In this post: Velocity Advisory Group President Brooke Page-Thompson explains why weekly one-on-ones, one direct question, and a willingness to hold hard conversations keep good people from quietly leaving. She also shares why curiosity is the skill the next generation of leaders needs most.
When Brooke Page-Thompson sees a team member pulling away week after week, skipping contributions in meetings, turning curt, caring less, she does not open a performance file. She asks them to coffee.
"Take the boss hat off," she said on Activating Greatness, the leadership podcast from Velocity Advisory Group. "I'm not here to be your manager or leader right now." Then she asks one question: Are you happy here?
"Nine out of 10 times, tears start streaming down faces because someone finally asked the question," she said.
Page-Thompson, President of Velocity, has spent her career in HR, talent management, and leadership development. She is also a mindfulness teacher and yoga instructor. Her argument is simple and uncomfortable: most disengagement is visible long before a resignation, and leaders miss it because they stop having the conversations that would reveal it.
Page-Thompson hears more leaders talking about whole human leadership, and she connects the trend to AI. As work gets automated, she said, the only way the extra time becomes meaningful is if people lean into what makes them human.
That requires dropping the split between a work self and a home self. People now question whether everything they read or watch is real, and that suspicion raises the value of authenticity. "We don't want to live in a fake world," she said. Employees are tired of performing. "It's just too exhausting to try and wear that many different hats."
She learned the cost of the alternative firsthand. Twice, bosses told her that as a direct reflection of them, she could not hold a different opinion. She left jobs like that without knowing what came next. The experience shaped the leader she wanted to become: one who finds rotation assignments and stretch projects for people with drive, and who does not need credit for it. "You're not me, and I don't own you," she said of her approach. "It's not about me. It's about you and your journey."
Page-Thompson's first defense against quiet disengagement is a calendar habit. She holds weekly one-on-ones with her team. "If you're not meeting with your people regularly, you're not going to know when the symptoms start to show up," she said. Those meetings check on work, and they also gauge how life is going.
"If you're not meeting with your people regularly, you're not going to know when the symptoms start to show up."
Brooke Page-Thompson, President, Velocity Advisory Group
She does not react to a bad day or two. The signal is a pattern: weeks of withdrawal, less contribution, and nonverbal cues that someone is struggling. That is when she sends the coffee invitation.
The answer to "Are you happy here?" sets the next step. If the person is unhappy and does not want to stay, she builds a transition plan and makes introductions to her network. If they want to stay, she asks how they got to this point and what she might be doing that contributes to the pain.
She adds one caveat for leaders. "I have to know how I am in that moment when I ask the question," she said, "because if I'm not emotionally or mentally prepared to handle what's about to come at me, it could get really messy."
FREE ONE-PAGE CHECKLIST
Use it to spot the patterns of disengagement, prepare yourself before you ask the hard question, and decide what to do with the answer.
Empathy, in Page-Thompson's view, does not replace accountability. "It can't be all wishy-washy and hugs all the time," she said. Work still has to get done, and sometimes the only kind move is a direct one. "You have to be willing to have the conversation, and if you're not, you probably shouldn't be a leader."
She pointed to a line Velocity uses in one of its programs: the relationship starts to die the day you stop talking about the things that matter. Marriages lose their luster after the first years, and jobs have honeymoon periods too. When people grow too afraid to raise problems with the person who could fix them, she said, they are probably gone within six to nine months. Good leaders lean in and ask, "How can we solve this? How do we make it better?"
Harry Barnick made the same case for difficult conversations as a leadership skill.
Page-Thompson designs and runs leadership programs for emerging leaders, and the standouts she meets share one trait. They are curious. They ask the people above them how they got there and what habits would help them stand out.
Her own career followed that path. She started on swing shift at First Data in Omaha, Nebraska, teaching workers who spoke English as a second language how to run credit card statement machines. From there she kept raising her hand, including six months in Australia running change management for a supply chain project she knew little about. "I will learn," she remembers thinking. The best opportunities of her life came from refusing to stay inside the box of her job description.
Her pick for the most underrated leadership skill heading into 2026 was the same trait. "If you're not curious, you're not going to make it," she said. Michelle Dauphinais explored why curiosity wins.
The flip side of curiosity is ego. Asked what great leaders should stop doing, Page-Thompson answered without pause: "Thinking they're the smartest person in the room." Bigger roles can feed the ego until a leader talks more than they listen and dismisses any idea that differs from their own. "If you think you're the smartest person in the room, your team's not going to stay with you," she said. "You'll have very high turnover."
Her daily habits keep her grounded. She takes five deep breaths and a moment of gratitude before getting out of bed, tends to what she calls her house health before she looks at her phone, and meditates for five minutes, often in the afternoon to close out the workday.
Brooke Page-Thompson, President of Velocity Advisory Group, looks for patterns rather than single bad days. Warning signs include an employee turning curt, caring less, pulling away from team meetings, and contributing less week after week. Nonverbal cues matter too, since many people will say they are fine when they are not. Weekly one-on-ones give managers the regular contact they need to notice these changes before disengagement turns into a resignation.
Page-Thompson recommends a private, informal setting, such as coffee, with the boss hat off. Then ask directly: Are you happy here? If the answer is no and the person wants to leave, help build a transition plan. If they want to stay, ask how they reached this point and what you might be doing that contributes to the problem. Before asking, check that you are emotionally prepared to hear the answer.
Whole human leadership means letting people bring their full, authentic selves to work rather than performing one version at the office and another at home. Brooke Page-Thompson says the idea is gaining ground as AI automates more tasks, because the time it frees only becomes meaningful when people lean into creativity and human connection. She argues that leaders who manage the whole person must also show up as whole people themselves.
According to Brooke Page-Thompson, relationships at work, like marriages, begin to fail when people stop talking about the things that matter. When employees feel too afraid to raise problems with the leader who could fix them, they tend to leave within six to nine months. She says leaders who avoid hard conversations to spare feelings end up losing the people they meant to protect.
HOW VELOCITY HELPS
Page-Thompson argues that many leaders never learn to hold hard conversations because no one held those conversations with them. Velocity's year-long Leadership Development and Emerging Leaders programs use a 70/20/10 model, cohort coaching, and reinforcement calls, and pair every participant with a Velocity Coach. That structure gives emerging leaders a year to build the habits she describes, including regular one-on-ones, direct questions, and curiosity.
The best leadership advice Page-Thompson ever received came from her father. He had desk plaques made for every person who worked for him, each bearing Rule No. 6 from the book The Art of Possibility: Don't take yourself so seriously. She has kept one since she was 21, and it sits in the middle of her desk in every office she has had.
The rule fits her larger argument. Leaders who take themselves too seriously talk instead of listening, guard their ideas, and avoid questions that might expose their own role in a problem. Leaders who hold themselves lightly can ask "Are you happy here?" and stay for the answer. That is where healthy teams start.
Hear Brooke Page-Thompson's full conversation with host Alec McChesney on Activating Greatness. Watch on YouTube, or listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Follow Brooke on LinkedIn.
FREE GUIDE
Page-Thompson catches disengagement early with weekly one-on-ones and a single direct question. This short framework helps you read what your team isn't saying in meetings, calls, and check-ins, before quiet turns into a resignation.