Most leaders believe they have built an open, safe, equitable team. The team usually disagrees. The gap between those two things is where this whole conversation lives.

Trudi Lebron has spent 20 years as an equity practitioner, starting in education and youth development before making a deliberate move in 2017 to bring this work into the coaching and online business world.

Adrienne worked with her in back in 2020, and they have been crossing paths ever since. This time they sit down to talk about what equity actually means inside a company, and why so much of it comes down to power and how you use it.

What they cover:

• Why "we're not creating oxygen" became a guiding principle, and how it changes the energy a whole team runs on

• Why equity is so much bigger than race, and how it shows up in onboarding, work hours, and the structure people actually need to succeed

• The real reason most leaders stay quiet: not kindness, just fear of getting it wrong

• Why letting things slide is an abdication of responsibility, not good-boss behavior

• The difference between wanting to lead and wanting to be in charge

• Why power is neutral, and what owning it actually unlocks instead of avoiding it

• The restraint problem: what you steal from your team every time you jump in

• How middle managers become the dam, and what happens to the whole team when it breaks

• The psychological safety test: if no one pushes back, assume they do not feel safe

Trudi Lebron, MS, is a highly skilled executive coach and facilitator with over 20 years of experience helping public and private institutions, entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, and founders build equitable businesses, workplaces, and learning environments. She is the founder of The Institute for Equity-Centered Coaching, the author of The Antiracist Business Book (Row House Publishing, 2022), and a PhD candidate in Social Psychology.

Find Trudi at trudilebron.com, on her weekly email Working Hypothesis, and on her podcast, where Adrienne appears in the episode "I Had To Shed This Skin."

Time Chapters

00:00 How Adrienne and Trudi met

02:00 Why Trudi chose equity work

03:50 Equity is bigger than race

04:50 Equity meets capitalism

07:40 Never becoming the boss you hated

09:20 We're not creating oxygen

11:05 You can't teach people how to be free

12:45 Onboarding for how someone actually works

15:05 Equity serves the business too

17:25 Doing nothing for fear of getting it wrong

20:30 The expectation you never actually set

22:45 The power dynamic you don't want to admit

24:50 Power is neutral

27:00 Authority is given, not taken

29:00 Restraint as a leadership skill

30:40 Why you really jump in

32:40 Middle managers as the dam

40:05 Speaking up needs safety

41:50 How to know it's not safe

43:25 Where to find Trudi

44:50 The AI conversation they saved for next time

Women own 40% of all businesses in the United States and represent just over 1% of business exits.

Adrienne has thoughts about that, and she's not holding back.

In this solo episode, Adrienne makes the case that if your business can't run without you, it's not actually a business. It's a job with lipstick.

She walks through why female founders in particular get stuck in owner dependency, what it costs them, and what it actually looks like to start building a real exit.

What she covers:

• The difference between a business that's an asset and one that's a liability hiding in plain sight
• Why women represent 40% of business owners but just 1% of exits, and what that gap is actually telling us
• The identity trap: why stepping back feels like a betrayal, and why that feeling is keeping you stuck
• At least six different definitions of "exit" that have nothing to do with selling your business
• How removing owner dependency can two to three times the value of your business
• The dog food website story: a retired dentist, millions of monthly views, and a wife who couldn't inherit any of it
• Small business owners take an average of five days off per year, and 67% check in with work every day they're supposedly on vacation
• The 90-day test: if you had to step away from your business tomorrow, would it survive?
• The free Out of Office training and what Adrienne is covering there
  

Free training: level11leaders.com/OOO

⏱️ Time Chapters
00:00 Solo episode and kindergarten graduation chaos
04:10 Is your business an asset or a job with lipstick
08:30 The dog food website story
13:00 Women own 40% of businesses but represent 1% of exits
17:30 Why women exit unplanned and for less money
22:00 The identity trap and why stepping away feels like betrayal
27:30 Six versions of what an exit could actually look like
33:00 Owner dependency is costing you two to three times your valuation
37:00 The 90-day test
40:00 Out of Office free training and close

Most leaders think they're choosing between two options when it comes to feedback: be vague or just redo it yourself. Adrienne and Emily have a third take.

In this Dear Bossy episode, Adrienne and Emily tackle a listener question about how to give feedback that actually sticks.

They get into the difference between lazy and specific feedback, what it really means to delegate well, and why "make it stronger" does more harm than good.

What they cover:

• Why "make it stronger" and "make it better" are lazy feedback, not vague feedback, and what the difference actually means for your team
• The false choice between being too vague or rewriting everything yourself, and the third option most leaders miss
• How to turn subjective feedback into an objective standard your team can actually measure against
• The gap vs. the fix: why naming the gap gives people ownership, and handing them the fix takes it away
• What it looks like to give feedback on creative or preference-based work, and why rewriting with a walkthrough can actually be the fastest path to improvement
• How standards change over time and why updating your team is not a one-time event
• Emily's real example of getting "add more energy" as feedback and why it landed flat without context
• The ego trap: unconsciously setting people up to fail so you can stay the only one who can do it right

Submit your own Dear Bossy question: sortabossypodcast.com

⏱️ Time Chapters

00:01 Happy Tuesday and rainbow loom necklaces 04:05 Taylor-formations card of the week
06:21 The listener question
07:10 Emily's take: rewriting is not always the lazy option
09:47 The false choice and the third path
13:05 The ego trap in delegation
17:40 When standards change: the leader's responsibility to update the team
22:05 Emily's personal feedback example and user manuals
25:58 Choosing your hard: paying credit vs. paying cash
27:49 Wrap up