.LeoneMcLaughlin has become the go-to underling whisperer for Hollywood bosses perplexed by the demanding young people who work for them. ShawnMcCreesh reports
Photo: Maggie Shannon In a parking-lot-adjacent patio behind a low-slung building in Burbank, California, one recent morning, Jeff Hasler, a Gen-Xer who runs Original Productions, which makes documentary and unscripted programming, is holding a summit with his staff. The employees, younger than he by a decade or more, sit around folding tables, some wearing combat boots, others in hoodies, munching on sandwiches. They’re here to give their boss feedback.
“Sometimes I come into situations where someone is at their last chance,” Leone McLaughlin says to me. “That conversation is ‘You like your job? Want to keep it? Then you gotta do some things differently.’ They’re usually very receptive to that.” Now, in hushed tones up and down Wilshire Boulevard, fearful agents and producers talk as though Madame Defarge Gen-Zers are knitting at Sweetgreen.
Which is basically her advice to her clients, too — people like Darren Schillace, the president of marketing for Fox Entertainment, who oversees around 150 people. He says Leone McLaughlin taught him how to manage up and down. “Most people, by the time they get Lacey,” he says, while emphasizing that this doesn’t describe him, “they’re up to their waist.” Better to recognize your possible blind spots before you get poked in the eye.