In this episode, I’m calling myself out. We all do this: judge people before we actually know them. You walk into a meeting, meet someone new, and within seconds you’ve decided whether they’re capable, trustworthy, professional, or someone you want on your team. We like to call it intuition, but sometimes it’s simply our brain taking a shortcut with almost no information to go on. 

I bring in Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink, including the Warren Harding error and our strange habit of linking physical appearances (height) with leadership ability. I also tell you about the day someone joined my team and my first reaction was, “Ew, who picked him?” The important part wasn’t my first thought—it was what came next: “What am I missing?”

This episode is an invitation to catch your judgments, question them, and give people enough space for your second thought to know more than your first one did.

🔑 3 Key Takeaways:

Your First Thought Is Not a Fact

• We size people up in seconds, long before we have enough information to actually know them.
• That snap reaction gets shaped by our own history, our insecurities, and whatever mood we walked in with.
• The leadership skill isn't eliminating judgment. It's catching it and choosing what you do next.

Replace Judgment With Curiosity

• My first reaction to a new team member and how I actually experienced him later were two completely different stories.
• Instead of letting that first impression become the final word, I asked, "What am I missing?"
• Curiosity buys people the time to show you who they really are.

The Box You Put Someone In Costs Everyone

• When a leader judges fast, that opinion carries weight. It shapes how the rest of the team sees that person too.
• Someone who feels boxed in stops bringing their ideas, their energy, and their full self to the room.
• Before you make it permanent, ask yourself: “How would I want to be treated in this situation?”

🔎 Mentioned in the Episode:

• Malcolm Gladwell's Blink — his research on snap judgments and the unconscious assumptions running the show underneath our decisions.
• The Warren Harding Error — judging someone's capability by how they look instead of what they can actually do.
• The CEO Height Example — how something as simple as height quietly shapes who we assume is fit to lead.
• The "Mr. Chipper" Story — my own real time lesson that my first reaction to someone wasn't the truth.
• September Reset — my personal invitation to clear the slate after summer and take stock of the judgments you're carrying into the last months of 2026.

✨ Reflection Prompts:

• Who have you judged in about five seconds flat?
• Did a first impression quietly become a permanent verdict?
• What might you be missing?
• Where could curiosity replace judgment this week?
• Is someone on your team holding back because they feel you've already boxed them in?
• How would you want to be treated if you were the one who made a rough first impression?
• Who might deserve a second look?

🧠 Who This Episode Is For:

• Leaders ready to get honest about their blind spots
• Managers walking into a new team, or welcoming someone new to theirs
• High achieving women who want more curiosity and less snap judgment in how they lead
• Anyone who has made, or been on the receiving end of, a bad first impression
• Leaders who want their team to feel safe enough to show up as themselves

📩 Want to Go Deeper?

Follow Lori on LinkedIn or Instagram to continue the conversation.

• Explore Lori’s coaching, retreats, and community at loripine.com
• Consider joining Lori’s upcoming Hudson Valley retreat, October 14–16, for women ready to think differently about leadership and bring more joy into how they lead.

🎧 Subscribe to The Joy CEO Podcast
⭐️ Leave a five-star review to help other heart-centered leaders find the show
📲 Share this episode with someone who needs a reminder to pause, take inventory, and trust what’s unfolding

