047: Recognizing Red Flags: When to Have Bold Conversations with Your Boss
Release Date: 08/08/2024
110: Grateful Leadership
Leadership Sandbox: Strategies to Uplevel Workplace Communication, Team Collaboration, and Your Corporate Culture
In this quick Thanksgiving episode, Tammy J. Bond challenges the notion that gratitude is just a holiday tradition—it's a leadership strategy. She shares that leaders often get stuck in a "scarcity loop," focusing only on what is not working yet. This episode provides four quick points to help leaders shift their perspective from lack to presence, turning gratitude into a proactive force that expands positive outcomes and boosts team performance. Key Leadership Insights: The Scarcity Loop: Leaders commonly focus on the "yet's" (what they don't have yet, who's not performing yet), leading...
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109: How to Handle the Passive-Aggressive Co-Worker Without Losing Your Mind (or Your Cool)
Leadership Sandbox: Strategies to Uplevel Workplace Communication, Team Collaboration, and Your Corporate Culture
Passive aggression is the emotional sabotage dressed as politeness that is silently draining your team's energy and trust. Tammy J. Bond pulls back the curtain on this pervasive workplace toxicity, revealing that leaders who ignore it aren't keeping the peace—they're preserving the problem. With over 50% of employees reporting being targeted by passive aggression, this episode provides direct, no-fluff strategies for leaders and middle managers to confront this "camouflaged conflict" and restore health to their teams. Key Leadership Insights: The High Cost of Avoidance: Passive aggression...
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108: Hey Ladies! Stop Apologizing. Seriously.
Leadership Sandbox: Strategies to Uplevel Workplace Communication, Team Collaboration, and Your Corporate Culture
Tammy J. Bond fires up the microphone for women leaders, challenging the pervasive habit of over-apologizing in professional settings. She argues that frequently defaulting to phrases like "I'm sorry, but..." or "This might not be the right time, but..." causes your apologies to show up louder than your actual leadership, draining your credibility and inviting doubt. This episode confronts the conditioning that leads women to wait to be invited instead of owning the room and provides a power move to replace apologies with confident, conscious confrontation. Key Leadership Insights: The...
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107: Are You in the Right Seat?
Leadership Sandbox: Strategies to Uplevel Workplace Communication, Team Collaboration, and Your Corporate Culture
In this quick, yet critical episode, Tammy J. Bond tackles a fundamental leadership challenge: ensuring you have the right people in the right seats on your organizational "bus”. Prompted by a leader struggling with under-delivery (not under-performance), Tammy challenges the common impulse to start with people. Instead, she provides a strategic framework to audit your organization, starting with the needs of the business before assessing the talent you have. This episode is imperative for leaders planning their success for the upcoming year and looking to replace disfunction with...
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106: The Hybrid Trap: Why Your "Flexibility" May Be Working Against You
Leadership Sandbox: Strategies to Uplevel Workplace Communication, Team Collaboration, and Your Corporate Culture
Leaders, you might call it flexibility, but your team calls it chaos. Tammy J. Bond cuts through the "hybrid fantasy" that believes simple Slack chats can replace connection, clarity, and collaboration. She exposes the silent culture split created by hybrid models, arguing that failure is rooted not in location, but in disconnection and unstable leadership. This episode provides the strategic framework for leaders to start intentionally engineering trust to make hybrid work successful. Key Leadership Insights & Hard Truths: The Hybrid Fantasy: The belief that a few Zoom calls and Slack...
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105: Middle Manager Meltdown - Caused by Leadership
Leadership Sandbox: Strategies to Uplevel Workplace Communication, Team Collaboration, and Your Corporate Culture
Tammy J. Bond shares her frustration after hearing a story from a middle manager dealing with a chaotic environment. The core issue: senior leaders are prioritizing being liked and showing misplaced "compassion" over actual leadership, accountability, and clear expectations. This episode is a fierce examination of how this dynamic demoralizes middle managers, promotes a culture of mediocrity, and actively destroys team trust and performance. Tammy challenges both senior leaders to put on the "boss hat" and middle managers to lead down and courageously speak up. Key Takeaways for Leaders (At...
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104: Regulate Before You Communicate
Leadership Sandbox: Strategies to Uplevel Workplace Communication, Team Collaboration, and Your Corporate Culture
Celebrating two years and 104 episodes, Tammy J. Bond drops a truth bomb: If your communication sounds like chaos, it's because your nervous system is leading the meeting, not your core leadership. This episode breaks down the concept of the "Calm Cascade"—how your internal regulation sets the emotional thermostat for the entire team. Tammy argues that emotional regulation is not a soft skill, but a crucial leadership strategy. When you walk in "hot," your team burns out and tunes out; the best communicators are always the calmest in the room. Key Takeaways for Leaders: Regulation is...
