Speaker 1: Helping leaders motivate their people to a higher level of
Speaker 1: performance through strong human relations, team building, and goal achieving.
Speaker 1: This is the seven Minute Leadership Podcast with your host
Speaker 1: Paul Fellavaledo.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome to the seven Minute Leadership Podcast.
Speaker 2: It's episode seven today. I want to talk about something
Speaker 2: that I think gets completely misunderstood in leadership education. People
Speaker 2: ask me all the time where I get my leadership
Speaker 2: material from. They'll hear me use a cockpit analogy, a
Speaker 2: scuba diving story and ems call, or something from everyday
Speaker 2: life and they'll say that really made the point click
Speaker 2: for me, And my answer is always the same. I
Speaker 2: did not invent leadership. I use my life experiences to
Speaker 2: tell stories. That's it. If I'm teaching emotional intelligence, I
Speaker 2: may explain it through the lens of aviation. I may
Speaker 2: talk about a pilot recognizing tension in the cockpit before
Speaker 2: it becomes a safety issue. Somebody else might teach the
Speaker 2: exact same topic using a Fortune five hundred boardroom example.
Speaker 2: Another person may teach it through military combat. Another person
Speaker 2: may explain it through marriage counseling or sports psychology. The
Speaker 2: point is still emotional intelligence. The lesson is still the same,
Speaker 2: the delivery vehicle changes, and I think that is one
Speaker 2: of the biggest breakthroughs leaders need to understand. You do
Speaker 2: not need to learn leadership from one specific type of person.
Speaker 2: You need to learn leadership from the person who makes
Speaker 2: the lesson finally makes sense to your brain. That matters
Speaker 2: because leadership is not math. Leadership is translation. And I'll explain.
Speaker 2: If you and I are both trying to explain gravity,
Speaker 2: we can use different examples. One teacher drops a bowling ball,
Speaker 2: another teacher talks about planets. Another teacher uses roller coasters,
Speaker 2: another teacher explains turbulence on an airplane. Different stories, same gravity.
Speaker 2: Leadership works the same way. I think sometimes people become
Speaker 2: too loyal to the messenger instead of the message. They
Speaker 2: start acting like leadership only exists in corporate America, or
Speaker 2: only exists in the military, or only exists in sports,
Speaker 2: or only exists in psychology. Leadership exists anywhere human beings exist.
Speaker 2: That's why leadership lessons can come from restaurants, Disney vacations,
Speaker 2: Navy seal teams, airline crashes, emergency rooms, politics, stand up comedians,
Speaker 2: and coffee shops because humans are involved in all of it.
Speaker 2: In where humans exists. Communication exists, pressure exists, conflict exists,
Speaker 2: trust exists, fear exists, decision making exists. Leadership exists. One
Speaker 2: of the reasons I think certain leadership speakers connect deeply
Speaker 2: with certain audiences is because the audience sees themselves inside
Speaker 2: the story. A CEO listening to Simon Sinek may relate
Speaker 2: to boardrooms, vision statements in corporate structure. A police officer
Speaker 2: or a military veteran may hear Jocko discuss discipline and
Speaker 2: command responsibility and immediately connect to it. A parent listening
Speaker 2: to Mel Robbins may hear lessons about relationships and emotional
Speaker 2: behavior and think that's exactly what I deal with every day.
Speaker 2: And then somebody listening to this podcast may hear stories
Speaker 2: about ambulances, airplanes, disasters, and emergency management and think that
Speaker 2: world makes sense to me too. Different roads, same destination.
Speaker 2: This is also why leadership education should never become arrogant.
Speaker 2: The second somebody starts acting like they own leadership knowledge,
Speaker 2: they stop being a student of leadership, and leadership punishes
Speaker 2: arrogance fast. I've learned incredible leadership lessons from paramedics, pilots,
Speaker 2: scuba instructors, CEOs, waiters, dispatches, business owners, janitors, and flight instructors.
