James Ferguson spent years running hotels. He won awards for it. Then cancer showed up and flipped his priorities upside down.
When I talked with James on Corey-osity Unleashed, he told me a story about a man named Ben. It stuck with me for weeks.
Ben wasn't James's boss. No contract tied them together. No HR policy told Ben to check in. No performance review would reward him for it. And yet, while James went through treatment, Ben stayed in touch. He kept showing up.
James summed it up in one line I keep coming back to:
"What you do when you don't have to defines who you are."
I want to talk about this line, because I think most of us get leadership backwards.
The Obligation Trap
Here's how leadership works in most companies. You get a title. The title comes with a list of duties. You run the one-to-ones. You approve the leave. You send the "thinking of you" card HR reminds you about.
None of those things are bad. But none of them tell anyone who you are, either.
When a manager checks in on a sick employee, the employee knows it's part of the job. They're grateful, sure. But somewhere in the back of their head, a small voice says, "They have to do this."
When someone with zero obligation does the same thing, the voice goes quiet. There's no angle. No box to tick. The only explanation left: the person cares.
It's why Ben's check-ins landed so hard. He didn't have a reason. He had a choice.
Your Title Is a Floor, Not a Ceiling
I've spent a lot of years around leaders. The ones people remember rarely get remembered for the things in their job description.
Nobody tells stories about the manager who submitted the quarterly forecast on time. People tell stories about the director who drove across town when their kid was in the hospital. The former boss who wrote a reference three years after they'd both left the company. The peer who noticed they'd gone quiet in meetings and asked if they were okay.
James made a point in our conversation which ties right into this. Your title gives you nothing to give others. Serving people is what makes a leader, not the org chart.
If your leadership stops where your obligations stop, you're not leading. You're administering.
The Numbers Say People Notice
This isn't only a feel-good idea. The data backs it up.
Gallup reported in 2023 only about one in four US employees strongly agree their organization cares about their wellbeing. The figure hit 49% in the spring of 2020, when companies scrambled to look after people during the pandemic. Then it slid back down near where it started.
In other words, employers proved they knew how to show care. They stopped once the pressure was off.
The same Gallup piece found employees who feel their employer cares about their wellbeing are:
- 69% less likely to actively search for a new job
- 71% less likely to report burnout
- 5x more likely to trust their leadership
Five times the trust. From people believing you care.
What People With Cancer Tell Us About Work
Cancer and Careers commissioned a 2023 Harris Poll of 908 US adults diagnosed with cancer who were working or looking for work. A few findings stood out to me.
73% said work gives them a source of pride and accomplishment critical for recovery. Work isn't a distraction from getting better. For many people, it's part of getting better.
Among employed people who told their workplace about their diagnosis, 72% felt supported by the people they work with. Half said support from coworkers improved. And 29% said their loyalty to the company went up.
Read the last one again. A cancer diagnosis, one of the worst things to happen to a person, and nearly a third came out of it more loyal to their employer.
Loyalty like this doesn't come from a policy. It happens because a colleague sent a text. Because a manager said, "Take the time. Your job will be here." Because someone like Ben kept showing up.
The Reddit Thread Which Proved the Opposite
I noticed a thread trending on Reddit this week. A boss told staff to start work earlier, then sent the explanation as a ChatGPT-written message. Over 1,800 people piled into the comments.
The earlier start wasn't what made people angry. The message was. Handing the explanation to a machine told employees, "I don't care enough to have this conversation with you."
Ben did the opposite. He did something nobody asked for, for someone who gave him nothing in return. The Reddit boss skipped the one part of the job which needed a human.
One of those two gets remembered with gratitude. The other gets turned into a meme.
Small Acts, Big Signals
You don't need a grand gesture. James is big on this. His whole Confetti Culture approach, laid out in The Confetti Culture Playbook, is about small, frequent acts which tell people they matter.
During his own treatment, James wrote thank-you notes to his nurses every Friday. Nobody made him. He chose it.
Here's what "doing it when you don't have to" looks like in practice:
- Text the person who left your team last year. Ask how the new job is going. Want nothing back.
- Check in on a colleague in another department who's been going through something hard. It's not your department. Do it anyway.
- Write the reference nobody asked for. Post a LinkedIn recommendation for someone who did great work for you years ago.
- Remember the date. The anniversary of a loss, a surgery, a first day back. Put it in your calendar and send one line.
- Show up after the crisis ends. Everyone sends flowers in week one. Almost nobody checks in at month six.
Why This Matters for Bad Bosses
My research found 99.5% of survey respondents have had one or more types of bad boss. Helping leaders stop being one of them is why I built the Behavior Awareness Tool at Step It Up HR.
When I look at the stories behind those bad bosses, a pattern shows up. Most of them didn't break rules. They did the minimum. They met their obligations and not one inch more. They treated people as a line on a spreadsheet, not a human with a life outside the office.
The fix isn't a new policy. It's a new habit. Do something decent, today, for someone you owe nothing.
Who Are You When Nobody's Keeping Score?
Ben had no idea a hotel manager turned culture coach would tell his story on a podcast. He had no idea it would end up in a blog post. He did it because it was the right thing to do.
This is the test. Not what you do when your boss is watching. Not what you do when HR sends the reminder. What you do when there's no reason at all.
So here's my question for you. Think of one person you have zero obligation to... a former colleague, someone on another team, an old boss. What's one small thing you'll do for them this week?
Then go do it. Don't wait until you have to.