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103: The Cost of Chaos - Stop Calling Chaos a Strategy
Leadership Sandbox: Strategies to Uplevel Workplace Communication, Team Collaboration, and Your Corporate Culture
Tammy brings the hard hitting truth: Chaos might feel like momentum, but it's really just motion without meaning. In this fast-paced episode, she dives into the high cost of allowing stress, drama, and avoidant behaviors to run your workplace. Through personal anecdotes (like the story of "Frank"), Tammy explains why unsustainability is the ultimate price of chaos—affecting everything from turnover rates and sick leave to team productivity. This is a crucial lesson on self-regulation, clarity, and building a workplace where order restores energy and trust. 4 Costs of Chaos Chaos is...
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102: Emotions and the Workplace - (Chapter 4)
Leadership Sandbox: Strategies to Uplevel Workplace Communication, Team Collaboration, and Your Corporate Culture
Tammy drops a truth bomb right from the start: Our emotions, not our thoughts, motivate us. This episode is a quick, hard-hitting guide on how your emotions can either drive you forward or keep you and your team stuck in a pattern of limiting beliefs. Tammy provides a four-point framework to help you master self-awareness, manage your emotional triggers, and turn your emotional intelligence into the "entry ticket" for every successful conversation. Key Takeaways for Leaders Emotions Win: We move in the direction of the dominant emotion. If you don't own your emotions, they own you and...
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101: It’s Not Support If It Enables (6 of 6 Part Series)
Leadership Sandbox: Strategies to Uplevel Workplace Communication, Team Collaboration, and Your Corporate Culture
In the final episode of our 6 Part Series, "Communication Lies Leaders Believe", Tammy delivers a hard truth: some of the support you're giving your team isn't helping—it's enabling. This episode busts the myth that constantly helping will lead to growth and exposes the codependent patterns that can quietly destroy a team's culture. Tammy reveals how over-functioning for your people can lead to burnout among your top talent and a cycle of learned helplessness in your low performers. She provides a reset with 3 clear steps to stop rescuing and start truly empowering your team. Your job is to...
info_outlineWhat are the signs that you need to talk to your boss? In this episode of Playing In The Sandbox, I share five red flags that it’s time to have a bold conversation with the one you report to. Grab your pen and paper to learn these workplace strategies and boost your career development.
1. Recognizing the Need for Career Advancement
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Feeling stuck: This is a clear signal that it’s time to have an open conversation with your boss.
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Lack of career progression: The absence of opportunities to grow your skills can cause you to feel as though your hard work isn’t appreciated.
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Pay the wave: Speaking up about your concerns can lead to career advancement and uncover new possibilities for growth within the organization.
2. Addressing Overwork and Restoring Work-Life Balance
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Overwork causes stress: Working long hours without breaks, drowning in an endless sea of tasks, and struggling to find time for yourself and your loved ones will easily destroy your overall well-being.
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Make a difference: If you’re stressed, talk with your boss. Share specific examples of how overwork affects you with your boss to spark necessary changes, helping you rediscover balance and boost productivity within your work.
3. Reconnecting with the Company's Mission
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Goal disconnection: Feeling disconnected from your company’s goals can leave you feeling undervalued and unappreciated.
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Clear the air: Talking with your boss about how your role fits into the company’s mission can bring the clarity you need. This conversation can help you align your tasks and projects with the company’s vision, giving you a clearer sense of purpose.
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Why it helps: Understanding how you contribute to the company’s goals can lead to greater satisfaction and fulfillment in your work.
4. Bridging Team Disconnection Through Open Communication
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Team disconnection: Feeling left out from your co-workers can make you feel like you’re not a team member.
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Why it happens: These feelings might stem from unclear communication, changing responsibilities, or a lack of feedback, leading to anxiety and a fractured team spirit.
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Bring positive changes: Expressing these concerns to your boss can help create a more supportive and understanding environment.
5. Addressing Unresolved Workplace Conflicts
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Toxicity: Unresolved conflicts in the workplace are deep red flags that can seriously affect morale and productivity. These conflicts can fester and create a toxic environment.
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Solution: Bringing these concerns to your boss in a solution-focused conversation can help highlight the impact of these conflicts and outline steps for resolution.
Go to https://www.tammyjbond.com/podcast to change your mindset and behaviors so you can elevate your communication and leadership! We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes by tuning in on Apple Podcast, Amazon Podcast, or Spotify and subscribe to our YouTube channel. This podcast is produced by TSE Studios."