Speaker 1: Helping leaders motivate their people to a higher level of
Speaker 1: performance through strong human relations, team building, and goal of giving.
Speaker 1: This is the seven Minute Leadership Podcast with your host
Speaker 1: Paul Fellovledo.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome to the seven Minute Leadership Podcast.
Speaker 2: It's episode seven seventy four. Today's episode is called Surveillance
Speaker 2: Tech and Trust Erosion. Technology has given leaders incredible visibility
Speaker 2: into the workplace. You can track logins, monitor GPS locations,
Speaker 2: review emails, measure keyboard activity, watch security cameras, analyze productivity dashboards,
Speaker 2: and even receive AI generated reports about employee behavior. Every
Speaker 2: year technology becomes more powerful. The question is not whether
Speaker 2: you can monitor your employees. The question is whether you should.
Speaker 2: There is a line that every leader eventually has to find.
Speaker 2: Cross it, and you don't create accountability, you create suspicion.
Speaker 2: Trust has always been one of the most valuable forms
Speaker 2: of currency inside an organization. It takes months, sometimes years
Speaker 2: to build, and it can disappear in a single afternoon.
Speaker 2: Imagine you're managing a team that consistently produced excellent work.
Speaker 2: Deadlines are met, customers are happy, problems are handled, and
Speaker 2: then one day you install software that records every mouse
Speaker 2: movement and every minute of inactivity. You never explain why,
Speaker 2: you just simply announced that it's being implemented. The software
Speaker 2: may provide you with more or data. It will also
Speaker 2: provide your employees with a message we don't trust you.
Speaker 2: Whether you intended that message or not is almost irrelevant.
Speaker 2: That is how many people will hear it. Leadership has
Speaker 2: never been about collecting the most information. Leadership has always
Speaker 2: been about making the best decisions with the information that matters.
Speaker 2: Sometimes leaders confuse visibility with leadership. They aren't the same thing.
Speaker 2: I've spent most of my career in emergency services. We
Speaker 2: use cameras, GPS systems, radio recordings, electronic patient care reports,
Speaker 2: and countless forms of other documentation. Those systems exist because
Speaker 2: they improve patient care strength and accountability, protect our employees,
Speaker 2: and help us learn from difficult situations. There is a purpose,
Speaker 2: There is transparency, There are expectations. Those systems are not
Speaker 2: hidden behind closed doors waiting to surprise someone later, and
Speaker 2: that distinction matters. People rarely object to accountability. People object
Speaker 2: to feeling like suspects. Technology should remove uncertainty, not create it.
Speaker 2: And here's another problem with excessive surveillance. People eventually optimize
Speaker 2: for the measurement instead of the mission. If employees know
Speaker 2: they're being judged solely on activity, they'll increase activity, not
Speaker 2: necessarily results. Call center employees will shorten conversations instead of
Speaker 2: solving problems. Salespeople will chase easy numbers instead of building
Speaker 2: lasting relationships, and managers will spend more time proving they're
Speaker 2: busy than actually leading people. You begin rewarding appearances over outcomes,
Speaker 2: and that's a dangerous trade to make. Great organizations hire
Speaker 2: adults and treat them like adults. Poor organizations hire adults
Speaker 2: and manage them like children. If you constantly look over
Speaker 2: someone's shoulder, don't be surprised when they stop taking initiative.
Speaker 2: Independent thinking requires psychological safety. Innovation requires room to experiment.
Speaker 2: Problem solving requires confidence. Micro management slowly removes all three.
Speaker 2: Technology should never replace conversations. If you notice a pattern
Speaker 2: in someone's performance, don't immediately open another dashboard, walk into
Speaker 2: their office, pick up the phone, ask questions. There may
Speaker 2: be something your software will never detect. Stress, burn out,
Speaker 2: a family emergency, confuse, vision about expectations, or a broken process.
Speaker 2: Leadership begins where the spreadsheet ends. And here's another thought.
Speaker 2: The most dangerous. Surveillance system isn't always digital. Sometimes it's
Speaker 2: the culture. Employees begin watching each other, reporting on each other,
Speaker 2: collecting screenshots, keeping receipts, waiting for someone to make a mistake.
Speaker 2: That isn't accountability. That's fear, and fear spreads faster than trust,
Speaker 2: ever will. The best organizations build cultures where employees willingly
Speaker 2: tell leaders when something goes wrong. That only happens when
Speaker 2: people believe honesty is safer than hiding. Every time, leaders
Speaker 2: create an environment where people feel watched instead of supported,
Speaker 2: honesty becomes more expensive, Silent becomes cheaper. That's when problems
Speaker 2: start growing underground. Eventually, leadership is surprised by issues that
Speaker 2: employees saw months earlier. They didn't stay quiet because they
Speaker 2: didn't care. They stayed quiet because trust disappeared. Technology should
Speaker 2: make organizations smarter. It should never make relationships weaker. Before
Speaker 2: implementing any monitoring system, ask yourself for simple questions. Does
Speaker 2: this improve safety? Does this improve quality? Have we clearly
Speaker 2: explained why we're doing this? And would I feel respected
Speaker 2: if someone used this exact system on me? If you
Speaker 2: cannot confidently answer yes to those questions, pause before moving forward.
Speaker 2: The best leaders don't hide behind technology. They use technology
Speaker 2: to support people, not replace trust. Because at the end
Speaker 2: of the day, employees may comply with surveillance, they commit
Speaker 2: to leaders they trust and that's a lesson. No software
Speaker 2: upgrade will ever replace. So as you head into your
Speaker 2: next leadership conversation, I want you to remember this. Every
Speaker 2: new piece of technology sends a message. Make sure the
Speaker 2: message isn't I don't trust you, make it. I'm giving
Speaker 2: you better tools so we can all succeed together. Technology
Speaker 2: will continue to evolve. Trust remains one of the few
Speaker 2: competitive advantages that never goes out of style. This has
Speaker 2: been this seven minute leadership podcast and I thank you
Speaker 2: for listening.
Speaker 1: For more Paul Fell of Alito Podcasts, visit paulfellowalito dot com.