Speaker 1: Helping leaders motivate their people to a higher level of
Speaker 1: performance through strong human relations, team building and GOLAJV. This
Speaker 1: is the seven Minute Leadership Podcast with your host Paul
Speaker 1: fella Aledo.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome to the seven Minute Leadership Podcast.
Speaker 2: It's episode seven to seventy six. Today's episode is called
Speaker 2: Crisis Created by Neglect. There is an old saying that
Speaker 2: goes something like this, We rarely rise to the occasion.
Speaker 2: We fall to the level of our preparation. I want
Speaker 2: to add something to that. Many organizations never fall because
Speaker 2: of one catastrophic decision. They fall because of a thousand
Speaker 2: small decisions that nobody made. Leadership crises are often built quietly,
Speaker 2: not loudly, not dramatically, but quietly. The biggest emergency your
Speaker 2: organization will ever face may have started six months ago
Speaker 2: when someone ignored a broken process. It may have started
Speaker 2: a year ago when an employee stopped caring. It may
Speaker 2: have started the day a leader decided we'll deal with
Speaker 2: that later. And here's the uncomfortable truth. Neglect has incredible patience.
Speaker 2: It doesn't demand your attention today. It waits. It quietly
Speaker 2: stacks problem on top of problem, until one morning everyone
Speaker 2: walks into work wondering how everything fell apart so quickly.
Speaker 2: It didn't. It happened one neglected decision at a time.
Speaker 2: As an EMS chief, I've seen this play out countless times.
Speaker 2: An ambulance develops a minor mechanical issue, it can wait
Speaker 2: until next week. A policy isn't followed. It only happened
Speaker 2: once an employees starts showing subtle change in attitude. Oh,
Speaker 2: they're probably having a rough week. A piece of equipment
Speaker 2: isn't restocked properly. Someone else will catch it. None of
Speaker 2: those things creates a crisis together, they absolutely can. Leadership
Speaker 2: isn't only about responding to emergencies. Leadership is preventing emergencies
Speaker 2: that nobody else can see coming. Think about a leaking roof.
Speaker 2: The day you notice the stain on the ceiling is
Speaker 2: not the day the leak started. Water has been finding
Speaker 2: its way inside for weeks, maybe months. Leadership works the
Speaker 2: same way. By the time the crisis becomes visible, the
Speaker 2: damage has already been spreading behind the walls. This is
Speaker 2: where many leaders get trapped. They become firefighters. Every day
Speaker 2: they're putting out another fire. Every meeting is about another emergency.
Speaker 2: Every phone call begins with we've got a problem, and
Speaker 2: after a while they begin believing they're excellent in crisis.
Speaker 2: Maybe or maybe they're excellent at managing problems they unknowingly
Speaker 2: allowed to grow. There's a difference. The best leaders I
Speaker 2: know spend more time walking around looking for smoke than
Speaker 2: carrying buckets of water. They notice patterns, They ask questions,
Speaker 2: They listen when employees become quieter than usual. They pay
Speaker 2: attention when little standards begin slipping. They understand something incredibly important.
Speaker 2: Behavior changes before performance changes, performance changes before outcomes change.
Speaker 2: Outcomes change before headlines happen. That's the sequence. If you're
Speaker 2: waiting until the headline arrives, you're already late. One of
Speaker 2: my favorite leadership questions is incredibly simple. What have we
Speaker 2: become comfortable ignoring? Think about that one for a moment.
Speaker 2: Every organization has something. Maybe it's late reports, Maybe it's
Speaker 2: poor communication, maybe meetings that never accomplish anything. Maybe gossip,
Speaker 2: may be broken equipment, maybe managers who avoid difficult conversations,
Speaker 2: maybe employees who constantly say that's not my job. Every
Speaker 2: tolerated behavior becomes tomorrow's operating standard. That's how neglect slowly
Speaker 2: rewrites culture. Culture isn't created by motivational posters. It's created
Speaker 2: by repeated decisions, including the decision to ignore something. I
Speaker 2: also think neglect shows up in leadership development. Organizations spend
Speaker 2: thousands responding to turnover, very little preventing it. They conduct
Speaker 2: exit interviews after employees leave. They rarely conduct sta interviews
Speaker 2: while people still care. They hold emergency meetings after morale crashes.
Speaker 2: They rarely schedule conversations while morale is healthy. That's leadership reacting.
Speaker 2: Great leadership is anticipating. And one of the biggest lessons
Speaker 2: emergency management teaches is this preparation never feels urgent until
Speaker 2: the emergency arrives. Then everyone wishes they had started sooner.
Speaker 2: Leadership preparation follows the exact same pattern. The strongest organizations
Speaker 2: aren't lucky. They've built habits that prevent small problems from
Speaker 2: becoming organizational disasters. They inspect, they follow up, they coach,
Speaker 2: they repair, they reinforce standards. They refuse to normalize things
Speaker 2: that shouldn't become normal. That's leadership. And here's a challenge
Speaker 2: for you today. Walk through your organization with fresh eyes.
Speaker 2: Pretend you're visiting it for the very first time. What
Speaker 2: would immediately concern you. What have you stopped noticing because
Speaker 2: you've become used to it. What conversations have been sitting
Speaker 2: on your calendar for weeks? What employees have you been
Speaker 2: meaning to check on? What process needs attention before it
Speaker 2: creates frustration for everyone else? Remember this, Every crisis leaves
Speaker 2: clues long before it arrives. The leaders who consistently avoid
Speaker 2: major organizational disasters aren't smarter than everyone else. They're paying
Speaker 2: attention while everyone else is saying we'll deal with it later.
Speaker 2: Neglect never sends a calendar invitation. It quietly schedules the
Speaker 2: crisis for you. The question is whether you'll notice it
Speaker 2: before the date arrives. So leadership isn't measured by how
Speaker 2: impress if you look when responding to a crisis. It's
Speaker 2: measured by how many crises never happen because you saw
Speaker 2: the warning signs early this week. Look for one small
Speaker 2: issue you've been overlooking, Address it today and you might
Speaker 2: prevent tomorrow's biggest problem. And if you want more free
Speaker 2: leadership resources, head over to Paulfolovalito dot com and click
Speaker 2: on free Stuff. I have over twenty five free leadership
Speaker 2: documents you can download and start using today. 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