Speaker 1: Helping leaders motivate their people to a higher level of
Speaker 1: performance through strong human relations, team building, and goalajiving. 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 five forty four. Today. I want to give
Speaker 2: you something that will change how you lead starting today.
Speaker 2: It is a simple habit, A lens you can carry
Speaker 2: in your pocket, and once you start using it, you
Speaker 2: will never look at your conversations the same way again.
Speaker 2: I call it emotional return on investment. You already measure
Speaker 2: the return on investment of money, time, effort, and resources.
Speaker 2: Leaders do that all day long. One thing most leaders
Speaker 2: never track is the emotional return they leave behind after
Speaker 2: every interaction. This one idea explains why some teams thrive
Speaker 2: while others crumble, even when everything else on the surface
Speaker 2: looks the same. Here is the question to ask, after
Speaker 2: every conversation, meeting, email, hallway, chat, shift change, or coaching moment,
Speaker 2: did I leave this person more energized, less energized, or neutral?
Speaker 2: That is emotional ROI and it is one of the
Speaker 2: cleanest mirrors you can hold up to your leadership. Let
Speaker 2: me tell you how I learned this Many years ago.
Speaker 2: I was leading a project that was running hot pressure. Everywhere.
Speaker 2: People were tired and stretched. I started noticing something strange.
Speaker 2: There were two employees who always walked into my office
Speaker 2: with the same body language, shoulders slightly forward in a
Speaker 2: quiet hesitation, like they were bracing for impact. I kept
Speaker 2: thinking it was the project. Then one day I stepped
Speaker 2: back and tracked my emotional ROI. I asked myself the
Speaker 2: same question I'm asking you, what did they get from me?
Speaker 2: After each interaction and every time, I realized I was
Speaker 2: giving them urgency without clarity, intensity without reassurance, and feedback
Speaker 2: without any direction. My energy was costing them confidence. That
Speaker 2: was the return I was giving. The moment I realized
Speaker 2: that that was what was happening, everything shifted for me.
Speaker 2: Emotional ROI became a habit. Then it became second nature.
Speaker 2: Then it became a standard. I hold myself too every day.
Speaker 2: And here's why this works. Patterns appear. You start to
Speaker 2: see who you elevate, who you accidentally drain, who you
Speaker 2: stay neutral with, and most importantly, what those patterns say
Speaker 2: about how you show up. Leaders love to think their
Speaker 2: intentions matter the most, but emotional ROI exposes the reality
Speaker 2: how did they feel when they walked away from you?
Speaker 2: Because that feeling becomes the story they tell themselves about
Speaker 2: working with you. Enough of those stories stitch together creates
Speaker 2: the culture of the team, and that is why emotional
Speaker 2: ROI becomes one of the best culture scorecards that you
Speaker 2: could ever use. So let me show you how to
Speaker 2: use this at a practical level. You don't need a
Speaker 2: long system. You need a note on your phone or
Speaker 2: a page in your notebook. After every interaction, put a
Speaker 2: quick mark beside one of these three letters E, D
Speaker 2: or N, Energized, drained or neutral. It takes two seconds.
Speaker 2: At the end of the week, review it. That review
Speaker 2: is where the gold is. Maybe you'll see that you
Speaker 2: energize your top performers but drain your new hires. That
Speaker 2: tells you your coaching style needs more reassurance. Maybe you
Speaker 2: will see that you stay neutral with peers, which means
Speaker 2: your communication style feels transactional. Neutral feels safe, but it
Speaker 2: rarely inspires. Maybe you'll see that one specific person drains
Speaker 2: you every time. That means you have an unresolved issue
Speaker 2: with them that you have not addressed and it is
Speaker 2: starting to leak into the culture. Emotional ROI exposes these
Speaker 2: things so you can fix them before they grow. Now
Speaker 2: here is your action move In every one on one conversation,
Speaker 2: give one piece of energy, rich feedback, recognition, clarity, or purpose.
Speaker 2: Pick one and deliver it in a clean sentence. Recognition
Speaker 2: sounds like I saw how you handled that situation yesterday
Speaker 2: and it made the team better. Clarity sounds like here
Speaker 2: is the outcome I need from you next, so you
Speaker 2: know exactly what success looks like. And purpose sounds like
Speaker 2: what you were doing here matters because it directly affects
Speaker 2: the experience for the people we serve. Those sentences cost
Speaker 2: you nothing, and they give people fuel that lasts for days.
Speaker 2: That is emotional ROI in action, because you are intentionally
Speaker 2: sending someone out of that conversation with more energy than
Speaker 2: they came into it with. And if you do this
Speaker 2: for one month, something big will happen. People will start
Speaker 2: walking into meetings with less tension. Team conversations will feel smoother.
Speaker 2: You will see fewer defensive reactions. You will notice people
Speaker 2: volunteering ideas instead of protecting themselves. That shift is not luck,
Speaker 2: It is leadership math. The more emotional ROI you put in,
Speaker 2: the more energy the team produces. Leaders who ignore emotional
Speaker 2: ROI always wonder why their teams crumble slowly without a
Speaker 2: visible cause. Leaders who track it understand why their teams
Speaker 2: stay resilient even when things get tough. It always comes
Speaker 2: back to the energy you circulate. So here is your
Speaker 2: challenge for the next seven days, your emotional ROI and
Speaker 2: commit to one energy rich sentence in every one on one.
Speaker 2: Do this and watch the patterns reveal themselves. Patterns tell
Speaker 2: the truth and once you know the truth, change becomes easy.
Speaker 2: And before we wrap up, I want to let you
Speaker 2: know that my YouTube channel is now home to leadership
Speaker 2: content from the show. I'm adding leadership short videos built
Speaker 2: from the strongest moments in each episode, and I will
Speaker 2: be uploading select full video interviews too. So if YouTube
Speaker 2: is your platform, head over to my channel and subscribe.
Speaker 2: Link is in the description of the show and on
Speaker 2: my website. Your support there helps push this message to
Speaker 2: more leaders who need it around the world. 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 Podcast, visit Paul Fell
Speaker 1: of a etail dot com