Speaker 1: Helping leaders motivate their people to a higher level of
Speaker 1: performance through strong human relations, team building, and goal achieving.
Speaker 1: This is the seven Minute Leadership Podcast with your host
Speaker 1: Paul Felloledo.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome to the seven Minute Leadership Podcast.
Speaker 2: It's episode five eighty one. Today we're talking about something
Speaker 2: most leaders say that they value, but few truly commit
Speaker 2: to disaster dry runs. I'm not talking about a binder
Speaker 2: on a shelf. I'm not talking about a policy that
Speaker 2: checks a box. I'm talking about actually practicing what you
Speaker 2: will do when things break, when people panic, when systems fail,
Speaker 2: and when time starts working against you. In emergency services,
Speaker 2: we live by drills, fire drills, mask casualty drills, active
Speaker 2: threat drills, communication failures, weather events, power outages. We run
Speaker 2: scenarios that we hope never happen because we know one
Speaker 2: thing to be true. The first time you do something
Speaker 2: should never be during the real disaster, and leadership works
Speaker 2: the same way. Most leadership failures during a crisis are
Speaker 2: not because leaders are bad people. They fail because they're unprepared.
Speaker 2: They freeze, they overthink, they look for permission. They default
Speaker 2: to hope instead of action, and hope is not a
Speaker 2: plan a disaster. Dry run is leadership rehearsal. It is
Speaker 2: the difference between reacting and responding. It is the difference
Speaker 2: between chaos and control. Here's what I've learned from real disasters.
Speaker 2: Stress does not make you rise to the occasion. Stress
Speaker 2: makes you fall to your level of preparation. If you've
Speaker 2: never practiced tough conversations, you will avoid them when emotions
Speaker 2: are high. If you never practiced decision making with incomplete information,
Speaker 2: you will stall when clarity is missing. If you've never
Speaker 2: practiced delegation under pressure, you will try to do everything
Speaker 2: yourself and become the bottleneck. Dry runs expose weak spots
Speaker 2: while the cost is low. Think about aviation. Pilots spend
Speaker 2: hours in simulators practicing engine failures, bad weather, and instrument malfunctions.
Speaker 2: They're not doing it because flying is dangerous every day.
Speaker 2: They're doing it because when something goes wrong, there's no
Speaker 2: time to learn. Leadership has its own simulators, we just
Speaker 2: rarely use them. A dry run can be simple, it
Speaker 2: can be uncomfortable, It can be hypothetical, but it must
Speaker 2: be intentional. Ask your team questions like these, what happens
Speaker 2: if our top performer quits tomorrow? What happens if our
Speaker 2: systems go down for forty eight hours? What happens if
Speaker 2: a mistake goes public? What happens if you're unavailable and
Speaker 2: someone else has to lead? And then sit back and listen.
Speaker 2: You will quickly find gaps and communication, authority, and confidence.
Speaker 2: And that's the point. Dry runs are not about predicting
Speaker 2: the future. They're about training your brain and your team
Speaker 2: to move forward when things feel unfamiliar. This is where
Speaker 2: real leadership shows up. High consequence moments demand leaders who
Speaker 2: have already thought through the hard parts. Dry runs teach
Speaker 2: leaders to recognize those moments before they spiral. And here's
Speaker 2: a hard truth. If your organization cannot survive without you,
Speaker 2: you have not built leadership. You have built depends. Dry
Speaker 2: runs force you to test that reality. They also build trust.
Speaker 2: When people know there is a plan, even a rough one,
Speaker 2: Anxiety drops, confidence rises, execution improves. I've watched teams handle
Speaker 2: real disasters better than minor inconveniences because they practiced the
Speaker 2: big stuff and ignored the small stuff. That is backwards.
Speaker 2: Leaders should rehearse the moments that would cause the most
Speaker 2: damage if mishandled. So here's a simple framework you can use. First,
Speaker 2: identify one realistic worst case scenario, not fantasy, not apocalypse,
Speaker 2: something that could actually happen. Second, walk through it step
Speaker 2: by step with your team. Who decides, who communicates, who documents,
Speaker 2: who supports. Third, look for friction points, confusion, overlap, silence,
Speaker 2: has hesitation. Those are leadership gaps showing themselves. And then fourth,
Speaker 2: fix one thing, not everything, one improvement every dry run.
Speaker 2: This is how strong cultures are built, not through slogans,
Speaker 2: but through repetition. And here's the bonus. Lesson dry runs
Speaker 2: also train emotional control. People learn how they react under
Speaker 2: pressure before it counts. That awareness alone makes better leaders.
Speaker 2: And think about timely my brand mascot, the hourglass figure
Speaker 2: I introduced last year on my website. He reminds us
Speaker 2: that time disappears fastest during a crisis. Dry runs by
Speaker 2: you time before the clock starts screaming. So, if you're
Speaker 2: leading a business, a nonprofit, a public safety organization, or
Speaker 2: even a family, ask yourself this question. When things go wrong,
Speaker 2: are we guessing or executing? The answer tells you everything
Speaker 2: you need to know about your readiness. So leadership is
Speaker 2: not proven when things are calm, it is proven when
Speaker 2: the plan actually gets tested. Disaster dry runs are not pessimistic,
Speaker 2: they are responsible. They respect the people who demand on you.
Speaker 2: Most practice does not eliminate risk, but it dramatically improves survival.
Speaker 2: So run the drill now while the stakes are low,
Speaker 2: so you're not inventing leadership under pressure later. This has
Speaker 2: been the seven Minute Leadership Podcast, and I thank you
Speaker 2: for listening.
Speaker 1: For more Paul Fell of Alito Podcasts, visit paulfellowalito dot
Speaker 1: com