbara Mitchell & Cornelia Gamlem

·34 min·5 clips

Craig Moen and Shai Gilad open Business Owners Radio by introducing Barbara Mitchell and Cornelia Gamlin, authors of The Decisive Manager. Barbara explains that the book grew out of their earlier Q&A-style title, The Manager’s Answer Book, and keeps that practical format. As Cornelia joins the conversation, the hosts shift to what managers are dealing with now and why leadership may need to change. The starting point is straightforward: what worked before may not work with the employee population leaders have today. That matters because many managers have to question assumptions they have carried for years. The guests make the case for a more collaborative style of leadership and describe collaboration as something that starts with listening. They tie that approach to retention, since finding and replacing good people is difficult. Trust is another major theme. A manager builds it by asking instead of just issuing directives, especially when employees are able to use their own judgment. The guests suggest that people often do better work when they are brought into the process, because that creates ownership instead of simple compliance. Technology comes up as part of the same challenge. If people are not in the same place, managers still need effective ways to work together, and the guests treat that as a practical issue. They also push back on the phrase “we’ve always done it this way.” In their view, that mindset gets in the way of better execution before a new approach is even tried. The conversation stays grounded in what owners and managers can actually change in day-to-day leadership. It keeps circling back to small, usable shifts in tone, process, and flexibility. The result is a discussion of how morale and performance rise and fall together, and how leaders can guide people with more trust and less reflexive control.

As heard by us

A grounded conversation about trust, collaborative management, and how to keep good people engaged.

Barbara Mitchell and Cornelia Gamlin make a straightforward case for management that listens before it decides. They come back to trust, the need to retire old routines, and the simple fact that good people usually need more than a paycheck to stay engaged.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

You want a calmer way to lead without losing authority.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Business Owners Radio