The Leadership Mistake No One Talks About: Failing to Set Clear Expectations
What happens when a leader assumes everyone knows what’s expected — but no one actually does?
In this episode of Crossroads and Catalysts, I share a personal story about a meeting that caught me completely off guard.
This conversation is especially important for new managers and emerging leaders who are developing their leadership skills and learning how to lead teams effectively. One of the most overlooked leadership mistakes is failing to set clear expectations — and the consequences can quietly damage morale, confidence, and performance.
If you’re a new manager, team leader, or professional stepping into greater responsibility, this episode will help you strengthen your leadership communication and avoid one of the most common leadership blind spots.
Clear is kind. Clear builds trust. And clear leadership is not optional.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Have you ever been blindsided at work by an expectation that nobody told you about?
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[SPEAKER_00]: I have.
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[SPEAKER_00]: More than once.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And it reminds me of what leaders must never assume.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Let's talk about it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to Crossroads in Catalyst.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The podcast with Sheneeta B. I'm your host.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This is where we discuss how a thoughtful, wise, and strategic perspective at a crossroads can be the catalyst for change in your leadership and career.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm glad that you're here today, because I want to talk about something that again, it's not unique, even though it should be, but it can be very frustrating for both you as a leader and your team.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And what is it exactly that I'm talking about?
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[SPEAKER_00]: These are the expectations that have not been clearly defined nor communicated.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And the fact that it happens on a regular basis in organization's large and small experienced and inexperienced is problematic.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And part of the reason why it's problematic is because it puts up a barrier where there should not be a barrier.
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[SPEAKER_00]: you lose team engagement when you do not make expectations clear when you do not set the standard.
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[SPEAKER_00]: When you for instance, maybe it's an onboarding process and maybe you haven't clarified the job duties to your new employee or maybe there's a big project that's been underway for quite some time.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, information sometimes gets lost.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't get communicated effectively.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't get pushed down to the right people.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And those who need that information, they end up with egg on their faces because now there's a dead line or there's a deliverable that's supposed to be submitted and their clueless, they have no idea.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Well, we can avoid.
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[SPEAKER_00]: these things.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We can think ahead, we can be intentional and we can be purposeful about what we communicate and how and to whom, but it's going to take us slowing down and being mindful of these things.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, you know that word mindful, you hear that a lot with mindfulness practices.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But you know, as you continue to live a little bit and get some experience under your
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[SPEAKER_00]: to take your time to think things through and to be considerate because as a leader, you want to show up and you want to show up to be the best leader that you possibly can.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But what you do is you set yourself against your team,
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[SPEAKER_00]: When you put them in positions to have to defend themselves because the first thing that happens when someone has to defend themselves is a wall goes up and then there's distrust and if this thing continues to happen repeatedly will it is going to be a bit of a struggle for you to regain the trust that you've really worked really hard and diligently to build with your team.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So before we really get into the crux of this, I want to remind you to hit the follow button in Apple or Spotify so that you do not miss an episode and you can always go to my website crossroads in catalyst.com and you can follow there and that way you'll receive the notifications.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And don't forget to share it with the friend, okay?
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[SPEAKER_00]: So
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[SPEAKER_00]: early in my career.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And again, this has happened more than once.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I was in a meeting with my then boss and with some of my colleagues.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And we were discussing some reports and storing these reports in a particular a particular folder.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And my boss said, well, Shanita, did you save this report to this folder?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I didn't know that it was my responsibility to save the report.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't know it was my responsibility to do anything with the report.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I had no idea that there was a whole area that was assigned to me that I was responsible to contact these people and follow up on certain deliverables, completely clueless, and I had been with this organization for months at that point, and so because I was caught off
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[SPEAKER_00]: I just said, well, I received a report from my direct report, and that was what has been stored in the folder.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So it made for a very uncomfortable situation.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And not only that, it was a little embarrassing, because here I am, one of the newest members of the team at a fairly high level,
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[SPEAKER_00]: I was not made aware that there was a whole other area that had been assigned to me.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, you can imagine my frustration.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so the question is, have you had that happened to you as an employee?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Or have you been in the position as the leader to provide information or not provide information that would have been extremely helpful to your team member
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[SPEAKER_00]: And that's one of those moments that you'd never forget because you're trying to figure out okay well what did I miss you're going back through your notes and trying to understand well maybe I just I didn't write something down correctly or maybe there was something in an email that I misunderstood.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You have a duty to set your team up for success and when you carry out your duties and you're engaging with your team and you have missed providing them information that is relevant and that is imperative to them carrying out their job.
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[SPEAKER_00]: okay well then already you have put them in a position to be humiliated not only with you but in front of their team members and this is not what you want as a leader because what happens when when things like this occur is the trust is eroded.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And if you are a diligent and thoughtful leader, you do not want your team to distrust you.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You do not want them to feel as if you are out to get them or to sabotage them.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And while I didn't think that that was the scenario with my boss, it did give me
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[SPEAKER_00]: pause to kind of think through, okay, well, what is actually going on here?
