Episode 154
Dear Younger Leaders: Be Curious, Not Clueless
If you’re leading a team right now and feeling like every decision could make or break the future—you’re not alone. We’ve been hearing from a lot of younger leaders who are staring down uncertainty and aren’t sure which move to make next. We’ve both been there, and in this conversation, we’re digging into how to handle the pressure without freezing or freaking out.
It’s easy to lead when everything’s steady. But what about when the world feels like it’s shifting under your feet? From tariffs and layoffs to supply chain chaos, younger leaders in today’s workforce—especially in the trades—are dealing with challenges that seasoned pros might not have tackled in recent years.
We talked about what to do when sales flatten out, customers start pulling back, and your team starts worrying about what’s coming next. Sitting back and making no decision usually does more harm than picking the wrong one. And cutting your way to “prosperity”? That almost never works out the way people hope.
We also dug into why younger leaders need to manage up, not just down. Bringing new ideas to the table, rallying your team around solutions, and having the guts to ask tough questions—that’s what separates real leadership from just surviving.
Most importantly, we’re getting honest about how vulnerability, curiosity, and clear communication aren’t just “nice to have” skills. They’re what will carry you—and your team—through the rough patches ahead.
Highlights
- Why no decision is usually worse than the wrong decision.
- The big mistake of trying to “cut your way to prosperity”.
- How to get your team involved in finding solutions.
- Tips for managing both up and down the leadership chain.
- Why being curious and asking questions builds real leadership strength.
- Why over-communicating matters more than ever during chaos.
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Transcript
Everyone welcome back to another fun filled exciting episode of the blue collar BS podcast. I am your cohost Brad, along with the one, the only Steven Doyle junior out of the great state of Michigan. So how are you Mr. Doyle?
Steve Doyle (:Steve. Steve. Steve.
Steve Doyle (:I am doing well, feeling a little froggy right now, but we're doing good. So how you doing?
Brad Herda (:All right, well, I'm doing fantastic when this show airs here in May. Hopefully, hopefully I will have landed a large musky by then opening weekend and doing some fishing and.
Steve Doyle (:oooo
Brad Herda (:Hopefully by then we got some nice fish pictures to deal with.
Steve Doyle (:Oh yeah, that would be nice. I should, you know, go fishing too. I haven't done that in a while.
Brad Herda (:Yeah. Get out in your kayak and canoe and go fishing.
Steve Doyle (:I can get out of my kayak or I can get out in my smoker craft and take a couple extra people out with me if I wanted to. I should do that.
Brad Herda (:You should do that. You take your clients out as a show of appreciation.
Steve Doyle (:I, you know, I should. A lot of things I should do. Yeah, I am doing things, Brad. See?
Brad Herda (:We should do. Hey, could you come up with a new habit to be present, Steve?
Brad Herda (:Go back to episode 152 and you'll know what we're talking about.
Steve Doyle (:Yes. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely bad.
Brad Herda (:All right, Mr. Doyle. So today's topic, here's what I've been dealing with in my world quite a bit. It's the younger leaders dealing with uncertain times. Right. We have all this tariff activity. We have all this noise. We have all these things that many millennial leaders, younger millennial leaders in particular,
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Okay.
Brad Herda (:and even younger Gen Z leaders have never had to go through and understand how to deal with uncertainty and noise and hey, everything in my phone is all negative. Our sales are flat. But that could be a growth compared to industry. They don't know that right, because we're only our own little bubble, but we have no idea what that comparison looks like.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Mmm.
Steve Doyle (:Yep.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Right?
Steve Doyle (:Right?
Brad Herda (:So seeing a lot of how do you, I guess the question here is, what are some techniques or ideas to help younger leaders get through uncertainty to lead effectively and not get caught in the land of no decision? Right? Because no decision is still a decision.
Steve Doyle (:Mmm.
Steve Doyle (:you mean the astro.
It is.
Brad Herda (:Right, and in many cases, the lack of activity, the lack of a decision is is a greater negative impact than making the wrong decision, right? There's plenty of studies out there, plenty of things that can identify that not doing the status quo when their opportunity exists is usually the wrong thing to do versus making a bad decision.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm. Yeah, so.
Steve Doyle (:You mean freaking out running around with your hair on fire telling you the chicken little syndrome that the sky is falling the sky is falling and you just need to you know play the ostrich and just shove your head into the ground and just hope it all goes away. I mean that that's a great tactic if you
Brad Herda (:That's one way to analogize it.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah, it's a great tactic if you want to make sure that you know Nothing happens. I mean great. I mean something does happen Just everyone else around you is going what the hell are you doing? Why aren't you doing something? about this Right there there for me this gets down to the there are things we can control things we can't
The things we can't control, why are we thinking about them? Why are we worrying about them? We can't control them. We have to move on. Focus on what we can't control.