Speaker 2: Because wisdom is not locked inside job titles, some of
Speaker 2: the greatest leadership lessons in the world are hidden inside
Speaker 2: ordinary moments that most people ignore. A customer service worker
Speaker 2: handling an angry customer with calm professionalism is teaching emotional regulation.
Speaker 2: A firefighter staying composed in chaos is teaching stress management.
Speaker 2: A parent explaining consequences to a child is teaching accountability.
Speaker 2: A pilot using a checklist is teaching discipline. A scuba
Speaker 2: diver monitoring oxygen and depth is teaching situational awareness. A
Speaker 2: restaurant manager handling a slam dinner rush is teaching operational leadership.
Speaker 2: And once you start seeing leadership this way, the entire
Speaker 2: world becomes a classroom. And honestly, I think this is
Speaker 2: why some people struggle to grow as leaders. They only
Speaker 2: allow themselves to learn from one category of person. They
Speaker 2: create intellectual blinders. They say things like, well, that's military leadership,
Speaker 2: or well that's corporate leadership, or that's sports leadership. No,
Speaker 2: it's human leadership. The packaging changes, human behavior does not.
Speaker 2: That's why I always tell leaders to become collectors of perspectives.
Speaker 2: Learn from the pilot, learn from the nurse, learn from
Speaker 2: the football coach, learn from the entrepreneur, learn from the
Speaker 2: school teacher, the single parent working two jobs, the air
Speaker 2: traffic controller, and the restaurant owner. Because every one of
Speaker 2: those people has solved a human problem under pressure, and
Speaker 2: that's leadership. One of the most dangerous things a leader
Speaker 2: can say is that doesn't apply to my industry, and
Speaker 2: that sentence shuts the brain off. Some of the best
Speaker 2: ideas in business came from industries completely outside of the
Speaker 2: business world. Airline safety transformed healthcare checklists. Disney transformed customer
Speaker 2: experienced standards, Toyota transformed manufacturing systems, military debriefing methods transformed
Speaker 2: crisis management. The leader who learns across industries becomes dangerous
Speaker 2: in the best possible way, because they begin connecting dots
Speaker 2: other people cannot see yet. I think this is also
Speaker 2: why storytelling matters so much in leadership education. Facts inform people,
Speaker 2: stories transport peoples, and stories create emotional memory. You may
Speaker 2: forget a textbook definition of emotional intelligence by tomorrow morning,
Speaker 2: you probably will not forget a story about a pilot
Speaker 2: making a terrible cockpit decision. Because their ego took over
Speaker 2: that sticks. The story becomes the delivery system for the lesson,
Speaker 2: and every leader listening today should understand something important. Your
Speaker 2: story matters too. You do not need to become Simon
Speaker 2: Sinek or Jocko. You don't need to become mel Robbins.
Speaker 2: You need to become the clearest version of yourself, because
Speaker 2: somebody out there understands leadership through your lens. Your life
Speaker 2: experiences may become the exact translation somebody else needs. Maybe
Speaker 2: your lesson comes from construction sites, Maybe it comes from
Speaker 2: teaching kin. Maybe it comes from farming or dispatching ambulances
Speaker 2: or recovering from a failure. Maybe it comes from surviving hardship.
Speaker 2: Your story may become the bridge that helps another human
Speaker 2: being finally understand leadership. And that's the beauty of this
Speaker 2: entire field. Leadership is not owned, It is shared. So
Speaker 2: here's my challenge for you today. Stop looking for leadership
Speaker 2: lessons only in places that look official. Leadership is happening
Speaker 2: all around you, every single day, at work, at home,
Speaker 2: at the airport, inside restaurants, inside friendships, inside failures, and
Speaker 2: inside pressure. The smartest leaders in the world become students
Speaker 2: of human behavior everywhere they go because the lessons may
Speaker 2: change outfits, but leadership itself stays the same. 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 com.