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. Hello everyone, and welcome to the seven Minute
Speaker 1: Leadership Podcast. It's episode six twenty two. Let me take
Speaker 1: you into a moment. Every leader eventually faces the phone
Speaker 1: rings earlier than it should. A text hits your screen
Speaker 1: with too few details. Someone says we've got a situation.
Speaker 1: Your heart rate jumps, your brain races ahead to worst
Speaker 1: case outcomes, and people look at you waiting. Here's the
Speaker 1: part most leadership books never prepare you for. Crises are
Speaker 1: not one in the first ten hours. They are one
Speaker 1: or lost in the first ten minutes. I call this
Speaker 1: the first ten minutes crisis protocol. It's not fancy, it's
Speaker 1: not theoretical. It works in boardrooms, hospitals, fire scenes, airlines, nonprofits, startups,
Speaker 1: and family businesses. I learned this on the front lines,
Speaker 1: where confusion multiplies fast in bad decisions, age poorly. So
Speaker 1: let's walk through it. Minute one is about stopping the
Speaker 1: mental free fall. The biggest threat in the opening minute
Speaker 1: of a crisis is not the problem itself. It's panic
Speaker 1: dressed up as urgency. Your job in minute one is simple.
Speaker 1: Slow yourself down before you speed anything else up. Take
Speaker 1: a breath that you can feel in your chest, Sit
Speaker 1: or stand still, Say nothing for five seconds longer than
Speaker 1: feels comfortable. That pause is not weakness, It is command presence.
Speaker 1: Leaders who rush to usually regret the first things they say.
Speaker 1: Leaders who pause set the tone for everyone else. Minute
Speaker 1: two is about owning the moment. You do not need answers,
Speaker 1: yet you need ownership. Say this out loud, clearly, I've
Speaker 1: got this. We're going to work the problem. That sentence
Speaker 1: does two things. It anchors the room and it tells
Speaker 1: your team someone is at the wheel. Avoid blaming language,
Speaker 1: avoid speculation, avoid storytelling. Ownership does not mean you caused it.
Speaker 1: Ownership means you're responsible for what happens next. Minute three
Speaker 1: is about defining what actually matters. Crises create noise, emails, texts, opinions,
Speaker 1: and panic flood in all at the same time. Your
Speaker 1: job is to cut through it. Ask three grounding questions slowly.
Speaker 1: What happened, What is happening right now? What will get
Speaker 1: worse in the next hour? If we do nothing, that's it.
Speaker 1: Not ten questions, not a full briefing deck. These three
Speaker 1: questions for uce clarity when chaos wants to take over.
Speaker 1: Minute four is about stabilizing people, not fixing the problem.
Speaker 1: Most leaders make this mistake. They rush to solutions before
Speaker 1: they stabilize their team. In minute four, your only goal
Speaker 1: is this lower the emotional temperature. Look at your people,
Speaker 1: Acknowledge the stress without amplifying it. Say things like, I
Speaker 1: know this is tense. We're going to take this step
Speaker 1: by step. No one is alone in this. When people
Speaker 1: feel steady, they think better. When they think better, outcomes improve.
Speaker 1: Minute five is about assigning a single point of control.
Speaker 1: Every crisis needs one operational lead, not a committee, not
Speaker 1: a group. Chat one person. That person might be you,
Speaker 1: it might not be you. Say their name, say their role,
Speaker 1: say that decisions flow through them. This prevents duplication, turf
Speaker 1: wars and well meaning chaos. Clarity here saves hours later.
Speaker 1: Trust me on that one. Minute six is about protecting
Speaker 1: the edges. Crises leak information, leaks, emotions, leak rumors leak.
Speaker 1: Minute six is when you decide what does not leave
Speaker 1: the room yet, who speaks externally, What information is confirmed,
Speaker 1: What is off limits? Until verified. This protects your credibility.
Speaker 1: One's credibility is damaged. No protocol fixes that. Minute seven
Speaker 1: is about buying time the right way. Not all time
Speaker 1: is created equal, sometime creates option, sometime creates damage. In
Speaker 1: minute seven, you choose one small stabilizing action that buys
Speaker 1: you thinking room, pause a process, secure a system, pull
Speaker 1: a team out of harm's way. It does not solve
Speaker 1: the crisis, it prevents it from accelerating. Minute eight is
Speaker 1: about setting the next checkpoint. Crises feel endless when there
Speaker 1: is no horizon. Set a clear near term checkpoint. We
Speaker 1: regroup in thirty minutes. We reassess at the top of
Speaker 1: the hour, or I'll update everyone by three pm. This
Speaker 1: gives people psychological oxygen. They know when the next moment
Speaker 1: of clarity is coming. Minute nine is about documenting reality, memory, lies,
Speaker 1: under stress. Write things down, what decisions were made, who
Speaker 1: owns what? What facts are confirmed? This protection you later
Speaker 1: when emotions fade and narratives try to rewrite events. Minute
Speaker 1: ten is about leadership visibility. Before you move on, be seen,
Speaker 1: walk the floor, make the call, show your face. Presence
Speaker 1: is not micromanagement. Presence is reassurance. People do not remember
Speaker 1: every decision you made in a crisis, they remember whether
Speaker 1: you showed up. And here's the truth. Most leaders learn
Speaker 1: the hard way. If you handle the first ten minutes well,
Speaker 1: the next ten hours become manageable. If you blow the
Speaker 1: first ten minutes, you spend weeks cleaning up secondary damage.
Speaker 1: The first ten minutes crisis protocol is not about being perfect,
Speaker 1: it's about being steady. You will never eliminate crises, you
Speaker 1: can control how they start under your watch. So if
Speaker 1: you take nothing else from this episode, please take this.
Speaker 1: In the first ten minutes of a crisis, your calm
Speaker 1: becomes the ceiling for everyone else. Your clarity becomes the map,
Speaker 1: Your presence becomes the anchor train for those ten minutes
Speaker 1: before you need them, because when the call comes, there
Speaker 1: is no time to learn, only time to lead. This
Speaker 1: has been the seven Minute Leadership Podcast, and I thank
Speaker 1: you for listening. For more Paul Fell of Alito Podcasts,
Speaker 1: visit paulfellowalito dot com.