Speaker 1: Helping leaders motivate their people to a higher level of
Speaker 1: performance through strong human relations, team building, and golagiving. This
Speaker 1: is the seven Minute Leadership Podcast with your host Paul Fellavaledo.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome to the seven Minute Leadership Podcast.
Speaker 2: It's episode seven point thirty five. Today. I want to
Speaker 2: talk about something that separates leaders who struggle from leaders
Speaker 2: who seem to just get it. And it comes down
Speaker 2: to what they notice first when they walk into a room,
Speaker 2: take over a team, or face a problem. Experienced leaders
Speaker 2: see differently. Not because they're smarter, not because they went
Speaker 2: to a better school or read more books. It's because
Speaker 2: they've been through enough situations that their eyes have been trained,
Speaker 2: sometimes the hard way, to look past the obvious and
Speaker 2: focus on what actually matters. So what do they see first?
Speaker 2: The first thing an experienced leader notices is the energy
Speaker 2: in the room, not the words people are saying. The energy.
Speaker 2: Are people engaged or just going through the motions? Is
Speaker 2: their tension that nobody's naming. Is the team tight? Do
Speaker 2: they finish each other's sentences or are they politely tolerating
Speaker 2: each other? A newer leader walks in and listens to
Speaker 2: the update. An experienced leader walks in and reads the
Speaker 2: room before anyone says a word. They notice who's leaning
Speaker 2: forward and who's leaning back. They notice who makes eye
Speaker 2: contact and who avoids it. They notice who's quiet that
Speaker 2: usually isn't. That energy tells a story, and experienced leaders
Speaker 2: have learned to read it before they do anything else.
Speaker 2: The second thing they see is where the real influence lives.
Speaker 2: Every team has an org chart, the official structure that's
Speaker 2: who reports to who, And then there's the real structure,
Speaker 2: the person who isn't a manager, but that everyone goes
Speaker 2: to when they have a question. The person who if
Speaker 2: they buy in, the whole team buys in. The person
Speaker 2: who if they check out, others follow. Experienced leaders find
Speaker 2: that person fast, not to manipulate them, but because if
Speaker 2: you want to lead well, you need to understand where
Speaker 2: trust already lives on your team. That unofficial influencer is
Speaker 2: a signal they've earned credibility in ways that don't show
Speaker 2: up on any report, and a smart leader respects that
Speaker 2: and works with it. Third, and this one is big,
Speaker 2: Experienced leaders see the gap between what's being said and
Speaker 2: what's actually true. In most organizations, there's the official version
Speaker 2: of things, and then there's reality. People will tell a
Speaker 2: leader what they think the leader wants to hear. It's
Speaker 2: human nature. People protect themselves. They soften bad news, they
Speaker 2: stay quiet about problems that they're afraid won't land well.
Speaker 2: An experienced leader knows this, so they don't just take
Speaker 2: the first answer at face value. They ask follow up questions.
Speaker 2: They have one on one conversations. They pay attention to
Speaker 2: the stuff people mention, almost in passing, because that's often
Speaker 2: where the real issue is hiding. When someone says, oh,
Speaker 2: it's fine, we're handling it, an experienced leader hears that
Speaker 2: and thinks, are you though, tell me more. They've learned
Speaker 2: that fine is sometimes the most loaded word in the building.
Speaker 2: The fourth thing experienced leaders spot quickly is where the
Speaker 2: pressure's coming from. Every time a team is carrying something deadlines,
Speaker 2: competing priorities, a difficult relationship with another department, a process
Speaker 2: that's been broken for years that everyone's just learned to
Speaker 2: work around. Experienced leaders look for what's wearing their people down.
Speaker 2: Because a tired, frustrated team doesn't perform no matter how
Speaker 2: talented they are. And here's the thing. A lot of
Speaker 2: leaders miss this because they're so focused on the output
Speaker 2: that they forget to look at the conditions producing that output.
Speaker 2: If the conditions are bad, the output eventually suffers. Experienced
Speaker 2: leaders know to look upstream. In fifth, experienced leaders see
Speaker 2: potential that others overlook. They walk into a team and
Speaker 2: they're not just assessing problems. They're looking for people who
Speaker 2: are underutilized, people who have more to give but haven't
Speaker 2: been given the space or the challenge to give it.
Speaker 2: People who've been labeled one thing for so long that
Speaker 2: nobody's noticed they've grown into something more. This is actually
Speaker 2: one of the most powerful things a leader can do.
Speaker 2: See someone before they fully see themselves. Call out of strength.
Speaker 2: If someone doesn't know that they have, give someone a
Speaker 2: chance that nobody else thought to give them. That kind
Speaker 2: of leadership changes people's lives and it changes teams. So
Speaker 2: to pull this all together, experienced leaders see energy, influence,
Speaker 2: truth gaps, pressure points, and hidden potential. They're not just
Speaker 2: looking at the surface. They've learned, usually through trial and error,
Speaker 2: that the most important information in any situation isn't always
Speaker 2: the loudest or the most obvious. The good news is
Speaker 2: this isn't some gift you're born with. It's a skill,
Speaker 2: and like any skill, you get better at it by
Speaker 2: being intentional, by slowing down enough to actually observe before
Speaker 2: you react, by asking questions instead of assuming, by staying
Speaker 2: curious about your people instead of just managing tasks. Start
Speaker 2: paying attention to what you notice and more importantly, what
Speaker 2: you've been missing. So the longer you lead, the more
Speaker 2: you realize that leadership is less about having all the
Speaker 2: answers and more about asking better questions and seeing more clearly,
Speaker 2: every room you walk into is giving you information. Every
Speaker 2: conversation has a layer underneath it. The leader who makes
Speaker 2: the biggest difference are the ones who take the time
Speaker 2: to look. So this week, slow down, watch, listen, and
Speaker 2: see what you've been walking past. You might be surprised
Speaker 2: what's been right in front of you the whole time.
Speaker 2: This has been the seven Minute Leadership Podcast, and I
Speaker 2: thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: For more Paul Fell of Alito Podcasts, visit paulfellowalito dot com.