Speaker 1: Helping leaders motivate their people to a higher level of
Speaker 1: performance through strong human relations, team building, and goalajieving. This
Speaker 1: is the seven Minute Leadership Podcast with your host Paul
Speaker 1: Fello Aledo.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome to the seven Minute Leadership Podcast.
Speaker 2: It's episode seven oh seven. I want you to think
Speaker 2: about something for a second. Five years from now, most
Speaker 2: of the people you see every single day will not
Speaker 2: be in your life. Your co workers, your employees, your neighbors,
Speaker 2: even some of the people you're bending over backwards for
Speaker 2: right now. They won't be gone in a dramatic way.
Speaker 2: They'll simply drift out of your orbit. And that idea
Speaker 2: hits hard when you really sit with it, because if
Speaker 2: that's true, and it is, then it forces a leadership
Speaker 2: question that most people void. What are you doing today
Speaker 2: trying to impress people who won't even be around later.
Speaker 2: Turnover happens, roles change, people move on, priority shift, and
Speaker 2: yet leaders still make decisions like every relationship is permanent.
Speaker 2: And let me tell you where this gets dangerous. You
Speaker 2: start saying yes when you should say no. You tolerate
Speaker 2: behavior you should shut down. You delay decisions because you
Speaker 2: don't want to upset someone. You carry people longer than
Speaker 2: you should because you're trying to be liked, and slowly,
Speaker 2: without realizing it, you stop leading. You start managing emotions
Speaker 2: instead of managing standards. That's where your culture starts to break.
Speaker 2: And here's the reality that no one wants to say
Speaker 2: out loud. Leadership is not about being liked by people
Speaker 2: who are temporary. Leadership is about doing right by the
Speaker 2: mission the team in the stand even if some people
Speaker 2: don't like it in the moment, because five years from now,
Speaker 2: when those people are no longer around, the decisions you
Speaker 2: made today will still be echoing inside your organization. Your
Speaker 2: culture will remember, your systems will remember, your reputation will remember.
Speaker 2: And that's the part leaders forget. We spend so much
Speaker 2: energy trying to keep things easy. We avoid hard conversations,
Speaker 2: we avoid accountability, we avoid setting the line clearly why,
Speaker 2: because we're thinking short term. We're thinking about how someone
Speaker 2: will feel today instead of how the organization will perform tomorrow.
Speaker 2: Let me give you a simple leadership filter you can
Speaker 2: start using immediately. Ask yourself, will this decision still make
Speaker 2: sense in five years. If the answer is no, don't
Speaker 2: do it. If you're keeping someone on your team who
Speaker 2: is dragging everyone else down. That decision will not age well.
Speaker 2: If you're ignoring bad behavior because it's uncomfortable to address,
Speaker 2: that decision will not age well. If you're saying yes
Speaker 2: to everything to avoid conflict, that decision will not age well.
Speaker 2: But if you hold the standard, if you protect the culture,
Speaker 2: if you make the hard call when it matters, that
Speaker 2: decision will age very well. Because strong leadership compounds over time.
Speaker 2: And now we can take this one step further. This
Speaker 2: idea is not only about how you lead others. It's
Speaker 2: about how you lead yourself. Think about how many times
Speaker 2: you've said yes when your gut said no. Think about
Speaker 2: how many times you've shaped your decisions around who might
Speaker 2: be disappointed. Think about how much energy you've spent trying
Speaker 2: to maintain approval and for what for people who may
Speaker 2: not even be part of your life a few years
Speaker 2: from now. That's not leadership, that's approval. Management and approval
Speaker 2: is one of the most expensive things a leader can chase,
Speaker 2: because it costs you clarity, it costs you time, it
Speaker 2: costs you credibility. The best leaders understand something very simple.
Speaker 2: You were not here to be liked by everyone. You
Speaker 2: were here to lead something that lasts. That means you're
Speaker 2: going to make decisions that not everyone agrees with. That
Speaker 2: means you're going to have conversations that are uncomfortable. That
Speaker 2: means you're going to draw lines that people push back on.
Speaker 2: That's part of the job. And if you avoid that,
Speaker 2: you're not protecting relationships, you're weakening your leadership. Now here's
Speaker 2: where this gets powerful. When you stop trying to be
Speaker 2: liked by everyone, something interesting happens. Your decisions get cleaner,
Speaker 2: your expectations get clearer, your team gets stronger. Because people
Speaker 2: don't need a leader who can keeps things easy. They
Speaker 2: need a leader who keeps things clear. Clarity builds trust,
Speaker 2: Consistency builds respect, standards build culture, and none of those
Speaker 2: things come from trying to please everyone in the room.
Speaker 2: So here's your seven minute leadership challenge for today. Take
Speaker 2: one situation right now where you are bending your standards
Speaker 2: to keep someone comfortable, and ask yourself one question. If
Speaker 2: this person is not here in five years, would I
Speaker 2: still make the same decision. If the answers know, you
Speaker 2: already know what you need to do, make the call,
Speaker 2: have the conversation, reset the expectation. Because leadership is not
Speaker 2: about holding onto people. It's about building something that stands strong,
Speaker 2: whether people stay or leave. That's how real leaders operate,
Speaker 2: not based on who's in the room today, but based
Speaker 2: on what still matters five years from now. Five years
Speaker 2: from now, your team will look different, your organization will evolve,
Speaker 2: people will move on, that's a guarantee, but your leadership
Speaker 2: decisions will still be there, shaping the culture you leave behind.
Speaker 2: So lead with clarity, lead with standards, lead with the
Speaker 2: long view in mind, Stop chasing approval and start building
Speaker 2: something that lasts. That's how you lead in a way
Speaker 2: that actually matters. This has been the seven minute Leadership podcast,
Speaker 2: and I thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: For more, Paul Fell of Alito Podcasts, visit paulfellowalito dot com.