Tolero Solutions

05/29/2026

Empathy gets misunderstood a lot in leadership.

People think it means:

➡️ Feeling bad for someone

➡️ Absorbing everyone else’s emotions

➡️ Lowering standards to avoid discomfort

But real empathy is much more nuanced...

✔️ Listening to understand instead of listening to respond

✔️ Recognizing perspectives different from your own

✔️ Being aware of emotional impact without becoming emotionally consumed by it

✔️ Creating space for people to feel heard while still helping move forward

And here’s the part leaders often forget. Empathy for yourself matters too! Self-care matters. It's necessary.

You can’t continuously pour patience, understanding, and emotional energy into everyone around you while treating yourself like a machine with unlimited capacity. Self-empathy isn’t selfish. It’s awareness. It’s recognizing your own limits, stress signals, and humanity before burnout makes the decision for you.

If this week tested your patience, your energy, or your resilience…

You survived another week. Well done. That counts more than most people admit.

05/04/2026

I’ll be honest… I’m not just sharing this. Grieving the recent loss of my Dad, I’m living this right now.

As a leadership coach, I spend a lot of time helping others push, grow, adapt, and perform.

But here’s the part we don’t say out loud enough:
👉 You can’t coach (or lead with) clarity, resilience, or performance from a place of depletion.

This visual from Justin Wright nails something I see across leaders and teams every single week—we treat “rest” like it’s one-dimensional.

Sleep more. Take a day off. Power through. But burnout doesn’t come from a lack of sleep alone… it comes from a lack of the right kind of rest.

Lately, I’ve been doing my own audit:
✅Physical? Decent.
❌Mental? Overclocked.
✅Creative? Work in progress.
❌Emotional? Carrying more than I should.

Sound familiar?
Here’s what I see in high-performing leaders (and yes, I’m raising my own hand here):
We’re great at producing… terrible at recovering with intention.
And without intentional recovery, your “high performance” becomes unsustainable performance.

So instead of asking:
❌ “When do I have time to rest?”

Flip your script and try:
🎯“What type of rest am I actually missing?”

Because the fix isn’t always a vacation.
Sometimes it’s boundaries.
Sometimes it’s quiet.
Sometimes it’s saying “no” without over-explaining.
Sometimes it’s doing something that has zero ROI… except for your brain.

I’m recalibrating this in real time—not as a concept, but as a practice.
If you’re leading people, building something, or just trying to keep pace right now…this isn’t soft stuff. This is sustainability strategy.

👉 Which type of rest are you actually missing right now?

03/17/2026

🧠Another one for 𝙉𝙚𝙪𝙧𝙤𝙙𝙞𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙞𝙩𝙮 𝘾𝙚𝙡𝙚𝙗𝙧𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣 𝙒𝙚𝙚𝙠…

Did you know Scott Kelly—NASA astronaut, spacewalker, and someone who literally spent a year in space—has ADHD.

🚀Let that sink in for a second. Because growing up, ADHD wasn’t exactly being framed as a “you could become an astronaut someday” kind of story.

And if we’re being honest… what kid didn’t want to be an astronaut at some point?

(Still a little disappointed that path didn’t pan out for me—I mean, I do love space exploration)

But here’s why this matters. We’ve spent a long time defining neurodiversity—especially ADHD—by what it struggles with. Focus. Structure. Consistency.

Meanwhile, we tend to overlook what it can fuel:

💥Curiosity

💥Resilience

💥Big-picture thinking

💥The ability to operate in complex, high-stakes environments

You don’t get to space without a different way of thinking.

In my work coaching neurodiverse leaders (and my lived experience), I see this all the time—people who’ve been told to “𝙛𝙞𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙢𝙤𝙡𝙙” finally realizing the mold was the problem, not them.

🎯When leaders and organizations shift from “How do we fix this?” to “How do we leverage this?”…

That’s when performance changes.

That’s when confidence shows up.

That’s when people actually thrive.

More coming this week as we continue recognizing Neurodiversity Celebration Week.

📚In the interim, check out some great resources on how to support the neurodiverse people in your life and workplace: https://www.neurodiversityweek.com/resource-hub

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I'm Scott Span

➡ I support you to overcome what’s holding you back and get results ⬅

Repost this to spread the learning📑

Contact me for a chat 📲

03/16/2026

🧠Today marks the start of Neurodiversity Celebration Week.

