870. Set Them Up to Win: The Case for Calculated Leadership

No Days Off with Brian Gubernick · Jul 30, 2026 · 7m

There's someone on Brian's team he had no relationship with. Not a bad one — a nonexistent one. So he did something deliberate: in two separate meetings, he set her up to win in front of her colleagues.

In this episode, Brian makes the case that opportunity is something leaders build and hand over, not something they wait for their people to create. He walks through four strategies, two of them rooted in John Maxwell's leadership laws: manufacture the moment, connect before you ask, put a ten on someone's head, and give the credit away.

Plus the rule that keeps it from becoming a transaction…