Hollywood’s Cancel-Culture Consultant Lacey Leone McLaughlin

In a parking-lot-adjacent patio bendo a Low-Slung Building in Burbank, California, One Recent Morning, Jeff Hasler, A Gen-XER WHO RUNS Original Productions, which Makes Documentary and Unscripted ProgrammingMing, Is Hollding a Summit with His Staff. The Employees, Younger than he a decade or more, sit around folding tables, some wearing combo boots, others in hoodies, munching on sandwiches. They’re here to give their boss Feedback. Why, They Wonder, Did Hasler Feel the Need to Be at everye Pitch Meeting? COULD he please explain the chain of command? And what about that deal they were to chase that was clearly never going to open?

“That was my Mistake,” Sayys Hasler, Tapping his Blue Suede Shoes. He looks pleadingly in the direction of a Judicious-Seering Woman with Chunky Tortoise-Shell sunglasses on her head who is to facilitate this intergenerational parley. She Meets His Gaza, then Turs to the Group, Mariage-Counselor Style, to Ask, “At what point did we know it was going to work out?”

She is lacey Leone McLaughlin, a consultant who has beCome the go-to underling whisperer for bosses perplexed by the very demanding Young People who Now Work for say. As one showrunner who was pitched her servings for thusands of dollars a month puts it to me, “She’s who call you need to play defensive against a town that Quick to Cancel People.”

“SOMESTE I COME INTO Situations Where Someone is at their Last Chance,” Leone McLaughlin Says to me. “That is’ you like your job? Want to keep it? They’re usually very receptive to that. “

After Harvey Weinstein‘S Fall Set off a Purge of the Entertainment Industry’s Notorious Sexual Predators, with Too Morphed Into Mean Too. Abusives titans like Scott rudin and Joss Wheedon and Ellen degeneres and Sharon WEXMAN WERE SUDDENLY CALLED TO ACCOURLY UNRENEONable, SOMESTEMES REPRESHIBLE THAT HAD BEEN AN Open Secret for Years.

At some point during the pandemic, Hollywood’s Creative Underclass Realized It Had Power-on Slack, on Twitter, and in Blind Quotes to Suddenly Hungry for WorkPlace-Misconduct Stories. ITS Champion Instagram Account Is @assistantsvsagents. One Meme Pair Language From A Job Posting-“We are Looking for Go-Getters With Thick Skin Who Thrive in A Fast-Paced Environment”-With Six Red-Flag Emoji. CAPTION: “JUST TELL WITH IT’S GOING TO BE TOXIC.” Meanwhile, the Once CommonPlace Legal-Deptation Shield Against What Used to Be Consider the Resentment-Fueled Gossip of People Who Didn’t Have What It To Make It to the Big Time, Are Seen As Warning Signs. Mary bosses are afraid to me to say anymore.

Now, in Hushed tones up and down wilshire boulevard, fearful agents and producers talk as though madame defarge gen-zers are Knitting at Sweetgreen. Have you heard the story about the producer whose caareer imploded after her assistant said she threw an iPhone charger at Him? Or the one about the boss who reprimanded an assistant for eating in a Meeting and then was toy by hr that h had to apologize? “We used to have our own assistants on the phone all the time, listening and taching notes,” Sayys One Big-Shot Producer. “But now, if you’re going to say you think you think you in trouble, or something honest, you can’t have your assistant on the phone.”

Which is Where Leone McLaughlin, WHO HAS BEEN CALLED A “Rage” Coach by The Hollywood Reporter, Comes in. “I Think, right now, People are afraid to get it work,” Sheys. “And there’s so Much to get work from a boss’s perspective.”

Maybe It Helps Leone McLaughlin That She Didn’t Grow Up in Beverly Hills, 90210, But Rather in San Diego County. Her Father was a welder, her mother a hairdresser, and her stepfather worked at a goodyear tire shop. She was ino -executive coaching in her 20s after getting at the university of la verne in california and then spending more than nine running a business program at usc. In the past two years, “My Job has not Changed,” She Says, “But I HAD to Change. I HAD TO BE MORE EMPATHETIC AND PUT MYSELF IN THEIR SHOES A LITTLE BIT, TAKE A STEP BACK AND NOT FULL SO HARD. I NEEDED TO CHILL OUT A BIT.”

WHICH IS BASICALLY HER ADVICE TO HER CLIENTS, TOO – People like Darren Schillace, The President of Marketing for Fox Entertainment, WHO OVERSEES ARUNDLE. He Says Leone McLaughlin Tough Him How to Manage Up and Down. “Most People, by the time they are get lacey,” he says, while emphasizing that this doesn’t describe Him, “They’re up to ther waist.” Better to recagine your position Blind Spots before you get poked in the eye.

AFTER FINISHES HER MORNING SESSION HELPING HASHER, Leone McLaughlin hops into her black jaguar and zips down the 101 to the 405 to next appointment. It is a one-on-ion with Krista Vernoff, The Shonda Rhimes Lieutenant and Showrunner who took over Gray’s Anatomy and produced Shameless and Charmed. We’re sitting in her leafy backyard, and a sea breeze is blowing in from the Beach. Wearing Rings of Clear Quartz and Obsidian and Rubbing a Piece of Lavender Fluorite BetWeen Her Hands while Exhaling Deeply, Vernoff is the Picture of a Stressed-Out Hollywood Exec. “Might be on the verge of a teeny-tine nervous breakdown,” She Says, Laughing. She used to work 100-hour Weeks UNIL Leone McLaughlin Tough Her How to Delegate. She’s down to about 70 hours now but desperately Needs to take three days to herself and is terrified by all that that is could go. “I’m a little World About Burying say in my work,” Says Vernoff. “Get i get high stress – The Millennials Wauld Say ‘Triggered’ – Revert to Old Coping Mechanism, Which is Control, The Feeing That I Need to All MySelf.”

In her soothing yet firm voice, leone mclaughlin instrucucts vernoff to make a list of things that will be set on the set in her absence. “When You Come Back,” Sayys Leone McLaughlin, “You’re not going to jump in and just pretend you didn’t take 72 hours off. You’re going to focus on the can be be changed.” She reminds vernoff that the last time she was away, everything was good. “It was good,” Vernoff Repeats Slowly and Nods. She Stops Nodding and Sayys, “My Eye is Starting to Twitch.”

Leone McLaughlin Began Coaching The Showrunner Four Years Ago. “Lacey came in and was like, ‘i have an mb; i’m not a therapist,’” Recalls vernoff. “Get Sound Business Logic. It”s therapi of Therapy. It ‘it’s not about my Feelings.” Hiring an Executive Coach, She Says, Means Having “to Bench Your Ego,” which is no small THING IN THISN. But it has ben Worth it. “People have heart attacks in their 50s in this industry,” Vernoff points out.

“People are tired,” Leone McLaughlin Says, digging into a plate of meatballs at an Italian jaint in venice beach as the sun lower in the sky late that day. She ticks off the pandemic, social-justice upheavals, and now the so-Called great resignation. “Four years ago, when i would coach, i’d be like, ‘okay, so help with understand what going on with this business.’ Now it’s, ‘How are you?’ “She says unil Very recently, hiing a coach was seen as something to be kept on the down low. That has Changed so much that she can now interview clients on her podcast, Unfolding Leadership. “I think the workforce has allowed it to be okay. You’re allowed to say, as a boss, ‘i’m not perfect,’ she says. “I think some of that might be generational.”

Vernoff Says for MANY YEARS she was “bewilderered” by the whippersnappers, but now they make her wonder, “What Else did i suffer this generation is unwilling to suffer through?”