Work-for-Your-People Leadership
Learn each person's needs, remove friction, and help their strengths grow
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 97%
Work-for-Your-People Leadership reverses the usual service direction: the manager asks what they can do to make each employee's work easier and growth more likely. The leader studies the individual rather than applying one motivational formula to everyone. That includes noticing strengths, understanding what matters to the person, removing friction, and supplying opportunities or resources that fit. Corcoran explicitly rejects identical treatment and says she used a different formula for each employee. The mechanism is reciprocal but not transactional: as employees become stronger and rise, the organization and leader benefit from their increased capability. Individualization still sits inside fair standards. Different support can be appropriate; inconsistent expectations, protected misconduct, or arbitrary favoritism are not part of the method.
Origin
Extracted from The Diary of a CEO
Core principles
- 01The leader's role is to help employees become more effective
- 02Equal treatment is not identical treatment
- 03Individual motivation and confidence require individual understanding
- 04A stronger employee increases the capacity of the wider organization
How to run it
- 1
Study the individual
Observe the person's strengths, confidence, preferences, and recurring obstacles instead of assuming they match the rest of the team.
Pro tip Ask directly what work they would like to do more or less often.
Watch out Do not reduce a person to one personality label.
- 2
Define fair success
Keep the required outcome and behavioural standards clear before tailoring the route toward them.
Pro tip Explain that equitable support can differ while accountability remains consistent.
Watch out Individualization must not excuse harassment, discrimination, or persistent underperformance.
- 3
Find the growth lever
Identify the support, challenge, recognition, or opportunity most likely to increase this person's confidence and contribution.
Pro tip Tie the lever to a strength already visible in their work.
- 4
Remove leader-owned friction
Provide the resource, decision, introduction, or protection that only the manager can supply.
Pro tip Ask what obstacle is wasting their effort rather than immediately adding training.
- 5
Review the effect
Check whether the support improved capability, confidence, and results, then adjust the formula with the person.
Pro tip Judge the intervention by observed growth rather than managerial effort.
In the wild
Corcoran says she considered what would push each employee ahead, build confidence, and make them better. She describes this as using a different formula for every person rather than treating everyone identically.
→ Support was matched to individual needs while serving the firm's growth.
Common mistakes
Using one formula for everyone
Identical treatment can miss the different obstacles and motivations affecting each person's performance.
Confusing support with lowered standards
Tailored help changes the route to performance, not the legitimate outcome or conduct required.
Is it for you?
Best for
It is best for managers with enough direct contact to understand individual strengths, needs, and motivations.
Not ideal for
It is not ideal when tailored support becomes favoritism, lowers standards, or overrides consistent legal and ethical treatment.
From the transcript
“I work for you you don't work for me”
“I had a different formula for everyone”
From the episode
Barbara Corcoran: Turning $1,000 to $1 Billion!