Speaker 1: Helping leaders motivate their people to a higher level of
Speaker 1: performance through strong human relations, team building, and golajiving. This
Speaker 1: is the seven Minute Leadership Podcast with your host Paul Fellavaledo.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome to the seven Minute Leadership Podcast.
Speaker 2: It's episode six point eighty three. Let's talk about something
Speaker 2: that is breaking teams, families, friendships, and entire organizations apart. Politics.
Speaker 2: And here's the part that most leaders get wrong. This
Speaker 2: is not about bad people. This is about good people
Speaker 2: who see the world completely differently. That is what makes
Speaker 2: this so dangerous and so important for you as a
Speaker 2: leader to understand, because if you walk into this thinking
Speaker 2: one side is right and the other side is wrong,
Speaker 2: you are already lost control of the room. I want
Speaker 2: you to picture this. Two of your best employees. Both
Speaker 2: show up early, both work hard, both care about the mission,
Speaker 2: Both would go out of their way to help a coworker,
Speaker 2: and yet the second politics comes up, they can't stand
Speaker 2: each other. What changed. Nothing about their character changed. What
Speaker 2: changed is perception. Politics is not about facts the way
Speaker 2: we think it is. It is about identity. It is
Speaker 2: about values. It is about what someone believes is right,
Speaker 2: fair and worth protecting and When you challenge someone's politics,
Speaker 2: you were not challenging their opinion. You were challenging who
Speaker 2: they believe they are. That is why conversations go from
Speaker 2: zero to nuclear so fast. Now let's take this into
Speaker 2: a leadership lens. As a leader, you are not there
Speaker 2: to referee a political debate. You were there to protect
Speaker 2: the mission, the culture, and the performance of your team,
Speaker 2: and politics, if unmanaged, will quietly erode all three. Let
Speaker 2: me give you a real world example. Go back to
Speaker 2: the American Civil War. Brothers fought brothers, neighbors turned on
Speaker 2: each other. These were not evil people on both sides.
Speaker 2: These were people who believed deeply in what they thought
Speaker 2: was right, and that belief was strong enough to divide
Speaker 2: a nation. Now fast forward to today. We are not
Speaker 2: fighting on battlefields, but we are fighting in boardrooms, breakrooms
Speaker 2: and group chats. Same human behavior, different environment. So what
Speaker 2: does a strong leader do with this? First, you set
Speaker 2: the standard, not a suggestion, a standard. Your workplace is
Speaker 2: not a political arena, it is a performance arena. You
Speaker 2: were there to serve customers, patients, clients, missions, whatever your
Speaker 2: world is. Politics does not get to hijack that. And
Speaker 2: you have to say that clearly. Second, you separate respect
Speaker 2: from agreement. This is where most teams fail. People think
Speaker 2: if I disagree with you, I don't respect you, and
Speaker 2: that's wrong. You can completely disagree with someone and still
Speaker 2: respect their work ethic, their contribution, and their value to
Speaker 2: the team. Leaders need to model this. If your team
Speaker 2: sees you roll your eyes, shut people down, or make
Speaker 2: sarcastic comments, they will follow your lead. If they see
Speaker 2: you stay calm, listen, and redirect, they will follow that too. Third,
Speaker 2: you recognize the emotional load. Politics today is not casual.
Speaker 2: It is personal. People are carrying stress from news cycles,
Speaker 2: social media, and constant noise. They walk into your workplace
Speaker 2: already charged up, so when something small gets said, it explodes.
Speaker 2: You have to read the room. This is where your
Speaker 2: red key leadership comes into play. These are high consequence moments.
Speaker 2: You do not ignore them. You step in early. You
Speaker 2: redirect the conversation. You protect the environment before its spirals. Fourth,
Speaker 2: you create a shared identity that is stronger than politics.
Speaker 2: This is one of the most powerful leadership moves you
Speaker 2: can make. If your team identifies more with their political
Speaker 2: beliefs than they do with your mission, you are going
Speaker 2: to lose control. But if they identify as a high
Speaker 2: performing team, as professionals, as people who take pride in
Speaker 2: what they do, that becomes the anchor, That becomes the
Speaker 2: thing that keeps them aligned even when they disagree. Think
Speaker 2: about elite teams, military units, flight crews, emergency response teams.
Speaker 2: There's no time for political division when the mission is
Speaker 2: on the line. The mission wins always, and that is
Speaker 2: the culture you have to build. Now here's where I
Speaker 2: want to challenge you. Look at your own leadership. Are
Speaker 2: you contributing to the divide even unintentionally? Are you making
Speaker 2: comments that signal where you stand. Are you allowing certain
Speaker 2: conversations to happen because you agree with them while shutting
Speaker 2: others down? Your team is watching everything you do. Leadership
Speaker 2: is not neutral. Even your silence sends a message. If
Speaker 2: you allow political division to grow unchecked, it will show
Speaker 2: up in performance. It will show up in communication breakdowns,
Speaker 2: it will show up in people refusing to help each other,
Speaker 2: and before you know it, your culture is fractured. So
Speaker 2: here's your play. Set the standard model, respect, read the
Speaker 2: emotional environment, anchor your team to the mission, and hold
Speaker 2: the line. Because this is not about controlling what people
Speaker 2: believe It is about controlling how they behave inside your organization,
Speaker 2: and that is your job every single day. At the
Speaker 2: end of the day, good people will always have different views.
Speaker 2: That is not the problem. The problem is when those
Speaker 2: differences start to weaken the team. Your job as a
Speaker 2: leader is to keep people focused on what matters most,
Speaker 2: the mission, the standard, and the way you treat each other.
Speaker 2: If you can do that, you don't eliminate the vision,
Speaker 2: You manage it, and that is real leadership. 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 com.