Speaker 1: Helping leaders motivate their people to a higher level of
Speaker 1: performance through strong human relations, team building, and golajieving. This
Speaker 1: is the seven Minute Leadership Podcast with your host Paul
Speaker 1: Fello Aledo.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome to the seven Minute Leadership Podcast.
Speaker 2: It's episode six oh five. Today's episode is called the
Speaker 2: grocery cart theory. I want you to picture something simple.
Speaker 2: You pull into a grocery store parking lot, you grab
Speaker 2: a cart, you shop, you come out to your vehicle,
Speaker 2: you load your groceries. You're tired, distracted, maybe running late.
Speaker 2: And now there's that moment at the end. The cart
Speaker 2: is empty, your car is full, and the cart is
Speaker 2: ten maybe twenty stalls away. No one is watching. There
Speaker 2: is no reward for doing the right thing. There is
Speaker 2: no punishment for just leaving it there and walking away.
Speaker 2: Experts call this the grocery cart theory. The idea is
Speaker 2: simple and uncomfortable at the same time. Returning the cart
Speaker 2: is one of the purest measures of character because it
Speaker 2: exists outside of incentives, no praise, no gold star, and
Speaker 2: no consequences either. And leadership lives in that exact space.
Speaker 2: Here's why this matters. Most people behave well when rules
Speaker 2: are clear and consequences are loud. People show up on
Speaker 2: time when there's a time clock. They follow policies. When
Speaker 2: HR is watching, they act professional when the boss is
Speaker 2: in the room. That's not leadership. That's compliance. Leadership shows
Speaker 2: up when there's no scoreboard. Leadership shows up when the
Speaker 2: cart return is optional. The person who puts the cart
Speaker 2: back isn't doing it for applause. They're doing it because
Speaker 2: they understand impact. They know that a loose cart can
Speaker 2: roll into someone else's car. They know the employee collecting
Speaker 2: carts didn't create the mess. They know order matters even
Speaker 2: when it's invisible. That's responsibility without supervision. That's empathy without
Speaker 2: recognition in those are all leadership muscles. I've spent my
Speaker 2: career watching people in high pressure environments, in ambulance based
Speaker 2: emergency scenes, command posts, conference rooms, and the pattern is
Speaker 2: always the same. The best leaders do the small things
Speaker 2: right when no one is tracking them. They wipe the
Speaker 2: table after a meeting, they reset the room before they leave.
Speaker 2: They return the cart. Here's the uncomfortable part. People who
Speaker 2: don't return the cart usually have a reason ready it's raining, busy,
Speaker 2: someone else will get it. The stores hire people for
Speaker 2: that it's not their job, and that language should sound familiar.
Speaker 2: It's not my role, it's not my problem, that's above
Speaker 2: my pay grade. That mindset doesn't stay in parking lots,
Speaker 2: It walks straight into your workplace. Those same people skip handoffs,
Speaker 2: they leave messes for the next shift. They avoid accountability
Speaker 2: because technically no rule was broken. They operate in the
Speaker 2: gray and call it efficiency. But leadership isn't about doing
Speaker 2: what you can get away with. Leadership is about doing
Speaker 2: what holds the line. The grocery cart theory exposes something deeper.
Speaker 2: It shows who self governs, who doesn't need pressure to
Speaker 2: do the right things, who understands that shared space is
Speaker 2: only work when people care beyond them sels. And this
Speaker 2: is where leaders miss the lesson. You can't mandate cart behavior,
Speaker 2: You can't policy your way into character. You can't KPI empathy.
Speaker 2: What you can do is model it. Your team watches
Speaker 2: how you handle the little things, how you leave a room,
Speaker 2: how you talk about people who aren't present, how you
Speaker 2: respond when mistakes don't trace back to a name. They
Speaker 2: watch whether you return the cart. If you want a
Speaker 2: culture of ownership, stop rewarding flash and start noticing follow
Speaker 2: through pay attention to who fixes problems they didn't create,
Speaker 2: Who cleans up without being asked, Who thinks two steps
Speaker 2: ahead for the next person. Those are your real leaders.
Speaker 2: Titles optional. Here's a question worth sitting with. If someone
Speaker 2: followed you around for a week and only judged your
Speaker 2: leadership by what you did when no one asked you
Speaker 2: to do it, what would they see? That question cuts
Speaker 2: deep because it bypasses performance reviews and LinkedIn posts. It
Speaker 2: gets straight to habits. Leadership is built in these quiet choices,
Speaker 2: the unnoticed decisions, the extra step taken without a witness.
Speaker 2: Returning the grocery cart doesn't make someone a saint, but
Speaker 2: it signals something important. It signals discipline, awareness, respect for
Speaker 2: the system and the people inside of it, and over time,
Speaker 2: those signals stack. High performing teams aren't built by dramatic speeches.
Speaker 2: They're built by leaders who return the cart every single
Speaker 2: time and never talk about it. So here's your takeaway.
Speaker 2: If you want to know who you can trust with
Speaker 2: more of responsibility, stop listening to what people say and
Speaker 2: start watching what they do when there's no upside. If
Speaker 2: you want to become a better leader yourself, start there
Speaker 2: in the parking lot in the margins, in the moments
Speaker 2: that feel too small to matter, because those moments are
Speaker 2: the job. Leadership isn't proven when the lights are on,
Speaker 2: it's proven when no one's keeping score. Return the cart,
Speaker 2: hold the standard and understand that integrity doesn't need an
Speaker 2: audience to exist. And if you want more free leadership resources,
Speaker 2: head over to Paul Falavalido dot com click on free Stuff.
Speaker 2: I have over twenty five free leadership documents that you
Speaker 2: can download today. This has been the seven minute Leadership
Speaker 2: podcast and I thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: For more Paul Fell of Alito Podcasts, visit paulfellowalito dot
Speaker 1: com