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 Fellavaliedo.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome to this seven minute leadership podcast.
Speaker 2: It's episode five seventy seven. This whole week has been
Speaker 2: kicking off the new year with the Leadership Reset, and
Speaker 2: today I want to tackle a topic that sounds dangerous
Speaker 2: on the surface but is critical if you actually lead people.
Speaker 2: And that's why good leaders break their own rules. And
Speaker 2: that sentence makes some people uncomfortable, it should because week
Speaker 2: leaders use it as an excuse. Strong leaders use it
Speaker 2: as a responsibility. And let me be clear right out
Speaker 2: of the gate, this is not about hypocrisy. This is
Speaker 2: not about leaders doing whatever they want. This is not
Speaker 2: about exceptions because you hold a title. Good leaders create
Speaker 2: rules for a reason, safety, fairness, consistency, trust, Rules protect people,
Speaker 2: rules create order, rules prevent chaos. But leadership is not
Speaker 2: about rule worship. Leadership is judgment. If you follow rules blindly,
Speaker 2: you're not leading. You are managing a checklist and an EMS,
Speaker 2: aviation business, or any high stakes environment. Rules exist to
Speaker 2: guide decisions, not replace them. The moment you stop thinking
Speaker 2: and hide behind policy, you become a liability. Good leaders
Speaker 2: know the difference between breaking a rule and breaking trust.
Speaker 2: And here's the first truth. Most leaders avoid. Rules are
Speaker 2: written for normal conditions. Leadership shows up when conditions are
Speaker 2: no longer normal. Think about the cockpit. There's checklists for everything,
Speaker 2: but pilots are trained on something even more important, when
Speaker 2: to deviate, not recklessly, intentionally, with full ownership. And the
Speaker 2: same applies to leadership. If a policy says one thing,
Speaker 2: but reality demands another, a good leader does not freeze.
Speaker 2: They assess risk impact in people, then they decide. Bad
Speaker 2: leaders break rules to make life easier for themselves. Good
Speaker 2: leaders break rules to protect the mission in the people.
Speaker 2: There's a massive difference. Let's talk about why leaders need
Speaker 2: rules in the first place. Rules level the playing field.
Speaker 2: They remove favoritism, They create predictability, They give people clarity
Speaker 2: about what's expected. But rules can never count for every scenario,
Speaker 2: and when leaders pretend they can, teams suffer. I've seen
Speaker 2: leaders enforced rules that made no sense in the moment
Speaker 2: because they were afraid of being questioned later. That fear
Speaker 2: based leadership costs credibility quick your team does not respect
Speaker 2: blind enforcement. They respect thoughtful decisions. And here's where most
Speaker 2: leaders kind of screw this up. They break a rule quietly,
Speaker 2: hope nobody notices, and they move on. That erodes trust.
Speaker 2: Good leaders do the opposite. They explain the exception, they
Speaker 2: own it publicly, then they explain the why. When you
Speaker 2: break a rule the right way, you teach judgment. When
Speaker 2: you hide it, you teach politics. And let me give
Speaker 2: you a real world example. You have a policy about attendance,
Speaker 2: it's clear, it's fair. Then one of your strongest people
Speaker 2: calls you something happened at home, not a pattern, not
Speaker 2: an excuse, a real world situation. You have two choices.
Speaker 2: Enforce the rule to prove your consistent or apply judgment
Speaker 2: to prove your human Breaking the rule is not the
Speaker 2: risk breaking your values is. If your team sees you
Speaker 2: bend a rule to support someone who has earned trust,
Speaker 2: they don't cry favoritism. They learn loyalty matters. Now flip it.
Speaker 2: If you bend the same rule for someone who is
Speaker 2: always a problem, now you've broken credibility. Same action, different leadership.
Speaker 2: That's why good leaders break rules selectively, transparently, and rarely
Speaker 2: another hard truth. Leaders who never break rules, usually lack confidence.
Speaker 2: They hide behind policy because policy can't argue back. Leadership
Speaker 2: requires standing in front of decisions and saying this one
Speaker 2: is on me. That's totally red key leadership that I
Speaker 2: talk about all the time, high consequence moments where you
Speaker 2: cannot outsource responsibility. And here's a test you can use
Speaker 2: this year. Before you break a rule, ask yourself three questions. First,
Speaker 2: does this protect people, the mission, or both? Second? Would
Speaker 2: I explain this decision openly to the team without flinching?
Speaker 1: Third?
Speaker 2: Am I willing to own the outcome if this goes sideways?
Speaker 2: If you hesitate on any of those, don't break the rule.
Speaker 2: Rules exist to serve the organization, not to trap it.
Speaker 2: And another mistake leaders make is creating too many rules
Speaker 2: then spending their time breaking them. That's not leadership either,
Speaker 2: that's just poor design. If you constantly need exceptions, the
Speaker 2: rule is probably broken. Good leaders review their rules, They
Speaker 2: adjust them, They eliminate outdated ones. They do not create
Speaker 2: policy clutter just to look busy. And as we reset
Speaker 2: into a new year, this matters more than ever. Teams
Speaker 2: are watching closely. They are tired of corporate bs. They
Speaker 2: want clarity and fairness, but they also want leaders who
Speaker 2: can think. If you want to earn trust this year,
Speaker 2: enforce rules consistently. If you want respect, no one to
Speaker 2: bend them, And if you want credibility, never pretend the
Speaker 2: exception didn't happen. Say it out loud, own it, teach
Speaker 2: the lesson. Leadership is not about being right on paper,
Speaker 2: It's about being right in real life. So as you
Speaker 2: move into this new year, take seven intentional minutes and
Speaker 2: review your rules. Ask which ones protect people, which ones
Speaker 2: protect comfort, and which ones no longer make sense. The
Speaker 2: best leaders do not abandon standards. They apply them with judgment, courage,
Speaker 2: and accountability. That is how trust is built and how
Speaker 2: leadership resets actually stick. This has been the seven Minute
Speaker 2: Leadership Podcast, and I thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: For more Paul Fell of Alito Podcasts, visit paulfellowalito dot
Speaker 1: com