Speaker 1: Helping leaders motivate their people to a higher level of
Speaker 1: performance through strong human relations, team building, and goalagiving. This
Speaker 1: is the seven minute Leadership Podcast with your host Paul
Speaker 1: fella Aledo. Hello everyone, and welcome to this seven minute
Speaker 1: leadership podcast. It's episode five ninety six. Let me ask
Speaker 1: you a question that every leader should sit with, not once,
Speaker 1: but often. Where is this actually going? Not where you
Speaker 1: hope it goes, Not where the slide deck says it goes,
Speaker 1: Not where the mission statement framed on the wall points to,
Speaker 1: where does this decision, this conversation, this higher, this policy,
Speaker 1: this silence actually end up going. Leading with the end
Speaker 1: in mind is not about being visionary. It is about
Speaker 1: being honest. Most leadership mistakes are not made in bad intent.
Speaker 1: They are made because leaders focus on the moment in
Speaker 1: front of them and ignore the finish line down the road.
Speaker 1: They optimize for comfort today and pay for it later.
Speaker 1: They trade clarity for convenience. They kick cans, they delay decisions,
Speaker 1: They tolerate things they know that they shouldn't. In all
Speaker 1: of that compounds, Leading with the end in mind means
Speaker 1: you mentally walk the path before you take the step.
Speaker 1: You ask yourself, if I keep allowing this. Where does
Speaker 1: it land in six months? If I make this exception,
Speaker 1: what precedent does it set? If I avoid this hard conversation?
Speaker 1: What does my team learn from my silence? Because leadership
Speaker 1: always teaches even when you say nothing. And here's the
Speaker 1: uncomfortable part. The end is often obvious early on, and
Speaker 1: leaders feel it in their gut. They sense where something
Speaker 1: is headed. They just talk themselves out of acting because
Speaker 1: action costs energy, capital, reputation, or comfort, so instead they hope.
Speaker 1: And hope is not a leadership strategy. When you lead
Speaker 1: with the end in mind, you reverse engineer your behavior.
Speaker 1: You start with the outcome you're responsible for and work
Speaker 1: backward to what is required today. That changes how you hire,
Speaker 1: That changes how you discipline, That changes how you communicate,
Speaker 1: That changes what you tolerate. If the end you want
Speaker 1: is a strong culture, you do not ignore small violations now.
Speaker 1: If the end that you want is trust, you do
Speaker 1: not spend the truth to make a meeting easier. If
Speaker 1: the end that you want is resilience, can not protect
Speaker 1: people from every hard moment. Every shortcut today becomes attax tomorrow.
Speaker 1: I have watched leaders spend years building something solid and
Speaker 1: then slowly dismantle it by failing to think long term.
Speaker 1: They approve the wrong higher because they need a warm
Speaker 1: body today. They delay a termination because it feels uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: They soften standards because they are tired of enforcing them,
Speaker 1: and then one day they look around and say, how
Speaker 1: did we get here? You got their one decision at
Speaker 1: a time. Leading with the end in mind also forces
Speaker 1: you to own consequences. You cannot pretend you did not
Speaker 1: see it coming. You cannot blame circumstances. You cannot act
Speaker 1: surprise when predictable outcomes arrive. That is why strong leaders
Speaker 1: think in terms of trajectories and not moments. Ask yourself this,
Speaker 1: If I repeat this to decision ten times, where do
Speaker 1: I end up? If my entire leadership team copies this behavior,
Speaker 1: what kind of organization do we become? If this becomes normal?
Speaker 1: Am I proud of the result? Those questions do not
Speaker 1: require an MBA, They require courage. There is another layer
Speaker 1: to all of this. Leading with the end in mind
Speaker 1: means you stop chasing applause and start protecting legacy. Not
Speaker 1: legacy is ego. Legacy is impact. What people experience under
Speaker 1: your leadership, What systems outlast you? What standards remain when
Speaker 1: you're not in the room. Leaders who only think short
Speaker 1: term tend to manage optics. Leaders who think long term
Speaker 1: manage reality. Optics get you through the meeting, re reality
Speaker 1: gets you through the storms. This also applies to your
Speaker 1: personal leadership behavior. How you show up tired, how you
Speaker 1: respond when you're challenged, how you act when no one
Speaker 1: is watching. Those patterns create an ending, whether you plan
Speaker 1: it or not. If you want to be trusted at
Speaker 1: the end, tell the truth early. If you want credibility
Speaker 1: at the end, make the hard calls now. If you
Speaker 1: want respect at the end, do not compromise your standards
Speaker 1: in the middle. Leading with the end in mind is
Speaker 1: not dramatic. It's disciplined. It is pausing for seven intentional
Speaker 1: minutes and asking what am I really building here. It
Speaker 1: is refusing to confuse activity with progress. It is understanding
Speaker 1: that leadership is not measured by motion, but by direction.
Speaker 1: So here's a simple exercise you can use this week.
Speaker 1: Take one decision that you're avoiding, one conversation, you're postponing,
Speaker 1: one issue you keep pushing to next month. Write down
Speaker 1: the likely ending. If you keep doing exactly what you're
Speaker 1: doing now, and be honest, and then write down the
Speaker 1: ending you want instead. The gap between those two outcomes
Speaker 1: is your leadership responsibility. You do not close that gap
Speaker 1: with speeches. You close it with action. Leading with the
Speaker 1: end in mind does not make leadership easier, It makes
Speaker 1: it cleaner. It removes the illusion that time will fix
Speaker 1: what courage refuses to address. The leader's people trust most
Speaker 1: are the ones who can see where the road leads
Speaker 1: and choose to act before the damage is done. If
Speaker 1: you want a better ending, lead like it matters now,
Speaker 1: and if you enjoy today's episode Paul Foulo dot com,
Speaker 1: I have tons of free leadership resources you can download
Speaker 1: and use today. Be sure and also check out my
Speaker 1: YouTube channel link in the description of the show and
Speaker 1: also on my website. This has been the seven minute
Speaker 1: leadership podcast and I thank you for listening. For more
Speaker 1: Paul Fellow Alito podcasts, visit Paulfellowalito dot com.