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[SPEAKER_00]: And of course, you know, in the aftermath of that, I as a diligent leader myself, I made sure to have a conversation with my then leader to talk about expectations and responsibilities and what it was that they had in mind because I needed something clear.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I needed to really understand what my scope of
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[SPEAKER_00]: but what are you doing to ensure that your team knows and understands what those deliverables are?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Because again, as you're continuing to hone your skills, your leadership skills, this is going to be one of those things that should be at the top of the list.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And one of the challenges that you might have is the fact that maybe you're in a really large organization
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[SPEAKER_00]: which makes it somewhat difficult to communicate information.
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[SPEAKER_00]: When you're in a large organization, the culture has a really strong pull on how things move and how things are processed, even down to the communication, so you have to make an effort.
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[SPEAKER_00]: to ensure that you communicate information to your team in a timely manner in a way that they understand so that when you engage them and when you're discussing things, you're not speaking to them from a position of them being in the dark.
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[SPEAKER_00]: No one wants to engage with their boss and look as though they don't know what they're talking about.
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[SPEAKER_00]: People show up to work because they want to do a good job.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Part of what you are there to do is to help your team be successful.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And they can only be successful if they have the information that they need to carry out their job duties.
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[SPEAKER_00]: they don't want to show up to work to fight you, they don't want to show up to their work to fight their colleagues, they want to deliver on whatever it is that that is required at the time.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But how do you carry that out?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Well again, you start by setting those standards and the expectations for them.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And you make sure that
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[SPEAKER_00]: That whatever it is, that is the deliverable, whatever it is, that is the process that you help them to recognize that their role is an important role to carry out because that's really what it comes down to.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And while we're talking this through.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You might be thinking, okay, I have a lot of things on my plate.
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[SPEAKER_00]: My calendar is jam packed.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I barely have time to eat lunch or to take notes myself and to communicate information.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This is not a battle that you will win.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It is not worth it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You are busy, your team is busy, but you have to show consideration to them by giving them the information that they need in order to do their jobs well.
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[SPEAKER_00]: If you are too busy to communicate information to your team, then maybe you have to seek some alternatives to help delegate some duties.
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[SPEAKER_00]: to help move some things off of your plate if that is at all possible.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But it is not going to work well for you to alienate your team in such a way as to cause them to be frustrated and to be embarrassed and to be humiliated because they will begin to think that you're sabotaging them.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And that's definitely not something that you want your team to think, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: So approach it from a perspective of you want them to be successful, you want them to have the tools that they need, you want them to have the resources that they need to do their jobs well.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Which is also going to require that you avail yourself to their feedback.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So you want to make sure that you ask them, hey, it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Do you think that you have what you need to get your job done?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Do you think that I've communicated the information to you effectively?
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[SPEAKER_00]: It will help you in the long run and you'll build that rapport which is really important because
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[SPEAKER_00]: If you have any experience in the workplace or even, you know, in your personal life, you know, it is a lot easier to attract bees with honey than with vinegar.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So think of it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: in that particular sense.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And if you're struggling to figure out how to avoid some of these frustrations, then send me an email so that we can set up some time and we can talk about it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You can send an email to connect at crossroads in catalyst.com and we can talk about it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And we are at the end of our episode.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This one is rather brief today, because
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[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody knows what it's like to go through a scenario where you didn't meet the expectations of your boss.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I just want to remind you that as the leader, you want to provide more than management cloaked as leadership.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, you're not there to micromanage your team.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You're not there to hover over them.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You're not there to treat them like children.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You're there to treat them like the mature adults that they are.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But part of what you have to do is provide the information to them.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You don't want to constantly find yourself apologizing to them because you did not provide them.
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[SPEAKER_00]: information because you did not communicate something because you did not submit something to them that was relevant and pivotal to the completion of their work.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Because not only is it going to again, pit them against you, but it's going to also make you look bad.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And while everything is not
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[SPEAKER_00]: we cannot say that it is not important because it is and I want you to be an effective leader.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to be different from what most people are experiencing from their bosses in the way of leadership, okay?
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[SPEAKER_00]: We want to go beyond just the average.
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[SPEAKER_00]: We want to be great, and this is one of the things that will help you to be great is having a solid relationship with your team, communicating information to them effectively and when they need it and helping them to recognize what the expectations are so that there is no confusion about what the scope is and the deliverables should be.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, you can do this.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It is completely up to you.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You just have to think through it and be intentional about it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: All right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: So thanks for listening.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I appreciate you.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And until next time, be thoughtful, be wise, be strategic.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And remember, crossroads reveal who you are, cattle is shaped who you become, every decision matters.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So make a count.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'll talk to you next week.