Transcript

Hello, and welcome to the Joy CEO Podcast. I'm your host, Lori Pyne, and today I want to ask, have you ever walked into a meeting, taken one look at somebody, and knew exactly who they were, what they were all about, and made a decision that you could sum them up precisely? You knew what they were capable of, you knew whether or not you could trust them, you knew whether or not they were going to do the job that you wanted them to do.
In fact, you knew if they were gonna be problematic or not. You had no evidence yet. You just had a read, a gut feeling. If you're new here, welcome. I am so glad you found your way to me. It is a privilege to do this podcast for ambitious women who want to lead and live with joy. I don't ever talk about the fluffy kind of joy.
I talk about strategic joy that [00:01:00] changes the way you lead and the way that you live. And to my people who keep showing up week after week, welcome back. You know I love you, and it is such a treat to be here with you again today. So judgment, we all do it. We can't help it. It's human nature. It's the kind that we pass on other people.
It's slight. We don't even always know we're doing it, and it happens in about a millisecond, without really meaning to, or without even noticing that we've done it. We're going to talk about why that instinct even exists, and why it's less reliable than it feels in the moment. I know, I know, you think that it's this intuition, you think you can probably trust yourself, but I'm going to talk to you today about why, in the [00:02:00] month of September, when this podcast airs, it's a good time for a reset.
You're just coming back from summer. Hopefully, you've had some good fun, you've made memories, you've been at the beach, you've been someplace that's restored you, and you're gonna wipe the slate clean. And this, my friends, is a good place to push the restart button. When we are judgmental of others, it's actually not what you think, and I'm gonna dive into that today.
I'm gonna tell you about a story from a very famous book that most of you have probably heard of, but I'm gonna connect those dots for you. And by the end, I think you're going to be able to catch yourself when you're doing this in rooms that you didn't even expect. So let's get into it. Are you a judgmental leader?
Do you jump to conclusions about people without [00:03:00] even meaning to? Maybe somebody walks in the room, you don't really like the way they're dressed. You think they should be more professional, and because they're not, it actually makes you question their overall business integrity. Or perhaps somebody makes a comment and you question how serious they are about their job, because perhaps it was a little too lighthearted for you.
Or somebody sends a text message and you wonder, "Is it even appropriate for me to be receiving a text message from this person?" And the list goes on and on and on ad infinitum I call this the case of the [00:04:00] FBI profiler. You meet someone and you think you already know who they are. All of your Law & Order, Special Victims Units cases come to mind, and you can profile them.
You can figure out who they are, where they've been, what they've done, and if they are going to be useful to you. Can they do the job? Can they do it well? Are they going to be the best you've ever had? Or can you sum them up in about 4.6 seconds, make a quick decision, and then do you carry that decision with you no matter what that person does?
And they cannot ever undo that. They can never change your mind because you made that split decision upon meeting them
So it might sound a little bit ridiculous, and it [00:05:00] might sound a little bit funny that as a leader in your company, likely at a very high level, that you would really do this. But guess what? We all do it. We are all human, and humans are always scanning for a threat. It's literally built into us. So when somebody new comes into a job, we want to know, are they threatening my position?
When somebody comes to present to us, we want to know, do they really know what they talk-- they're talking about? Have they walked in my shoes? Can they relate to me? And we take this and make judgments. What we really want to do, to, to do is to give people a [00:06:00] chance. I mean, we've all had a bad day. We've all probably made a terrible first impression.
But if you can, think about a time when you made a terrible first impression, but somebody gave you the grace for a redo. What if you also think about somebody made a terrible first impression on you, and you then concretized a decision about them that said, "Yeah, no, I can't trust them. Yeah, no, I don't think they're really qualified or capable, so therefore, in my mind, they're dead to me.
I'm, I-I'm not even letting them in my close circle of trusted colleagues." We all do it. Guilty as charged, I have done this[00:07:00]
But it's not that we do it that's the problem, it's how we catch ourselves and then how we correct it. There is a way to think about that first judgment as just a thought and not a fact. That first thought may be absolutely false. It's what you do with it from there that matters. Are you open-minded? Are you curious?
Are you able to ask a series of questions that will allow other bits and pieces of information in so that your brain can catch up and know that this is not dangerous, this is not a waste of your time, this is not an incredible source, it is in fact a credible source? [00:08:00] And so those are important tactics.
Malcolm Gladwell talks about this in his book called Blink. He comes up with this Warren Harding error. Warren Harding was a US president back in the early 1900 presidents, and he looked like a president, and that look alone is what got him elected to office. He has since ranked among one of the worst presidents of all time.
So what happened? He looked the part, but he couldn't actually play the part. And so judgment actually worked in his favoritism. They judged a book by the cover, but he didn't actually pack the gear. His presidency, if you look it up, is actually riddled with [00:09:00] scandal. He put his friends in cabinet positions.
