Navigating Tough Decisions: The Emotional Side of Leadership

Leadership demands more than making easy choices — it requires the courage to make decisions that might initially hurt those we care about most. In this candid Brick by Brick episode, Ty Cobb Backer explores the emotional terrain leaders face when change collides with human emotions.

Ty explains how real leadership recognizes that resistance to change often masks deeper grief — grief for professional identities, relationships, and the familiar. By embracing transparency and empathy, leaders can guide their teams through transition while maintaining momentum.

Ty shares his personal insights, including the hard lessons about the cost of delaying tough conversations out of fear of being disliked. He reminds us that true leadership isn't about avoiding discomfort but about building environments where knowledge and growth flow in all directions.

Leadership is not about perfection — it's about continuous self-improvement that ripples through your team and organization. Brick by brick, this is how strong leadership legacies are built.

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Chapters

• 0:00 The Hard Decisions of Leadership
• 0:59 Understanding Emotional Impact of Change
• 2:08 Transparency and Personal Growth
• 4:48 Creating Genuine Culture Through Learning

Transcript

Ty Cobb Backer: 0:00

what it really means or what it takes, you know, to be a leader Brick by brick. Sometimes you'll have to make hard decisions that negatively impact people you care about. So they think it will impact them negatively, you know, and it's our job as the leader to paint a picture for them in a way that doesn't appear to be negative, unless you have to let them go. And usually that's the hard decision that we have to make and hopefully we chose wisely, with those that we choose to surround ourselves with, where we won't have to let that many people go in our journey of entrepreneurship, management, leadership, all along trying to make the right decisions and it can be difficult, right. So that's our jobs as leaders to help facilitate game plans and ideas and visions for longevity of the company, most importantly those that we work with.

Ty Cobb Backer: 0:59

A lot of times those conversations aren't easy conversations to have, and especially when you know their feelings are involved, and you know I'm a very empathetic person and I try to think of them. I don't even necessarily try to, it's that's just where my head goes. You know I'm worried, concerned about their emotions and things like that. So I'm learning to become very creative. What I've most recently come up with is a lateral expansion, whether it's for the company, whether it's for their position, that we're either trying to create or alleviate or expand somebody else's position within the company. You know it's our job to articulate that picture, that vision of like why it's important that they move into a different role or somebody else needs to move into their position. It's hard and the thing that people deal with isn't the pushback from the decision that you made due to change, because we all think that you know we hate change, they would much rather stay because it's more comfortable. But what people are really dealing with is the, the feeling of loss, and we think it's just change that you know we're, we're fearing change when really, uh, they're, they're dealing with loss and I think if we can be fully transparent, like, look, this isn't going to be easy, it's going to probably be tough, but also paint a picture of like, why we need to do this and why it's going to have a positive impact on them and those around us.

Ty Cobb Backer: 2:26

And I think, when we take their feelings into consideration right, wrong or indifferent I always, I'm always concerned about people's feelings and how it may impact the company themselves, their family, right, especially if you're keeping them, if you're keeping them on board and you know, I've been guilty of letting people stay within the company entirely too long, especially if they needed to go or not finding a better position for them that best suits them. And and this could be selfish because I'm concerned about, like, how they're going to feel probably more so about me towards me once I've broke the bad news to them because they're going to suffer from loss, and it's no different than when we lose a loved one or we break up a relationship. We suffer from loss, right, and that's the same thing. It's not that we're necessarily going through changes. We're suffering from the grieving process that an individual will feel when we change things up at work. It's really no different. So that emotion, that feeling, is the exact same feeling. So, if we can help and be transparent, like, look, we're doing this to broaden your horizon in a different area of the company, we're relocating your position over here so you'll have more time to focus and have time, energy and resources to this particular area, and we're going to bring somebody else in, whether it's, you know, a lateral move within the company or we're bringing somebody in from outside, you know we will be disliked, despite our best attempt to do the best for the most, we will be misunderstood. We will rarely have the opportunity to defend ourselves. And I didn't come up with this right. I wish I could say that everything that I'm talking about right now is something that I came up with on my own.

Ty Cobb Backer: 4:18

A lot of you that know me know that I study a lot. Right now I'm studying Google Workspace. I'm reading probably too much at one time, but I'm reading again the roofing sales survival guide by our boy, adam Bensman. You know, I, I, I continuously work on myself, I continuously educate myself and I get very specific on on where I'm at, where the company's, at what season I'm in, what season the company's in. You know and and this is what's cool when, when, when, you were learning just as much from your team as as they are from you. That's when you're developing a genuine culture. You know, living with purpose and and and consistency right, I'm consistently working on myself. And and consistency, right, I'm consistently working on myself, self-mastery, personal development, because it really all starts here. You know figuring out like, how I tick, like I'm I'm pulling that pocket watch out and I'm tearing this thing apart and I, I want to see how the gears are are working and and how they're working cohesively together, with one gear missing the other gears within that stopwatch or that pocket watch.