What Does a Good Day Look Like?
- Alison Nissen
- Aug 18
- 4 min read
Why clarity may be one of the most overlooked responsibilities of leadership
It’s a deceptively complicated question: What does a good day look like?
There’s an old parable about three bricklayers doing the same work: one is laying bricks, another is constructing a wall, and the third is building a cathedral.
In corporate life, we spend a lot of time talking about the cathedral: the strategic vision, the annual goal, the major project. Employees need to know what they're building and why it matters. They also need to know when they've laid a good row of bricks.
According to Larry Coval, founder of Arcane Leadership Concepts, painting the picture of a good day, an average day, and a not-so-good day helps employees understand where they are on the success spectrum. That clarity helps build a foundation of accountability.
I had the opportunity to speak with Larry in a recent ABOVE CENTER® Leadership Podcast interview, where he shared leadership strategies from his forthcoming book, Misled: Why Almost Everything We Learned About Leadership Is Wrong and How to Fix It.
For Larry, the value is giving employees a way to look at their own day and know, “I did everything I could do. I did all the right things.”
A salesperson can do everything right today and not close the sale. A recruiter can have the conversation that ultimately leads to a great hire six months from now. A manager can spend an hour developing an employee without seeing the effect on retention until next year.
None of those outcomes are complete. Success doesn't always mean finishing the cathedral. Sometimes it means knowing the wall is taller than it was yesterday.
But to recognize that progress, employees need a clear picture of what success looks like along the way.
Too Often, We Define Success Too Far Away
Gallup researchers Ben Wigert and Corey Tatel (2024) found that fewer than half of employees reported knowing what was expected of them. In “The Great Detachment: Why Employees Feel Stuck,” they identify clarity of expectations as one of the most fundamental employee needs. Without that clarity, how can employees know what success looks like?
Organizations measure success over time: a quarter, a fiscal year, the life of a project.
Employees, however, experience that same success differently. They experience it day by day.
Annual goals tell us whether we succeeded eventually. Daily clarity allows us to identify success along the way.
Clarity lets people look at today's row of bricks and recognize a job well done.
Clarity Changes Accountability
Clarity makes accountability less about being evaluated and more about being able to gauge yourself.
The conventional view of accountability is often retrospective:
Did I hit the number?
Did I meet the goal?
Did I finish the project?
Larry's good-day concept makes accountability more immediate. If I know what a good day looks like, I don't have to wait until the end of the quarter or for my manager to evaluate how I’m doing.
When an employee can say I had a good day, or Yesterday wasn’t great, but I know why and what needs to change today, the manager doesn’t need to swoop in three months later saying: “You're not meeting expectations.” Both people have been able to see the pattern developing all along.
Once a pattern becomes visible, a leader can ask a better question: What's keeping this person from having successful days?
One bad day isn't necessarily significant. Larry explains that when someone starts “stacking bad days,” the pattern becomes an early warning sign.
Larry's philosophy is that a leader's job is to enable their people's success. It’s not just measuring it; it’s recognizing what's getting in the way of it.
From Accountability to Curiosity
Maybe we spend too much time asking whether our people are on track to have a good year and not enough time asking whether they know when they've had a good day.
When those good days aren't happening enough, good leaders stay curious.
Rather than immediately assuming someone is underperforming, curiosity asks why.
Larry separates that question into two parts: Does this person have the will to succeed? And do they have the skill to succeed?
Someone with the will but not the skill may need coaching. Someone with the skill but not the will presents a very different leadership challenge.
Curiosity keeps a leader from assuming every performance problem has the same cause. It helps them determine whether they need to develop the person, change the conditions, reset expectations, or perhaps recognize that they don't have the right person in the role.
Knowing what a good day looks like gives leaders more than a measure of performance. When the work isn’t getting done, they don’t simply count the missing bricks; they get curious about the person laying them—their skills, their motivation, and what they need to move forward.
Because cathedrals are built one good day, and one good row of bricks, at a time.
References
Wigert, B., & Tatel, C. (2024, December 2). The great detachment: Why employees feel stuck. Gallup. https://www.gallup.com/workplace/653711/great-detachment-why-employees-feel-stuck.aspx
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About the author: As the co-founder and Chief Storytelling Officer of Revel Coach, a career growth platform, Alison Nissen helps leaders perfect their business pitches and online presence through storytelling. Successful executives use key storytelling points to engage their audience and gain market share because they know good storytelling is the best form of marketing, recruiting, and fundraising. Write Your Book NOW! Mastermind enrolling now.
The Revel Coach™ Blog is provided for educational and informational purposes only and is not mental health, financial, business or legal advice. The information presented here is not intended to diagnose, treat, heal, cure or prevent any medical, mental or emotional condition. The information presented here is not a guarantee that you will obtain any results or earn any money using our content.
