Speaker 1: Helping leaders motivate their people to a higher level of
Speaker 1: performance through strong human relations, team building, and golajiving. 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 four eighty nine. Picture this. You're standing on
Speaker 2: a stage in front of a room full of CEOs.
Speaker 2: Not just any CEOs, but men and women who look
Speaker 2: just like you on paper. They've got the balance sheets,
Speaker 2: the success stories, the scars from failures, the same battles
Speaker 2: with boards, the same sleepless nights wondering if they made
Speaker 2: the right call. These are not entry level managers or
Speaker 2: up and comers. These are peers who have already climbed
Speaker 2: the mountain. Now your name gets called and you walk
Speaker 2: up to that podium, the question is what do you say?
Speaker 2: Because numbers don't impress them. Revenue milestones, global expansions, acquisitions.
Speaker 2: They've all got those slides in their back pocket too.
Speaker 2: They know what it feels like to hit and to miss,
Speaker 2: So if you're going to open your mouth in front
Speaker 2: of them, it better not be with the same tired script.
Speaker 2: The only thing left that cuts through the noise in
Speaker 2: that room is honesty, radical honesty. You talk about the
Speaker 2: night you almost lost it all because you bet too
Speaker 2: heavy on an expansion. You share the moment when you
Speaker 2: walked into your kid's game late again and saw the
Speaker 2: disappointment in their face. You talk about the human cost
Speaker 2: of the corner office, because here's the truth. CEOs are
Speaker 2: rarely in rooms where they get to be human. They're
Speaker 2: in rooms where they're expected to be bulletproof. So when
Speaker 2: you stand at that podium, what you're really offering is
Speaker 2: a mirror, not a resume, not a highlight reel, a mirror.
Speaker 2: And here's what they'll lean into to hear that you
Speaker 2: still question yourself, even now that you've made bets that
Speaker 2: blew up and cost you not just money, but trust
Speaker 2: that the hardest decision wasn't about cutting a division, but
Speaker 2: about cutting someone you personally believed in, and that leadership
Speaker 2: is lonelier at the top than anyone ever admits. You
Speaker 2: see in that moment, you're not giving them strategies they
Speaker 2: already have those. You're giving them something even rarer, permission,
Speaker 2: permission to stop pretending that they're indestructible, permission to be
Speaker 2: vulnerable in a way that they haven't been in years.
Speaker 2: And then, once you've told your story with that level
Speaker 2: of rawness, you pivot. You don't leave them in the valley.
Speaker 2: You point them toward the summit. You tell them the
Speaker 2: new frontier of leadership isn't about empire building anymore. It's
Speaker 2: about legacy. And then the question you drop like a bomb,
Speaker 2: is this, when your name fades off the office door,
Speaker 2: what will your people say about you? Because not one
Speaker 2: of them is taking their stock options or profit and
Speaker 2: loss statements to the grave, but they will leave behind
Speaker 2: a trail of people empowered or crushed, of cultures inspired
Speaker 2: or poisoned, and of communities built or ignored. That's when
Speaker 2: CEOs lean forward, because deep down, every one of them
Speaker 2: knows that leadership is not a game of quarterly earnings.
Speaker 2: It's a game of forever impact. So here's the answer
Speaker 2: to the opening question. What do you say to a
Speaker 2: room full of CEOs who all have the same story
Speaker 2: as you. You tell them the truth about yourself. You
Speaker 2: remind them of the one thing we're all trying to outrun.
Speaker 2: That leadership isn't about how high you climb, It's about
Speaker 2: how wide your shadows stretches. When you're gone. So that's
Speaker 2: the only keynote worth delivering in that room. Not a
Speaker 2: speech of conquest, but a confession of reality. And if
Speaker 2: you do it right, you'll see it in their faces,
Speaker 2: the realization that even at the top, they're not alone.
Speaker 2: And that, my friends, is how you win a room
Speaker 2: full of CEOs, not with slides, not with statistics, but
Speaker 2: something far more powerful, humanity. This has been the seven
Speaker 2: Minute Leadership Podcast, and I thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: For more Paul fell of Alito podcasts, visit paulfelloalito dot
Speaker 1: com