A high-performing remote team starts with organic core values, intentional hiring for accountability, and incentive structures tied directly to individual results. Justin Benson, founder of Bara Agency, shares how his team runs on values like ‘leave people better than you found them’ and ‘do what you say you’re going to do,’ plus quarterly in-person retreats that rebuild relationship currency. This episode is essential for any owner building or scaling a distributed team.
This episode is part of the Team Culture, Dynamics & Tough Personalities series. Browse all episodes →
Mic drop moments
“…the thing about recognition and the thing about praise and appreciation is it only lands for people if it’s in the language that they receive it in.”
“If someone’s love language or appreciation language is thank yous and yours is like money, gifts, things like that, they actually may not realize they even were recognized or appreciate the recognition.”
“…when you find someone just kind of like, I’m doing the job fine, but you actually clicked it into like, they’re doing the work that they love and they were designed for, the productivity is exponential.”
“…we cannot have a high performer that feels they can do no wrong.”
“If you are letting behaviors slip or letting things go because you don’t want to have the conversation. No, no, no, no, no good because everybody has things they need to develop.”
Episode highlights
The real problem: performing fine, but the vibe is off
You see their name on the calendar and your stomach drops a little. They are not low performers. Nothing is technically wrong. But something about the dynamic makes leading them harder than it needs to be. Lia names three archetypes she sees most often with small teams, and the goal is the same for all three: stop dreading the interaction and start having a strategy.
Praise-Seeking Polly: when recognition never lands
Polly wants a high five after every meeting, brings up the raise before the project is even finished, and makes you feel like no matter what you do, it is never enough. The instinct is to avoid her one-on-ones entirely. But Lia reframes it: Polly is usually asking because she does not know where she stands, not because she is greedy.
The deeper issue is a mismatch in appreciation language. If you give a monetary bonus but Polly’s appreciation language is a genuine verbal thank you, she may not even register the recognition. Lia uses this as the core reason she runs feedback and recognition workshops with teams. Without a shared language, you will both feel like you are doing everything right and getting nowhere.
The fix for the promotion-every-Monday situation is mapping out a clear career path with concrete milestones. When Polly knows exactly what the next level looks like and how far away it is, you stop having the same conversation on repeat.
Mindy the Mope: fine at the job, zero enthusiasm
Mindy delivers. She is not a problem on paper. But every project lands with a flat “yeah, it was good” and you spend the whole meeting trying to inject energy into a conversation that feels like pulling teeth.
Lia is direct: some of that is just personality, and you do not have to entertain it. But Mindy is often a signal worth reading. A persistent lack of energy is frequently a mismatch between someone’s strengths and the work they are actually doing. When you find the right fit and align someone to the work they were built for, the productivity jump is exponential, especially if they were doing fine at something they did not love. Lia points to the strengths-alignment exercise in The New Manager Playbook as a practical starting point.
Defensive Dan: the high achiever who bristles at feedback
Dan does solid work, possibly great work, but the moment you bring up anything to improve, it is finger-pointing, blame, and “that was not my fault.” The real danger here is not Dan’s defensiveness. It is that you start letting things slide because you do not want to deal with the reaction.
Lia is clear: if you are skipping feedback conversations because you are dreading the blowback, that is a leadership problem that compounds fast. Everyone has things to develop.
The approach she recommends is anchoring every feedback conversation in shared expectations rather than personal critique. “Here is the goal we both agreed on. Here is what got in the way.” When defensiveness still shows up, get curious instead of backing down. Ask what they are sensing or feeling. A lot of the time, defensiveness is a person feeling misunderstood or undervalued. You might find a little Praise-Seeking Polly underneath.
If every single conversation becomes a wall, that can become a culture fit issue. But you cannot let a high performer operate as though they can do no wrong.
The move that works for all three
For each archetype, the throughline is the same: get curious about what is underneath the behavior, anchor your conversations in clear expectations, and build a shared language with your team around feedback and recognition. When you find that alignment, Lia says, open the floodgates.
Related episodes in this cluster
- Ep 218: How to get out of the friend zone with your team members. Being friendly with your team is great until it erodes accountability and makes hard conversations feel impossible. Lia walks through a three-step reset: name your leadership style out loud, set real boundaries, and commit to having the hard conversations consistently. This episode is especially useful for small-team owners and founders who hired people they already knew personally.
