Speaker 1: Helping leaders motivate their people to a higher level of
Speaker 1: performance through strong human relations, team building, and goala giving.
Speaker 1: This is the seven Minute Leadership Podcast with your host
Speaker 1: Paul fella Aledo.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome to the seven Minute Leadership Podcast.
Speaker 2: It's episode seven to seventy five. Today's episode is called
Speaker 2: leaders Who Notice the Small Stuff. There is an old
Speaker 2: saying that little things mean a lot. Leadership proves that
Speaker 2: statement every single day. Many leaders spend their time chasing
Speaker 2: the next big initiative. They focus on strategic plans, quarterly reports,
Speaker 2: budget meetings, hiring decisions, and organizational growth. Those things absolutely matter.
Speaker 2: The problem is that employees rarely remember your spreadsheet. They
Speaker 2: remember whether you noticed. Did you notice they stayed late?
Speaker 2: Did you notice they looked exhausted? Did you notice they
Speaker 2: solved a problem before it became your problem? Did you
Speaker 2: notice that someone had been unusually quiet for the past week.
Speaker 2: Leadership credibility is rarely built during major announcements. It's built
Speaker 2: in hundreds of small observations that tell people, I see
Speaker 2: you think about the best leader that you ever worked for.
Speaker 2: The odds are you probably don't remember every speech they
Speaker 2: gave or every meeting that they led you probably remember
Speaker 2: something much smaller. Maybe they remembered your child's name. Maybe
Speaker 2: they congratulated you after earning a certification. Maybe they noticed
Speaker 2: your hard work when nobody else did. Those moments stay
Speaker 2: with people because they communicate something powerful. You matter. In
Speaker 2: emergency services, I've watched experienced officers walk into a station
Speaker 2: and immediately notice that something feels different. The truck isn't
Speaker 2: parked quite right, equipment is sitting in the wrong place,
Speaker 2: someone who usually jokes around is suddenly quiet, or the
Speaker 2: whiteboard hasn't been updated yet. Those aren't random observations, their
Speaker 2: leadership observations. The small stuff tells a story long before
Speaker 2: the big problems show up. The same thing happens in
Speaker 2: every business. Customer complaints usually don't appear overnight, Employee turnover
Speaker 2: rarely begins with someone submitting a resignation letter, safety problems
Speaker 2: don't magically arrive one Monday morning, and culture doesn't collapse
Speaker 2: in a single afternoon. There are always clues. The leader
Speaker 2: who notices the small stuff catches problems while they're still
Speaker 2: inexpensive toy fix. The leaders who ignore the small stuff
Speaker 2: usually find themselves managing expensive emergencies and here's something that
Speaker 2: I've learned over the years. Employees are constantly sending leadership signals.
Speaker 2: Sometimes they're verbal, sometimes they're behavioral, sometimes they're emotional. A
Speaker 2: leader who pays attention can read those signals long before
Speaker 2: anyone says I'm thinking about leaving. The employee who stops
Speaker 2: volunteering ideas, the person who suddenly becomes chronically late, the
Speaker 2: top performer who no longer smiles, the new employee who
Speaker 2: hasn't asked a question in days. Those aren't inconveniences, they're information.
Speaker 2: Leadership is observation before its intervention. The same principle applies
Speaker 2: to positive leadership. Notice improvement, notice effort, notice consistency. Notice
Speaker 2: someone quietly helping a teammate without expecting recognition. People often
Speaker 2: think recognition requires expensive award programs. It doesn't. Sometimes it's
Speaker 2: a thirty second conversation I saw what you did yesterday,
Speaker 2: thank you, or I appreciate how you handled that. Those
Speaker 2: few words can carry someone through an entire week. People
Speaker 2: want to feel that their work has meaning. Being noticed
Speaker 2: tells them that it does. One of the easiest leadership
Speaker 2: habits you can develop is slowing yourself down enough to
Speaker 2: actually see what's happening around you. Walk through your workplace
Speaker 2: without looking at your phone, sit in the break room
Speaker 2: for ten minutes, ride along with your crews, Visit departments
Speaker 2: that aren't yours, Listen more than you speak, Observe before
Speaker 2: you evaluate. Great leaders gather information that never appear in
Speaker 2: a report. And here's another thought. If employees believe you
Speaker 2: only notice mistakes, they'll spend their energy hiding them. If
Speaker 2: employees believe you notice effort, improvement and integrity, they'll bring
Speaker 2: problems before they become disasters. What you consistently noticed becomes
Speaker 2: what people consistently value. That's how culture is built, not
Speaker 2: through posters, not through corporate bs, through repeated attention to
Speaker 2: behaviors that matter. So I challenge you today to notice
Speaker 2: one thing you normally overlook. Find one employee who's quietly
Speaker 2: carrying more than their share. Notice the clean workspace someone
Speaker 2: maintains every day. Notice the person who always arrives prepared,
Speaker 2: Notice the teammate who consistently helps others succeed, and then
Speaker 2: tell them. Leadership doesn't always require a grand speed each
Speaker 2: Sometimes it requires paying attention to what everyone else walks past.
Speaker 2: The smallest observations often produce the biggest impact because people
Speaker 2: rarely forget the leader who truly saw them. So as
Speaker 2: you head into your day, remember this leadership isn't measured
Speaker 2: only by the decisions you make. It's also measured by
Speaker 2: the details you refuse to overlook. The smallest moments often
Speaker 2: become the biggest memories for the people who follow you.
Speaker 2: Be the leader who notices and if you want more
Speaker 2: free leadership resources, head over to Paulfalovalito dot com and
Speaker 2: click on free Stuff. I have over twenty five free
Speaker 2: leadership documents you can download and start using today. This
Speaker 2: has been the seven minute Leadership podcast and I thank
Speaker 2: you for listening.
Speaker 1: For more Paul fell of Alito podcasts, visit Paulfelovalito dot
Speaker 1: com