Speaker 1: Helping leaders motivate their people to a higher level of
Speaker 1: performance through strong human relations, team building and GOLA GV.
Speaker 1: This is the seven Minute Leadership Podcast with your host
Speaker 1: Paul fella Aledo.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome to the seven Minute Leadership Podcast.
Speaker 2: It's episode six point twenty seven. Let's talk about something
Speaker 2: that every leader eventually faces. That's broken alliances. Not open warfare,
Speaker 2: not screaming matches and conference rooms. I'm talking about the
Speaker 2: quiet fracture, the cold shoulder, the shift in tone, the
Speaker 2: meeting after the meeting. Two managers who used to collaborate
Speaker 2: now barely speak, a deputy who feels sidelined, a senior
Speaker 2: employee who once had your back and now operates in silence.
Speaker 2: In emergency services, when two units stop communicating, someone gets hurt.
Speaker 2: In business, when two leaders stop trusting each other, the
Speaker 2: damage spreads slower, but it spreads deeper. Broken alliances are
Speaker 2: rarely about one explosive moment. They are about accumulation. A
Speaker 2: comment that landed wrong, a decision made without consultation, a
Speaker 2: promotion that felt political, a perceived lack of loyalty. And
Speaker 2: here's the problem. Most leaders ignore it. They hope time
Speaker 2: will fix it. Time does not fix fractures, It only
Speaker 2: widens them. I've seen this on the ambulance floor. I've
Speaker 2: seen it in boardrooms. I've seen it inside organizations that
Speaker 2: thought they were healthy. When alliances break, performance drops, information slow,
Speaker 2: those people pick sides, energy shifts from mission to ego protection.
Speaker 2: So how do you repair it? Step one? Own your lane.
Speaker 2: You cannot repair an alliance while pretending you played no
Speaker 2: part in its decline, even if you believe you were right,
Speaker 2: even if you believe the other person overreacted. Leadership is
Speaker 2: not about being technically correct. It is about preserving alignment.
Speaker 2: Where alignment matters, ask yourself one question, did I contribute
Speaker 2: even five percent to this fracture? If the answer is yes,
Speaker 2: that is your entry point. Step two. Go direct, not
Speaker 2: by email, not by text, not by sending someone else
Speaker 2: face to face or at a minimum, voice to voice.
Speaker 2: Say this and say it clean. I feel like something
Speaker 2: shitted between us. I value our working relationship. I want
Speaker 2: to fix it. No speeches, no defending, no rewriting history
Speaker 2: in your favor. When I was training in aviation, one
Speaker 2: of the first lessons I learned was about checklists. When
Speaker 2: something feels off in the cockpit, You do not guess.
Speaker 2: You verify, you talk through it. You identify the failure point.
Speaker 2: Broken alliances are no different. If you do not identify
Speaker 2: the failure point, you will fly crooked for months and
Speaker 2: blame the wind. Step three listen longer than you want to.
Speaker 2: This is where most leaders fail. They approach the conversation
Speaker 2: ready to explain themselves, ready to justify, ready to defend.
Speaker 2: Repair requires restraint. Let them talk, let them vent, let
Speaker 2: them describe how they experience the situation. You are not
Speaker 2: there to win, You are there to restore function. There
Speaker 2: is a big difference. Step four re establish shared mission.
Speaker 2: This is critical. Alliances are rarely restored through emotional bonding.
Speaker 2: They are restored through clarity of purpose. You might not
Speaker 2: agree on everything, you might not be best friends again,
Speaker 2: that's fine, but you must realign around the mission. At
Speaker 2: my ambulance service, when tension rises between leaders, I bring
Speaker 2: it back to one question. What serves the patient, What
Speaker 2: protects the crew? What advances the organization. Mission has a
Speaker 2: way of shrinking ego. When both parties remember what they
Speaker 2: are actually responsible for, the drama loses oxygen. Step five
Speaker 2: set behavioral agreement. Repair is not just emotional. It is operational.
Speaker 2: Agree on how you will communicate moving forward, Agree on
Speaker 2: how decisions will be shared. Agree on what transparency looks like.
Speaker 2: Broken alliances often rebreak because nothing changes structurally. This is
Speaker 2: red key leadership territory, high consequence moment. If you repair
Speaker 2: it halfway, you create a fragile truce. If you repair
Speaker 2: it completely, you create strength. Now let me say something
Speaker 2: very important. Not every alliance is meant to be repaired.
Speaker 2: If the fracture is rooted in integrity issues, manipulation, or
Speaker 2: repeated disrespect, your responsibility may not be repair. It may
Speaker 2: be separation. Leadership is not about keeping everyone comfortab It
Speaker 2: is about protecting culture. You do not repair alliances that
Speaker 2: compromise standards. You repair alliances that strengthen the mission. There
Speaker 2: is another layer here. Sometimes the broken alliance is between
Speaker 2: you and someone above you, a board member, a CEO,
Speaker 2: a regional director. The principles do not change clarity, direct communication,
Speaker 2: mission focus, behavioral agreements. You might not control their response,
Speaker 2: you control your professionalism. And here's the truth. When leaders
Speaker 2: repair alliances publicly and maturely, the entire organization watches. They
Speaker 2: see accountability in action, They see humility, They see courage.
Speaker 2: That is cultural building. I have seen leaders ignore fractures
Speaker 2: and watch their organization spit split quietly into two. I've
Speaker 2: also seen leaders into discomfort and walk out stronger. Broken
Speaker 2: alliances are not a sign you failed as a leader.
Speaker 2: Ignoring them is you are not managing friendships. You are
Speaker 2: managing alignment, and alignment requires maintenance. Seven minutes a day
Speaker 2: of intentional leadership might mean one uncomfortable conversation that saves
Speaker 2: six months of dysfunction, and to me, I think that
Speaker 2: is a good trade. So if there is someone in
Speaker 2: your workplace right now where something feels off, do not wait,
Speaker 2: Do not let silence turn into narrative. Reach out, own
Speaker 2: your part, listen longer than you want to bring it
Speaker 2: back to the mission, set the agreement, and repair it
Speaker 2: the right way. Your credibility grows when you fix what
Speaker 2: is actually fractured. 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
Speaker 1: com