Brad Herda (:Yeah, but that's what my phone tells me. My phone tells me that Armageddon's coming and I gotta worry about, you know, I gotta worry about what I'm gonna do with the 16 guys on the shop floor that may not have worked three months from now.
Steve Doyle (:Okay, what's in your control with that? What can you control within your work environment? What can you control right now?
Armageddon's coming, who cares? It's coming. Sure, okay, it's coming. What can you control?
Brad Herda (:That could be good.
Brad Herda (:Well, do I lay the guys off now? Do I let them know what's going on? Do I communicate that this could happen? What do I do?
Steve Doyle (:Why are gonna communicate to them that Armageddon's coming? They're gonna look to you to go, okay, what are we gonna do? Some people are just gonna say, peace out, I'm out.
Some will, but others are gonna wanna know from you, okay, well, what's the game plan? How do we keep quote unquote Armageddon from happening to this company?
Right.
Brad Herda (:Well, that's all. Yes. And this is where it gets to be even more frustrating from my viewpoint is too often it's the try to cut your way to prosperity. And instead of trying to go out and sell your way out of a situation or find efficiency out of it or find better ways to manage that, I am not a fan of cut your way to prosperity because that just hurts you in the long run.
Steve Doyle (:Correct.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Correct. So this is where I actually would call everybody together while quote unquote, if Armageddon is truly gonna happen.
bring the team together to mindstorm what are things that we can do. And I put on the table, we are not putting on the table cutting things. We are not putting on the table cutting the workforce. But what are things that we can do? So get the collective team to...
Bring ideas to the table because when we have the collective team bringing things to the table, we now have better and stronger buy in. From from an overall action plan perspective. So when you do lay down the gauntlet of we are going in this path, everybody has an understanding there is a level of buy in with that path.
Brad Herda (:don't disagree with you from that statement, but if the leader is that I think that is the that would be the leaders above, right? The the owner, the owner is the C-suite executives along the way to set that direction for those younger, younger mid-tier to to follow directions, so to speak. Which is absolutely 100 % agree with, but from a day to day perspective.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Correct.
Steve Doyle (:Yep.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:what are some of the things that you would suggest that those younger leaders deal with when, hey, know, just heard this, you know, company XYZ, our largest customer just laid off 1,500 people. Great, you have no control over that. But the...
Steve Doyle (:Mmm.
Steve Doyle (:Okay.
Brad Herda (:Right, I might have shop floor workers that are going to work slower, knowing that they're not going to get that the work behind isn't coming in behind it. Right. So that theory of. We only work as fast as much as much work as we have versus hitting delivery dates, those shop floor leaders or program managers or those folks that might be of younger age may not have had to deal with any of this yet.
Steve Doyle (:Mmm.
Brad Herda (:So now we're playing a cat and mouse game with a workforce that they've dealt with it before and it's no big deal. But now we've got other expectations going on with some of those younger leaders that are stuck in the middle.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Yep, and I would throw a caution to that because there are things that you can do to fill that pipeline if you're willing to do the activity and it's a longer game. If people around you are pulling back, stuff still needs to get done. And if you're willing to fall victim to what everyone else is doing,
you're going to get the same result as what they're doing. You're going to cut versus look for those opportunities. Hey, we see that they're scaling back. That means that there's opportunity for us to scale up and take over what these people aren't doing. Or I can call that customer and say, hey, we're here to help and support you in any way. How can we help support you through this? Are there more things that you are looking to offload?
to support that pipeline. So it's having those conversations, but it's also having the conversations with the workforce to reassure them that, yes, these are the actions that we are taking to help ensure the longevity of the workplace here so that we don't have a slowdown. And we're open to suggestions and ideas like, hey, this is where you're bringing forward those opportunities for people to raise up the concerns.
because if you're not addressing their unspoken thoughts of what's going on, that's where rumors start. That's where dissatisfaction falls into play. People are starting to tell themselves the stories that aren't true because they haven't heard a word from you about it.
Brad Herda (:Correct. This would be the time to over communicate. Right. And to live up to whatever actions you promise you need to deliver on. Right. So if your leadership team above you isn't going to do it. If you're going to ask for permission to do something that is different than what maybe upper level management might want you to do. You can't promise those below or around you that this is what I'm going to do.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm. Absolutely.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Yep.
Steve Doyle (:Right.