- Ep 144: How to motivate and align your team when everyone feels like they are sprinting a marathon. Motivating a team under tight deadlines comes down to shared context, early visibility, and a culture where people feel seen beyond their project output. Alison Curtis and Janessa Mason, leaders at creative agency Skona, share how they align client services and creative teams through transparent communication, collaborative timeline-setting, and deliberate relationship-building at every level. This episode is especially useful for founders, agency leaders, and anyone managing across departments that can feel like they have competing agendas.
- Ep 141: How to manage former friends without making things weird. Managing former peers and friends is genuinely hard, and pretending nothing has changed is the fastest way to make it harder. Lia walks through three moves: name the relationship shift out loud, co-create norms for feedback and hard conversations, and own your authority instead of downplaying it. This episode is especially useful for new managers who got promoted from within their own team.
- Ep 118: How to build a high-performing remote team with real accountability and culture. A high-performing remote team starts with organic core values, intentional hiring for accountability, and incentive structures tied directly to individual results. Justin Benson, founder of Bara Agency, shares how his team runs on values like ‘leave people better than you found them’ and ‘do what you say you’re going to do,’ plus quarterly in-person retreats that rebuild relationship currency. This episode is essential for any owner building or scaling a distributed team.
Want to go deeper?
The Unstoppable Team. How to build a team that runs without you in the room.
Full transcript (click to expand)
Thing about recognition and the thing about praise and appreciation is it only lands for people if it’s in the language that they receive it in. It’s literally like love languages. If someone’s love language or appreciation language is thank yous and yours is like money, gifts, things like that, they actually may not realize they even were recognized or appreciate the recognition. Welcome to Leading Small Teams, a Real Talk podcast tackling the ins and outs of leading teams in the modern workplace.
I’m Leah Garvin, your host, with a decade of experience driving team operations in companies like Google, Apple, and Microsoft, bringing you insider strategies to make you a more confident and effective leader. From delegating to feedback to avoiding micromanaging and more, this podcast gives you the tools to empower your team, scale yourself as a leader, and grow your business. Whether you are managing a team of one or 100, everyone is welcome to hang out with Leading Small Teams.
You know those employees that just when you see their email come through, you’re like, or they walk through the door and you realize, yeah, today’s going to be harder than it needs to be. You just kind of feel it. The vibe is off. They kind of, you know, it’s going to be something new, and you just kind of dread dealing with it. Well, we’ve all been there. We’ve all had these, and I want to talk about three archetypes or kinds of people that we can, you know, have on our teams.
Some of these characteristics and maybe why they’re triggering us as leaders so we feel like more equipped to deal with it. Because there’s not, they’re not going to always love every single one of our team members, and if they’re actually adding value and doing their job well, then it’s, there’s no performance issues. So we want to be able to kind of deal with it and not like want to dread coming to work. So let’s talk about it.
Once we get on the table, you’ll see we’ve all been there. We’ve all had the same folks, and there’s definitely ways we can deal with it. So our first archetype is praise-seeking Polly. Praise-seeking Polly always wants to know they did a good job. They, when they have, get out of the meeting, they want a high five. When it’s the end of a long week, they want to say like, great job, everyone. When, obviously, when a big milestone happens, they, they want something there.
They definitely want to get paid more often. Praise-seeking Polly is the person that every time you have a one-on-one, you know, they’re going to ask about the raise, the promotion, you know, they’re going to say, Hey, um, you know, just landed that great project. I wanted to kind of talk about, and you start dreading having meetings with praise-seeking Polly because there’s going to be one more thing they’re asking you for. And you’re thinking like, can we just let it sit for a minute?
The project launched five minutes ago. Like we’re already talking about our raise. Praise-seeking Polly might even want money before the, the project starts. Praise-seeking Polly might say, Hey, we’re about to go on this really busy season, or I’m going to take on this really hard project. Like I feel like I should be compensated more to actually take that on. And you’re thinking what? That’s not how money works. You don’t get money in advance. This isn’t a check cashing company.
This is a place of business. Okay. So praise-seeking Polly. Now, why does this irk us? Well, a lot of reasons. I think for me, the praise-seeking piece, now I’m a, I’m definitely a praise seeker in some ways myself, certainly was in the corporate world. And I think what, what bugs me though, about as the employer side is the person that needs it constantly. Like you just, it’s not ever good enough when you give something nice or say, thank you, or take the team out to dinner or you do something like, it feels like we’re always going to be having to do more.