And here’s a fun fact many people don’t know: Justin Timberlake has ADHD.

For a long time, ADHD and other forms of neurodiversity were talked about almost exclusively in terms of limitations.

But that narrative misses the bigger picture.

Many of the traits associated with ADHD—energy, creativity, pattern recognition, nonlinear thinking—are the same traits that drive innovation, performance, and leadership when they’re understood and supported.

I know this from two perspectives:

✅I have ADHD.

✅I coach neurodiverse professionals and leaders navigating the workplace every day.

The reality is that many workplaces are still built around a very narrow definition of how people are “supposed” to think, focus, and communicate.

But different brains bring different strengths.

🏆And when leaders understand how to harness those differences instead of suppressing them, the impact on teams and organizations can be powerful.

As Justin Timberlake said:

"𝙔𝙤𝙪 𝙘𝙖𝙣𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙢𝙖𝙠𝙚 𝙖 𝙙𝙞𝙛𝙛𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙪𝙣𝙡𝙚𝙨𝙨 𝙮𝙤𝙪'𝙧𝙚 𝙙𝙞𝙛𝙛𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙣𝙩."

This week I’ll be sharing more insights about neurodiversity, neurodiversity in leadership, and how organizations can create environments where different thinking styles actually thrive.

And check out the Neurodiversity Celebration Week website for more info and some great resources: https://www.neurodiversityweek.com/

Stay tuned.

03/13/2026

🧠I’m neurodiverse. I have ADD. And yes… that absolutely shapes how I see the world—and how I coach and go about my work.

Next week (March 16–20) is Neurodiversity Celebration Week, a global initiative focused on challenging stereotypes and changing how neurodivergent people are understood and supported in schools, workplaces, and communities.

For me, this week isn’t just another awareness campaign. It’s personal.

For years, neurodiversity was framed almost entirely as a problem to fix. But the reality is far more nuanced. Different brains process information differently. That includes ADHD, dyslexia, autism, and many other ways of thinking and learning.

And here’s the thing I see every day in my work:

Many of the same traits that create friction in traditional workplaces can also be sources of creativity, innovation, and strategic thinking when the environment supports them.

That’s why I care about this week.

🏆As a leadership coach, I work with neurodiverse professionals and leaders navigating workplaces that weren’t always designed with them in mind. When organizations learn how to harness different thinking styles rather than suppress them, the results can be pretty remarkable.

Better teams.

Better problem solving.

Better leadership.

💪Next week, I’ll be sharing more about neurodiversity, resources from Neurodiversity Celebration Week and practical ways leaders can build neuroinclusive workplaces.
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Because inclusion isn’t just the right thing to do. It’s also good leadership.

Stay tuned next week as we celebrate the power of different minds.

03/10/2026

I recently had the chance to discuss 𝙣𝙚𝙪𝙧𝙤𝙙𝙞𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙨𝙞𝙩𝙮 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙠𝙥𝙡𝙖𝙘𝙚 as a guest on the Working Class Autistic podcast with Kevin Joseph.

Our conversation focused on something I spend time helping leaders and organizations understand:

Neurodiversity isn’t a problem to solve.

It’s a reality of the workforce to be understood to lead well.

We talked about a few things that often get overlooked in workplace conversations about neurodiversity:

• What reasonable accommodations can actually look like in practice

• Why authenticity at work can strengthen teams and relationships

• The leadership role in creating psychological safety

• And how organizations can rethink the way they measure performance so people can truly do their best work

Because when leaders get these things right, the outcome isn’t just inclusion.

It’s better communication, stronger teams, and better performance.

And yes… Kevin even managed to get me talking about some of my special interests.

And perfect timing with the start of Neurodiversity Celebration Week beginning on March 16th!

🎧 Give the full episode a listen here: https://rss.com/podcasts/working-class-autistic/2612278/

Leaders and teams I work with often ask the same question that came up in the episode:

Are we measuring performance in ways that actually make sense for the people doing the work?

🧠 Worth thinking about.

“Neurodiverse individuals themselves are not any less efficient or any less productive than non-neurodiverse or neurotypical individuals, especially if you provide them with the reasonable accommodations to be successful.” -Scott SpanMy guest this week, Scott Span, is a speaker and coach that he...

03/06/2026

😖As you head into the weekend, a quick leadership reality check.