Brad Herda (:And then say, well, I was told I couldn't. You can't go down that path. Because then you'll start losing credibility and then you're just going to be looked at as potentially all you're just the rah rah hype man or hype lady that is just telling us things just to tell us things and how can we ever trust you again? Right? Because this is this this point in time with all this chaos and all the things that are happening and everybody's perceived or perception. Individual employees perceptions are their own realities, whether.
Steve Doyle (:Yep. Right.
Steve Doyle (:Right.
Brad Herda (:They like it or whether you believe it or not. If your employees are feeling unrest, your team's feeling unrest. There's unrest. Whether the ownership or leadership team feels it or not, it doesn't matter. And you need to address that as a leader. So as a younger leader. Right, being willing to have those conversations upstream.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm. Right. Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:and being able to say, my team is feeling this way about X, Y, and Z. What's the action plan, sir or ma'am?
Steve Doyle (:Right.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:And then communicating that back down to your team is vitally important. You having the kahunas to go up to ask the questions to satisfy your own curiosity and to provide and communicate that downward and those uncomfortable conversations of what's happening are vitally important, not only to your own career path and learning, but also to your organization.
Steve Doyle (:Yep.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm. Yes. 100 % agree.
Brad Herda (:Right. And if you're stuck in the middle, you need to be able to manage up as well as manage down and most younger individual younger leaders forget about managing up the chain as well as managing down the chain.
Steve Doyle (:That's a great point. on that and while we're still on the on the topic of uncertain times, what are some suggestions that you have for leaders that need to manage up the chain during uncertain times?
Brad Herda (:Again, over communicate what's happening. Right, if there is a and you can't sugarcoat it and you got to be honest with everybody. I mean, sometimes there's products that just have run their course. Right, you might be making. Shoelace and wrappers, right, and you might be doing them very right. We do them by hand and we custom make them and wrap every shoelace so it's perfect and high end and premium. But yet.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:machine that's kicking out thousands of them per minute versus you making three an hour
Brad Herda (:some of that stuff just has to go by the wayside over the course of time. And those are always difficult decisions because great people are typically impacted. So when those things come up, you got to be prepared to be okay. Well, how do I re re leverage those resources because those resources have value still. George has been doing that knows so much about certain things that how do I leverage his skills somewhere else in the organization?
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:Can I leverage it on the sales side because he's got the passion and desire for what's happening. Can I leverage it on the design side and leverage it on the operation that where can we do that? And I was blessed to get through 15 of 16 riffs, so to speak, or opportunities. And they are, they are difficult. They're not fun. It is stressful as hell. It is, it is.
Steve Doyle (:You
Steve Doyle (:Yep.
Steve Doyle (:Yes. No.
Brad Herda (:Everybody's on pins and needles, but when you do the right things for the benefit of the organization, even though the right things are sometimes complicated and difficult, the right thing is still the right thing. And if you're not willing to have a conversation about that and direct and say, how do we leverage those resources differently to, Hey, we got this over here. We've been playing with that. We've never really given it resources, but George over here could cool. Maybe he's not a technology guy and he's not going to use GPT to figure anything out or leverage AI to
to move it along faster, but the guy's got a ton of knowledge. So how do I pair them up with somebody to make that, to make that better? that as a, this is where I think organizations can be successful because I believe the younger workforce is far more solution oriented and creative in providing solutions. Cause they're not stuck. Maybe they've only been there three years or four years, possibly. They don't have.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Yes.
Brad Herda (:20 years of bad habits as we've discussed in the past. They don't have 20 years of bias. They got some of the bias and they got some of the culture, but they've got ideas to potentially move this out of chaos or try something different. And if you're not willing to throw those cards on the table with a plan, then you are the problem, not the solution.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Mmm.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah, I like going down this problem path. You are the problem.
Steve Doyle (:Only because a lot of, I will say in my experience...
You are the problem is a brought on because the leadership, the senior leadership team haven't spent the time to educate and nurture somebody through uncertain times because typically those leaders that are more experienced this season, they've been through the uncertain times and they just assume everyone else has.
Brad Herda (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:I was blessed to be able to sit in the room of our purchasing, I'll call him our VP of purchasing supply chain director, whatever it was at the time as we were coming in 2000, 2001, 2002, we probably had, we had millions and millions of dollars of debt with no revenue coming in. We would literally get accounting notification. Hey guys, you have a hundred thousand dollars to pay suppliers this week.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Okay.
Brad Herda (:Who are you going to go pay? So we would sit in that room, the director and VP and the buyers, we'd sit in that room and look at the aging reports and look at what's what, look at the sales orders, look and find out who do we have to give conversations to, who do we have to pay, who's gonna put us on credit hold, who's gonna put us on cash only, what's gonna happen, what's coming down the pipeline.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah.
Yep.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm. Right.