They need that constant validation. And as a leader, that makes you feel like, gosh, like I’m always being watched. If I’ve hit this, you know, magical moment where you feel satisfied with the praise, right? I think for us, it can feel this level of like, like when is it just like, like, just chill or it’s, it’s enough. Now, when praise-seeking Polly becomes the person that’s always asking for the promotion and the bonus, you literally do want to avoid talking to them because it’s like, why are we, why are we doing this again?
I’ve already spelled it out or like, just like, just chill, just wait. So it can put you feeling a lot of pressure and feeling on edge in that sense. Now, again, I mentioned, you know, I, I feel like I was on the other side of this at certain times in my corporate career. And when I was wanting someone to say good job or wanting to know when that next, you know, raise promotion was, it was really about feeling like I didn’t know where I stood or I didn’t know if I was doing a good job or I wanted to make sure like, hey, are we, where are we calibrated with this manager?
So I think, you know, having a little bit of empathy for that, I think we can say, okay, well, this person, they want some clarity, but I am responding because I’m feeling like there’s a mismatch here. Now, the thing about recognition and the thing about praise and appreciation is it only lands for people if it’s in the language that they receive it in. It’s, it’s literally like love languages. If someone’s love language or appreciation language is, is thank yous and yours is like money, gifts, things like that.
And you give another, you give a monetary bonus, but you don’t give this big thank you moment. They actually may not realize they even were recognized or appreciate the recognition because there was a disconnect there. And this can be one of the most frustrating things as a leader is like, you are giving what you see as praise and recognition all the time. And the person’s like, no, it just like, I feel unappreciated. And you’re like, literally what the heck?
I can’t do anything more for you. So when we’re running into this praise seeking situation, it’s really important to reevaluate, hey, am I understanding actually the way in which I, this person feels recognized? And that’s why a lot of the work I do is I do workshops with teams on talking about our feedback styles, the way that we want, we want recognition, feedback, constructive feedback, so that we actually have a shared language here. And without that, that’s the kind of thing that will happen is you’ll see praise seeking Polly and be like, no.
And they’re seeing you and they’re like, nothing’s ever good enough. And you literally can’t meet in the middle. That is critical work to do. And having those conversations where you can say, oh, here’s where we have the disconnect, that is vital. And that’s why literally feedback is one of the things I talk about most because recognition is a piece of that. And teams really need to have that shared language. If you’re anything like me, you’ve had those nights where you wake up at three in the morning, wondering, gosh, are people working on the right things?
Or what’s the status of that project? And obviously, you can’t email folks at that time. But the tools you’re using ClickUp or Asana or Slack, it’s just too detailed. You need a bird’s eye view. Enter the snippets template. At the end of each week, your team member fills out the highlights from the week, any places they’re stuck in the top parties for next week. So you’re never wondering are folks working on the right things? Are there things that they haven’t brought up that really should be on my radar?
And most importantly, what wins can we celebrate as a team? Grab your copy at LeahGarver.com slash snippets. Now, when Praise Sticking Polly, it’s all about the next promotion. Oh, gosh, I remember I had a team member. And yeah, every one-on-one every Monday at 2.30pm, I had to have a conversation with her about when is my next promotion? I’m ready for a promotion. I want to talk about it. And it was like, I, yeah, I wanted to cancel the one-on-ones and not have these conversations anymore.
It was like, literally ingrained in my head that it was Monday at 2.30pm. But the challenge here was the person really didn’t realize what was their career path and how are they going to get to the next step. And I didn’t realize the time. But that’s why I help business owners now and team leaders and founders map out the paths for their team members and what it looks like to get there and how long it is between roles and levels so that you don’t have to have this conversation every 25 minutes.
All right. So praise, seeking, and apology. There’s a lot we can do about that. We’re triggered because it feels like nothing’s ever good enough, but we can sort that out. Now, what about Mindy the Mope? Every time Mindy shows up to work, it’s like, meh, yeah, I’m fine. Project goes well. Everyone’s excited. Yeah, no, it was good. And you just feel like, ugh, why is it so like, they’re not excited or anything. They don’t really have goals or ambitions that you’re seeing come through.
They do get their job done. Okay. So none of these folks are like low performers. We’re talking about this is like people you’re just going to be dealing with. And Mindy the Mope is, you just feel like, I want more like joy and enthusiasm at work. Sorry. I just want to like not feel so blah. So Mindy the Mope is triggering you because you feel like, like you always have to be uplifting everything and being like, is this wrong?
