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 Felloaldo. Hello everyone, and welcome to the seven Minute
Speaker 1: Leadership Podcast. It's episode five seventy eight. January has a
Speaker 1: way of tricking leaders. New year, clean calendar, fresh goals.
Speaker 1: Everything feels possible again. And that is exactly when risk
Speaker 1: hides in plain sight. Most leadership failures do not come
Speaker 1: from reckless decisions. They come from unexamined ones, things that
Speaker 1: felt reasonable in the moment, decisions made on momentum, habits
Speaker 1: or pressure, without a pause to ask what could actually
Speaker 1: go wrong? Here? Today, I want to give you a
Speaker 1: simple leadership read tool. I call it the three minute
Speaker 1: risk assessment drill. This is not corporate risk management. No binders,
Speaker 1: no committees, no spreadsheets. This is a fast mental drill
Speaker 1: you can run before decisions that matter. I learned this
Speaker 1: in environments where mistakes show up immediately in EMS, aviation
Speaker 1: or disaster response. Before you move. You assess, not forever,
Speaker 1: briefly and intentionally. So here's the mindset shift. Risk is
Speaker 1: not something you eliminate. Risk is something you understand before
Speaker 1: it understands you. The problem is most leaders only think
Speaker 1: about risk after something breaks, after the call from HR,
Speaker 1: after the customer leaves, or after the email screenshots starts circulating.
Speaker 1: The three minute risk assessment drill forces you to slow
Speaker 1: down just enough to see the land mines. Minute one
Speaker 1: is exposure. Ask yourself one question. If this goes sideways,
Speaker 1: who gets hurt? That could be people, reputation, trust, money, safety, morale.
Speaker 1: Leadership skips this because they assume impact will be limited
Speaker 1: and it rarely is an EMS. Exposure is obvious patient safety,
Speaker 1: crew safety, public trust. In business, exposure hides in softer places,
Speaker 1: team confidence, credibility, legal headaches, or brand damage. Say it
Speaker 1: out loud, write it down if you need to name,
Speaker 1: who pays the price, if you were wrong. If you
Speaker 1: cannot articulate the exposure, you do not understand the decision.
Speaker 1: Minute two is control. Ask yourself what parts of this
Speaker 1: can I actually influence? Leaders waste energy worrying about everything
Speaker 1: except the parts they can control. Policies, communication, timing, staff,
Speaker 1: and clarity. Follow up. Those are levers. This is where
Speaker 1: Aviation drilled this into me. Whether exists, you do not
Speaker 1: control it. Fuel planning, go no go decisions those you
Speaker 1: control in leadership. You may not control market forces, employee emotions,
Speaker 1: or public opinion. You do control how clear you are,
Speaker 1: how prepared you are, and how fast you respond when
Speaker 1: things drift. If most of the risk sits outside your control,
Speaker 1: slow down. If key parts are within your control, adjust
Speaker 1: them before moving forward. Minute three is tolerance. Here's the
Speaker 1: question leaders avoid. If the worst reasonable outcome happens, can
Speaker 1: we survive it? Not emotionally operationally? Can the organization take
Speaker 1: the hit? Can the tea recover? Can trust be rebuilt?
Speaker 1: Can you stand in front of your people and own it?
Speaker 1: High consequence moments demand higher attention. If the downside is
Speaker 1: catastrophic and irreversible, you need more than optimism to proceed.
Speaker 1: Tolerance is not fear. It is realism. I've seen leaders
Speaker 1: approve ideas they secretly hoped would work, without ever asking
Speaker 1: if they could absorb failure. Hope is not a strategy,
Speaker 1: So let me be clear. This drill does not slow
Speaker 1: strong leaders down. It keeps them from being blindsided. Three
Speaker 1: minutes exposure control, tolerance. You can run this in your
Speaker 1: head before a higher a termination, a public statement, a
Speaker 1: policy change, a budget move or a difficult conversation. And
Speaker 1: here's the hidden benefit. When you make this drill a habit,
Speaker 1: your team feels it. Decisions feel calmer, communication feel steadier.
Speaker 1: People trust leaders who think ahead even when outcomes are tough.
Speaker 1: So January is not about bold declarations. It's about disciplined thinking.
Speaker 1: Leadership resets do not require retreats or vision boards. Sometimes
Speaker 1: they require a pause, a pen, and the humility to
Speaker 1: ask better questions. If you want to lead with confidence
Speaker 1: this year, don't rush decisions. Pressure is not a deadline,
Speaker 1: Silence is not approval. Speed without awareness is how leaders
Speaker 1: lose credibility. So three minutes every time it matters. And
Speaker 1: if you build this drill into your leadership rhythm, you
Speaker 1: will catch problems earlier, protect your people better, and maybe
Speaker 1: even sleep a little easier at night. Leadership is not
Speaker 1: about never being wrong. It's about being prepared when things
Speaker 1: do not go as planned. So this year, give yourself
Speaker 1: the gift of thinking before acting. It pays dividends that
Speaker 1: you will never see on a spreadsheet. This has been
Speaker 1: the seven Minute Leadership Podcast, and I thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: For more, Paul fell of Alito Podcasts, visit paulfelloalito dot com,