Speaker 1: Helping leaders motivate their people to a higher level of
Speaker 1: performance through strong human relations, team building, and gola giving.
Speaker 1: This is the seven Minute Leadership Podcast with your host
Speaker 1: Paul fella Aledo.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome to the seven Minute Leadership Podcast.
Speaker 2: It's episode seven twenty eight. Today we're talking about something
Speaker 2: that almost nobody teaches anymore. Why calm leaders win loud rooms.
Speaker 2: We live in a world that rewards volume. The loudest
Speaker 2: voice in the meeting gets attention, The fastest response gets praised,
Speaker 2: The strongest opinion gets remembered. The person with the most
Speaker 2: confidence often gets mistaken for the person with the best answer.
Speaker 2: But leadership is not karaoke. Leadership is not about who
Speaker 2: grabs the microphone. Leadership is about influence, and influence behaves
Speaker 2: differently than noise. So I want you to picture something.
Speaker 2: You walk into a room where people are upset. People
Speaker 2: are interrupting each other. Someone is frustrated, someone feels unheard.
Speaker 2: Somebody already made up their mind before the meeting even started.
Speaker 2: You can feel it. The room feels hot. Now imagine
Speaker 2: two leaders. Leader number one comes in and matches the energy.
Speaker 2: Voices get louder, faster, talking, stronger, opinions and more interruptions,
Speaker 2: and Leader number two walks in slower speaks, lower listens first,
Speaker 2: pauses before answering which room do you think settles first?
Speaker 2: Almost always the second one, because emotions spread, but calm
Speaker 2: spreads too. One of the biggest myths in leadership is
Speaker 2: that calm equals weakness, and I think that's completely backward.
Speaker 2: Calm is expensive. Anybody can lose control, anybody can react,
Speaker 2: anybody can get defensive. Remaining calm while pressure is hitting
Speaker 2: you from five directions at once requires discipline. Think about
Speaker 2: pilots when an alarm goes off and the cockpits. Pilots
Speaker 2: do not start yelling. When emergency responders arrive at a scene,
Speaker 2: the best ones are rarely the loudest. When a scuba
Speaker 2: instructor sees a student panic underwater, they slow down because
Speaker 2: panic underwater multiplies danger. Pressure rewards calm. That is one
Speaker 2: of the reasons I talk so much about red key leadership.
Speaker 2: Routine moments and high consequence moments are not the same thing.
Speaker 2: Routine moments let you sur vibe. Red key moments define
Speaker 2: your reputation, and in those moments, people are watching something
Speaker 2: very specific, not what you say. They're watching how you
Speaker 2: say it. I remember hearing a phrase years ago. The
Speaker 2: person who controls the pace often controls the room. And
Speaker 2: that's stuck with me. Because loud rooms have an invisible rule,
Speaker 2: everybody unconsciously starts competing for oxygen. People talk over each other,
Speaker 2: people defend positions instead of solving problems. People become attached
Speaker 2: to being right. Calm leaders interrupt that pattern, not by
Speaker 2: force by changing the rhythm. So try this next time
Speaker 2: somebody unloads frustration on you. Do not respond immediately, pause
Speaker 2: for a few seconds, and those few seconds will feel
Speaker 2: like an eternity, and then say tell me more, and
Speaker 2: watch what happens. People often burn themselves out emotionally when
Speaker 2: they feel heard. You don't have to win every emotional battle.
Speaker 2: You have to move the room forward. And another thing
Speaker 2: calm leaders understand is silence is a leadership tool. People
Speaker 2: get uncomfortable with silence. That discomfort causes people to reveal information.
Speaker 2: Someone proposes an idea, everybody looks at the leader. The
Speaker 2: leader says nothing, and five seconds pass. Suddenly someone else
Speaker 2: starts speaking. Then another person now the room, gives you data.
Speaker 2: The loud leader fills silence. The calm leader studies silence.
Speaker 2: There is a difference. And before somebody says this only
Speaker 2: works for quiet personalities, this is not introvert leadership. This
Speaker 2: is intentional leadership. You can be energetic and calm, you
Speaker 2: can be charismatic and calm, and you can be direct
Speaker 2: and calm. Calm does not mean passive. Calm means controlled.
Speaker 2: So I want to give you a challenge for the
Speaker 2: next week. Every time tension rises around you, ask yourself
Speaker 2: one question. Do I want to contribute energy or do
Speaker 2: I want to direct energy? Because those are different jobs.
Speaker 2: Anybody can increase temperature, leaders regulate temperature. Think about a thermostat.
Speaker 2: Thermostats do not scream at the room. They quietly change
Speaker 2: the environment. That's leadership. And here's something that took me
Speaker 2: years to learn. People remember how leaders made them feel
Speaker 2: during pressure. Years later, nobody remembers the exact meeting agenda.
Speaker 2: Nobody remembers the spreadsheet or the exact wording. People do
Speaker 2: remember did this leader make me feel safe? Did this
Speaker 2: leader make me feel stupid? Did this leader create clarity?
Speaker 2: Did this leader stay steady? That becomes your reputation, not
Speaker 2: your title, not your office, not your badge, your emotional footprint.
Speaker 2: And there is another hidden advantage to calm calm leaders.
Speaker 2: Hear things loud leaders miss because when your brain is
Speaker 2: busy performing leadership, it cannot observe leadership. You miss body language,
Speaker 2: you miss hesitation, you miss small warning signs, you miss
Speaker 2: the sentence somebody almost said. Calm buys awareness. Awareness buys
Speaker 2: better decisions, and better decisions build trust. So the next
Speaker 2: time you walk into a loud room, resist the urge
Speaker 2: to compete. Lower your voice, slow your pace, ask one
Speaker 2: more question. Stay grounded, because because the strongest leader in
Speaker 2: the room is not always the one making the most noise.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it is the person who reminds everybody else that
Speaker 2: they don't have to. So if you want to become
Speaker 2: a stronger leader this week, do not practice speaking louder,
Speaker 2: practice becoming harder to shake when pressure shows up. Become
Speaker 2: the person people move toward, not the person they move
Speaker 2: away from. Rooms. Remember calm teams, remember calm families, remember
Speaker 2: calm and leadership. Real leadership often sounds quieter than people expect.
Speaker 2: This has been the seven Minute Leadership Podcast, and I
Speaker 2: thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: For more Paul fell of Alito Podcasts, visit paulfellaalito dot com,