Is this wrong? And you’re feeling like you’re putting on like a dog and pony show. So Mindy the Mope, when that’s being triggered, I think some of that is letting, letting it go and not feeling like, you know, you have to entertain this person. But also it’s a pretty big sign that there could be a mismatch between, you know, someone’s strengths and skills and the work they’re doing. Now, they’re hired to do a certain job. So if they’re not loving it, that really is kind of on them.
But like, I think it’s, is it a role fit, right? It’s a different question, but also seeing like, hey, is there more that I can do to get to know this person and their interests and their superpowers or kind of take a step back and say, well, the role has evolved. I know they really like this. How can I better match them to that? And like this, this role mapping, like this is, you know, a critical thing to be doing or to get someone to help you do if you aren’t really sure how to approach that.
Because when you find someone just kind of like, I’m doing the job fine, but you actually clicked it into like, they’re doing the work that they love and they were designed for, the productivity is exponential, especially if they’re doing fine at something they don’t love. Like when you find that right fit, oh my gosh, open the fricking floodgates. So we really want to deal with this one. And again, re, re, kind of lining up. And I talk about this in the new manager playbook, in the book, lining someone up to their strengths is going to be key for this.
I actually have exercise for that in the book. I think, you know, when we are able to identify some of those things, we are not required to change a person’s whole job because they decided they’re bored with that different conversation. And that brings us to a conversation you might have with defensive Dan, which is whenever you give feedback, they’re defensive. They’re right. You’re wrong. They’re right. The team members are wrong. They did it. It’s not their fault.
Finger pointing, blame, blame, blame. Now you might be hearing this and you’re like, isn’t that a low performer? Well, I think a lot of folks can actually do a good job if they really are like kind of a, a person that can just crank out work, or they may be really strong in one area, but it’s like the moment you give them any feedback, they, they bristle at it. It’s a sign of a fixed mindset, which can be a very high achiever that like nothing can penetrate it and be wrong.
Like, of course, I’m great at this. I think it’s, you know, obviously why that would be triggering, obviously as a leader is because feeling like you have to walk on eggshells around defensive Dan is awful. You know, there’s some things to, to be course corrected. You see some opportunities and if you’re like, I just don’t want to have the conversation and hear, well, this happened and this, and you did this. To have to avoid having a feedback conversation, that’s a problem for you.
Okay. So we have to, have to, have to figure that out. If you are letting behaviors slip or letting things go because you don’t want to have the conversation. No, no, no, no, no good because everybody has things they need to develop. So when you’re finding yourself in a, with defensive Dan and you just like can’t bring it up, this is where we want to get some training on feedback. We want to be having, and potentially having, you know, like a facilitator to come in to do a team building thing where you get a little bit more kind of exercise where everyone’s sharing.
So like one of the kinds of workshops I lead with team is, you know, a start, stop, continue, or as a group, we can talk through things that are going well, that we want to turn around, keep doing that kind of thing can actually start to bring the walls down where you can have some conversations with defensive Dan and really just having a real, you know, a conversation around, hey, there, when I give feedback, I met with this kind of thing.
This is, you know, we’ve got to get through this and have that hard conversation. Again, a lot of the coaching is around that because it can be annoying, it can be hard, but we always anchor feedback conversations in expectations. So when we’ve anchored into expectations and saying, hey, I know we all have the shared goals here. I know we all want to achieve this, the expectation of this, here’s something that got in the way. And if you’re hearing defensiveness, maybe get curious saying, hey, I’m hearing, you know, sensing frustration, want to share more about that and open the door.
You might find that defensive Dan feels misunderstood or undervalued. Maybe he’s got like a little praise seeking Polly in his ear and he needs some, he needs some appreciation. Maybe he’s feeling mismatched. He’s a little in Debbie the Downer mode or Mindy the Moat mode, excuse me, trying to find my metaphors. And he’s just feeling not understood. Sometimes, a lot of times defensiveness comes from someone feeling misunderstood. Like there was something that was unfair or something that was inaccurate, right?
These are the feedback triggers that they talk about in the book, Things for the Feedback, where certain things actually make us react to feedback in a way that, you know, is less receptive. If every single conversation with defensive Dan is like you can’t talk about anything, then that really could become a culture fit issue. But we cannot have a high performer that feels they can do no wrong. Like no, right? It’s not how it’s going to be here.