Burnout doesn’t always look like someone dramatically throwing their laptop into the nearest body of water. Most of the time it’s quieter… and easier to miss.

Sometimes burnout looks like:

• Creativity suddenly going on vacation

• Being tired and irritable even after a full night of sleep

• More complaining than problem-solving

• Random physical aches that seem to show up around Monday morning

In my coaching work with leaders and teams, burnout rarely starts with workload alone. It usually starts with misalignment:

– Too much doing, not enough meaning

– Constant reacting instead of intentional leadership

– Carrying stress that no one is talking about

A few things I encourage leaders to check before the new week starts:

✅Audit your energy, not just your calendar. What actually drained you this week?

✅Notice the signals. Irritability and low creativity are often early indicators.

✅Create one small boundary for next week. Not ten. One.

✅Ask your team a better question Monday: “What’s been draining lately?”

💆‍♂️Burnout prevention isn’t about spa days and inspirational posters. Although, I'm not opposed to a god spa day.

It’s about awareness, conversations, and small leadership adjustments before the tank hits empty.

If you’re seeing these patterns in yourself or your team, that’s exactly the kind of work I help leaders unpack and reset. Let's talk!

🧘Enjoy the weekend. Reset the brain. Leadership works better when the human running it is actually recharged.

03/05/2026

💼 Now and then, a picture perfectly summarizes a workplace culture problem. This is one of them.

Management posts a sign:

“Staff need to stop acting like they don’t want to be here.”

Staff responds:

“We’re not acting.”

And just like that… the engagement survey writes itself.

😖 I spend a lot of time working through an uncomfortable truth with leaders and teams:

When people disengage, it’s rarely because they suddenly decided they enjoy being miserable at work. It’s usually the result of accumulated signals from the environment.

Signals like:

“Your input doesn’t really matter.”

“We only communicate when something’s wrong.”

“Decisions happen somewhere else.”

“You’re a resource, not a person.”

Over time, people stop pretending. Not because they’re lazy. Because they’ve learned the system isn’t listening.

The good news? Culture like this isn’t permanent. But it does require leadership to look in the mirror before putting up another poster.

🎯 A few ways leaders accidentally create cultures like the one in the photo — and how to avoid it:

1. Stop managing symptoms. Start diagnosing causes.

If morale is low, the problem isn’t attitude. It’s usually clarity, trust, or workload.

2. Replace performative communication with real communication.

Town halls and posters don’t build trust. Consistent transparency does.

3. Make feedback safe and useful.

If employees only speak honestly on sticky notes, something is broken.

4. Align expectations with reality.

If leaders say “people first” but operate “numbers first,” employees will believe the behavior, not the slogan.

5. Show that leadership is listening.

Nothing disengages a team faster than feedback that disappears into a black hole.

In my work with leadership teams, a lot of our time is spent unpacking these kinds of dynamics — the gap between what leaders think the culture is and what employees actually experience.

Because culture isn’t what’s written on the wall.

It’s what people whisper after reading it.

If you’re seeing signs of disengagement on your team, it might be time to look behind the curtain and figure out what’s really going on.

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I'm Scott Span

➡ I support you to overcome what’s holding you back and achieve results⬅

Repost this to spread the learning📑

Contact me for a chat 📲

02/26/2026

👉 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 isn’t about being nice or being tough.

It’s about knowing which message, which tone, and which delivery the moment actually requires.

🔨 That’s the idea behind what I call the 𝙑𝙚𝙡𝙫𝙚𝙩 𝙃𝙖𝙢𝙢𝙚𝙧 — communication that’s layered with care and clarity, candor and context, toughness wrapped in tenderness. Communication that blends empathy with precision, softness with steel, and clarity without cruelty.

Yes, I named it (well, sorta)

Yes, I use it.

And yes, it works.

Because the truth is:

You can be kind without being weak — and clear without being cruel.

💥 Here’s the thing most leaders trip over:

Messaging fails when the intent is right, but the delivery is wrong. People don’t just need direction — they need understanding, respect, and trust before they’ll meet expectations. You don’t soften because it’s easy — you soften to connect. You bring steel because results matter.

In practice, that looks like knowing:

🔹 When to soften the message so it can actually be heard

🔹 When to tighten the language so expectations don’t get lost

🔹 How to adapt your communication style without abandoning your values

🔹 Why tone and timing matter as much as the words themselves

I’ve used this approach consistently with leaders who are tired of being told they’re “too direct”… and others who are told they’re “not direct enough.”