Those friends went on to take bribes and, and monies for personal gain. And Warren Harding actually died in office from heart-related issues from all of the stress that was caused. Now, this same idea of the Warren Harding era, judging a book by its cover, thinking it's good, can also be the opposite. You can judge a book by its cover and actually think that it won't work out, so you'll dismiss it Malcolm Gladwell sums this up as the CEO height example.
In this separate example, Gladwell in the same book talks about the numbers of Fortune 500 CEOs and their height. So in general, in the US population, about [00:10:00] 14.5% of men are six feet tall and over. However, among Fortune 500 CEOs, that number jumps to 58%. Why? It is perceived that somebody who is tall and, quote-unquote, "strong perception" will be a good leader.
And furthermore, while less than 4% of American men are 6.2, 6 feet 2 inches or taller, nearly one-third of Fortune 500 CEOs are in that elite height bracket. So again, Malcolm Gladwell makes this argument that we are taking a perception, a judgment, and putting people in positions, and they may not deserve it [00:11:00] Now, how does that work out for us, someone like me who's only five feet one?
Well, if you're judging a book by an over six-foot cover, I would never get the job. Never, ever, ever in a million years. And so what happens in that same theory when we talk about tone of voice or how someone carries themselves, or if they're nervous, or if they fumble and make a mistake because they are worried about you judging them Here's the thing about judgment.
Underneath it all, we are all projecting what's the mood, what's our insecurity, and what is actually happening. I have had this [00:12:00] happen. There was a new person on the team. They came in a little too eager for my liking. We were in the midst of acquisition, crisis management, merging systems, bringing in new systems, and along comes Mr.
Chipper. And my first thought was, "Ew, who picked him?" And my second thought was, "What am I missing? My boss is really good at hiring people. What am I missing?" But I gotta tell you, it took me about a month to warm up to this person. So first thought, not so great. Second thought, much better. And that's what we need.
That-- It's that second thought we actually need to give some merit to. [00:13:00] You know what can happen? Is we can actually derail somebody's entire career. If I had just gone on that first thought, I could actually make a quick judgment, and because I held authority, my opinion meant something. My opinion had weight.
So if I said, "I don't like this person. This person isn't capable of doing the job," that would raise doubt in others. That isn't fair, especially if somebody's new, especially if somebody had a bad day, especially if somebody is human or nervous It would be one thing if it-- they had four or five strikes against them, but it's another thing if I'm just making a [00:14:00] one-time quick judgment and then acting as though that is a living, breathing truth about that person.
So what happens for, for your leadership? Profiling people actually costs you as the leader. People will stop bringing their full selves once they sense that you've put them into a box. Once they sense that you are not fully open to them or their ideas, they're going to know from your energy that they are now off your radar, and that is a terrible situation to be in.
If you can think about a time when e- that has ever happened to you, I know it's crappy. I know it was crappy when it happened to me. So let's talk about how to mirror this and let [00:15:00] this make sure that it lands, so that the judgment you throw outward often can be a reflection of something that you might be afraid of in yourself.
I know. That can be hard to swallow. You can easily justify, "But I show up," "But I do the job," "But I'm prepared," "But I have all the answers." Yes, and we don't rise above the level of human, so you may feel threatened. You may be overtired. You may need a break. And so if Mr. Chipper walks into your company and your team and they've got fresh ideas and fresh energy and they haven't just been through the battle you've been through, you may be like, "Who is this person?
How dare they?" First thought, not [00:16:00] so great. Next thought, "How can I be curious? What can I learn?" And the last thing we really wanna do is to blow up anybody's career, and this could backfire to actually blow up your career. So, as you dust yourself off from summer vacation, and you head back post-Labor Day, clear the slate.
Who do you need to look at differently? Who may have made a terrible first impression on you, and you've somehow put them into a box that is not that favorable for you? Is there anything you can do to be curious, to give them a second chance, to wonder, "How did they get here? What did they bring to the table?"
And, "How would I want to be [00:17:00] treated in this situation?" Now, we all know this won't go for everyone. There are people who actually deserve for you to raise an eyebrow to. But just in case there might be a person or two who deserves a little bit of your kindness, a little bit of your mercy, that might be a good way to kick off this last trimester of 2026 as we all try to kick into high gear and close out on a really strong note.
I'm Lori Pyne, the Joy CEO. I hope this leadership tip was incredibly valuable for you. Please keep sending me emails. I read every single one of them. I try to respond to you, and love that you keep reaching out. Please pass this episode along to anybody you think might be able to benefit from it. Leave a five-star review, and I will be back here with you next week.
Have a great [00:18:00] week, everybody. Thanks for listening to the Joy CEO. I hope today's conversation left you feeling seen, stretched, and a little more grounded in your own joy. If something resonated, be sure to hit subscribe, leave a five-star review, and share this episode with someone walking a similar path.
And if you're ready to take this work deeper, connect with me on LinkedIn or Instagram @loripyne, or head over to my website, loripyne.com, to learn more about coaching, retreats, and how we can work together. Because joy isn't just personal, it's powerful. And when you lead with joy, you don't just rise, you bring others with you.
Until next time, keep leading with heart, and don't forget to claim your joy.