So these are three archetypes, praise seeking Polly, Mindy the Moat, and defensive Dan that can trigger us as leaders that we want to recognize, okay, why are we triggered? What is the issue? And how do we deal with it? How do we start the conversation? Because these are all folks that can be delivering great results and actually have really strong output, but still kind of make it uncomfortable, like just like blah to go to work where we don’t really want to, we don’t want to talk to them or don’t want to have the meetings.
And we want to get through that. Because on the team member side, we want to give everyone the opportunity to be successful, right? Because you’re paying people here. And so you want them to do the work that you’ve hired them to do. We want them to be able to, you know, reach their full potential, feel like good about the work because people always do better work when they feel good about it, and really be able to maximize that.
So dealing with this, it doesn’t have to be a drag. Those are some strategies. And if you’re feeling like, yeah, I get it. I just, I want you to go through my team members. Let’s diagnose each one. This is a really fun thing that I do with business owners all the time is we go through and we’re talking about their team members, kind of figure out what is the archetype really again, and what’s underneath that? What are the things that this person is really wanting?
What are the things that’s running up against? And how do we figure out the way that you communicate with them or reassign their work so that it aligns perfectly? Because when you find that alignment, like I said, open the freaking floodgates. So if you want to have kind of a team archetype analysis, email me at hello at leighgarver.com. It’s such a fun meeting because we come away with a clear plan of how to communicate best with every single one of your team members.
And folks are finding again, right away, it’s unlocked so much frustration and stuckness on their team. All right, see you next time. Thanks for tuning in. And I hope this podcast makes leading your team feel just a little bit easier. If you liked this episode, check out my most popular tool for staying in the know of what your team’s working on without having to micromanage at leighgarver.com slash snippets. And if you’re looking for more support for yourself as a leader or for the team you’re managing, don’t hesitate to reach out at leighgarver.com.
See you next time. Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Questions this episode answers
Why does my employee constantly ask for praise and raises after every project?
That constant praise-seeking usually comes from a place of not knowing where they stand. They want to feel calibrated with you as their leader. The real issue is often a mismatch in how recognition is being given versus how that person actually receives it. Recognition works like love languages: if you give a monetary bonus but your team member needs a genuine verbal thank-you moment, they may not feel recognized at all. The fix is to have a direct conversation about how each person best receives appreciation, so you stop feeling like nothing is ever enough and they stop feeling invisible.
How do I deal with an employee who always seems unenthusiastic or mopey at work?
A low-energy, unenthusiastic team member is often a signal of a mismatch between their strengths and the work they are doing. Before writing it off as attitude, ask whether the role has drifted away from what they are actually good at or energized by. You are not required to overhaul their job, but even small adjustments that align their tasks to their real strengths can produce a dramatic jump in their output and engagement. The goal is to find where their skills and the work they love actually meet, because when that clicks, the results are exponential compared to someone just doing a fine job at something they do not care about.
How do I give feedback to a defensive employee without it turning into an argument?
Start by anchoring the conversation in shared expectations and goals rather than leading with the behavior itself. When you open with the outcome everyone agreed to and then name what got in the way, it is harder for defensiveness to take hold. If you still sense frustration or pushback, get curious: ask them to share more about what they are experiencing. Defensiveness often comes from someone feeling misunderstood or undervalued, and opening the door can reveal what is actually driving the reaction. Team-wide workshops using formats like start, stop, continue can also lower the walls before you ever get to a one-on-one conversation.
Is it a performance problem if my employee is defensive or constantly needs validation?
Not automatically. All three of these patterns, needing constant praise, low enthusiasm, and defensiveness, can show up in people who are actually delivering solid results. The issue is not output, it is the friction that makes you dread interactions or avoid necessary conversations. That avoidance is the real risk. If you start letting things slide because you do not want to deal with the reaction, that is when the team and the work suffer. The goal is to understand what is underneath the behavior and address that directly, not to assume the person is a poor fit before you have dug into the root cause.
How do I stop dreading one-on-ones with a team member who always brings up promotions?
The reason a team member keeps bringing up promotions in every meeting is usually that they do not have a clear picture of what the path forward looks like or how long it realistically takes to get there. Without that clarity, they fill the gap by asking constantly. The fix is to map out a career path with them, including what milestones matter and what the realistic timeline looks like between levels. Once that picture exists, you both have something to point to, and the conversation shifts from an open-ended ask to a trackable plan.