(Spoiler: it’s usually a messaging issue, not a leadership one.)

Strong leadership communication isn’t loud.

✅It’s intentional.

✅And strong leaders know when to wrap the message in velvet — and when to let the hammer do its job.

Leadership isn’t a blunt instrument — it’s a calibrated one. That’s why a Velvet Hammer strategy isn’t softness for comfort’s sake…it’s communication with intent.

🧠 And here’s the coaching pivot:

Your presence should invite dialogue AND deliver expectation. When you lead with both heart and backbone, teams know two things simultaneously: “I matter — and our work matters.”

🎯 If you want to sharpen your communication style, deliver clearer messages, and stop being misunderstood in the moments that matter most, this is exactly the work I do with leaders. Let's talk!

💡 What’s one time you needed to use your Velvet Hammer — and how did it land? Comment below.

https://tolerosolutions.com/the-velvet-hammer-when-leadership-communication-requires-both-softness-and-steel/

-----------------------------------------

I'm Scott Span

➡ I support you to overcome what’s holding you back and achieve results⬅

Repost this to spread the learning📑

Contact me for a chat 📲

Several years ago, I was leading a global change effort for a large organization. Big scope. Big personalities. Big stakes. You know the kind—multiple regions, competing priorities, sponsors with titles that carried weight, and a leadership team that said they were aligned… until the pressure tu...

02/20/2026

🤔 As you head into the weekend, consider this…

Big change rarely shows up wearing a cape. It usually sneaks in as something small, boring, and repeatable.

This image illustrates that well:

• $8 a day becomes real money

• 20 pages a day becomes real perspective

• 10,000 steps a day becomes real health

And here’s the part we often miss as humans (and leaders):

Habits aren’t about motivation. They’re about design. Design with intention.

I’ve been working with clients around this idea—not chasing dramatic reinvention, but identifying the small, controllable behaviors that quietly compound into better energy, clearer thinking, and more sustainable performance at work and at home.

👍 And yes, I’m doing this work myself too.

Because expecting personal growth from others, and not practicing it myself, is a bit hypocritical. Not my style.

The people who do well over time don’t overhaul everything.

They choose one or two small shifts and protect them relentlessly.

So before Monday shows up:

What’s one small habit you can start (or restart) that your future self will appreciate❓

📱 If you want help figuring out which habits actually matter—for improving your life, your work, or your sanity—let’s talk.

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I'm Scott Span

➡ I support you to overcome what’s holding you back and achieve results⬅

Repost this to spread the learning📑

Contact me for a chat 📲

02/17/2026

🤖 AI didn’t “replace” me here. It collaborated with me. And actually, quite nicely!

✅ Yes, this image is AI-generated.

❌ And no, it didn’t happen by accident.

It worked because:

• I knew what to ask

• I knew what mattered

• I knew what not to compromise

• And I fed it intentional, human context

That’s the part of the AI conversation we keep skipping.

AI is powerful — but it’s not intuitive.

It doesn’t know you.

It interprets what you give it.

And once it has even small bits of data about you, it can remix, infer, and extrapolate in dozens of directions — some useful, some wildly off-target.

That’s why 𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙢𝙥𝙩 𝙦𝙪𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙮 = 𝙤𝙪𝙩𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙚 𝙦𝙪𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙮.

This image is a great example of that balance, providing what I requested:

✔ Professional identity (executive coach, team performance, high-performance culture)

✔ Personal identity (my dogs, my art, my actual style — no suits required)

✔ Values (employee experience, collaboration, vision, results)

✔ Authenticity (this actually looks and feels like me)

AI didn’t invent this story.

It assembled it — based on what I chose to share and how clearly I framed the outcome.

🎯 That’s the real work leaders need to understand right now:

• What data are you giving AI?

• What assumptions might it make from that?

• And are your outcomes aligned with what you’re feeding the system?

AI is a tool.

A powerful one.

But it still needs humans for judgment, boundaries, creativity, and meaning.

Use cases matter.

Context matters.

And authenticity? That part is still on us.

Curious how others are balancing AI capability vs. intentional human input personally or for clients — especially in leadership, culture, and employee experience.

👇 Let’s talk.

Oh, and if you were curious to learn more about me and my values and interests, professionally and personally, this image is a good start. 😊