Brad Herda (:So that way we can keep the business, keep the supply of material running through. You want to talk about uncertainty as somebody who's only been, that was two years into the years into the job at that time. And I'm in that room to be able to have part of those conversations. I know for certain that is when I built up my own personal, my personal power within those conversations because of asking certain questions the way I asked them or coming through or saying, Hey,
Steve Doyle (:Okay.
Brad Herda (:What about this? Because there were other, many of our buyers were potentially, I want to take care of my suppliers, so I'm just going to give them all the money. Well, hold on. That doesn't serve the company. That serves you, but that doesn't serve the greater good of the organization.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Right. Absolutely. So for those younger leaders, Brad,
In the uncertain times, what are tips or suggestions you have for them to help build that personal power?
Brad Herda (:Be curious. Ask questions.
Steve Doyle (:What do mean? By asking questions.
Brad Herda (:Ask questions of those around you, right? Ask the folks on the floor, hey, when this happened, do your heat. Learn history. History repeats itself over and over and over again. And whether it's recession, whether it's war, whether it's inflation, whether it's deflation, whether it's taxation, terror, it happens over and over again. Right.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm. Completely. It does.
Steve Doyle (:Okay.
Steve Doyle (:It's all happened before.
Brad Herda (:How did they get through it? What happened last time? Ask people that have been there for a while. What happened in 1983 when this happened? Or in 79 during the oil embargo? Or what happened at the Persian Gulf when that happened? When everybody's in panic mode? Or what happened in 2001 after 9?
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:Go get context. Go figure it out, because you're not going to get it from here. You're not going to get your company's culture from your phone. You're not going to get the answers from your phone in this way. You're going to have to go talk to someone.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:You're gonna have to go talk to Burt, who's been here for 90 years, and can tell you about everything, but he's over there sitting in the corner reading the paper and not sweating it.
Brad Herda (:You know, make time to go talk to if to talk to the finance folks if you have access to them. Hey guys, what's how did this happen last time with production orders and billing and different things? Go ask questions. Be curious to to what seek to understand. Not to undermine.
Steve Doyle (:you
Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Hmm that's a good point right there. That's kind of almost the mic drop right there Seek to understand not to undermine. I like that
Brad Herda (:I'm a survive.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah, yeah, I just, boom! Boom! I'm like, wow, I think that's a mic drop moment right there. Don't have those too often on this show.
Brad Herda (:Well, it is us.
Steve Doyle (:So, no, I, it's been a good conversation. Something to, something to continue to think about of how did we as leaders help nurture those that haven't been through this before.
So think about that if you're a leader, what are ways that you need to show up for your younger leaders?
help guide them through that uncertainty.
Brad Herda (:cry and and share and ask for input and support and be vulnerable to them right if you're scared let them know you're of what's going on boomer and Gen X that's not their normal that's not the normal mo right we gotta be strong we gotta be through we gotta get through this we got a lead from a stance of authority and everything's gonna be okay even though you're shitting bricks that vulnerability right now
Steve Doyle (:huh. huh.
Steve Doyle (:Right. Yep.
Steve Doyle (:Guess what? They are too.
Brad Herda (:You can't necessarily right? He got to play that a little by ear, right? Knowing how what the magnitude might be. You know, I don't necessarily want my leader going into. Sit and go, I'm scared, I'm scared, I'm scared if they're the owner of the organization. I don't want to show fear completely, but if I'm the owner of the organization, I gotta be concerned. I have to address those concerns, show the empathy that I understand and and.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Brad Herda (:be vulnerable enough to say, hmm, okay, this is similar to 08 or 2012, but not quite the same feeling. So I'm not sure how this is all going to play out. But here's the plan moving forward.
Steve Doyle (:Correct.
Steve Doyle (:Absolutely.
Brad Herda (:You know, here's what happened. Right. COVID. Nobody could plan for COVID. was all that uncertainty and those younger leaders. That's what they have in their reference library. Their reference library is the world shut down.
Steve Doyle (:Mm-hmm.
Steve Doyle (:Yeah, everything stopped and we got to go to the park and work remotely and you know, we were subsidized. So that's what's going to happen this time.
Brad Herda (:Yeah, not so much.
Steve Doyle (:up.
Not at all.
Brad Herda (:So yes, you got to share that information and go forward. So Mr. Doyle, thank you so much. Welcome back from your holiday weekend here this week of May 30th. enjoy what's left of the holiday weekend. And we will talk to you soon,
Steve Doyle (:Yeah, thank you, Brad.
Steve Doyle (:Mmm.
Steve Doyle (:All right, sounds great. You too. Bye.
Brad Herda (:All right, thanks. Bye.
