Speaker 1: Helping leaders motivate their people to a higher level of
Speaker 1: performance through strong human relations, team building, and golachieving. This
Speaker 1: is the seven Minute Leadership Podcast with your host Paul Fellovledo.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome to the seven Minute Leadership Podcast.
Speaker 2: It's episode six sixty two. Let me ask you a
Speaker 2: question that most leaders don't spend enough time thinking about.
Speaker 2: What do you do when nobody is watching? And I'm
Speaker 2: not talking about the big moments, or the meetings or
Speaker 2: not when you're presenting to your team. I'm talking about
Speaker 2: the small, quiet, daily habits that nobody sees, because those
Speaker 2: habits are the real scoreboard of your leadership. And here's
Speaker 2: the truth. Leadership success is predictable not because of talent,
Speaker 2: not because of luck, not because of title. It's predict
Speaker 2: because of habits. So today I'm going to walk you
Speaker 2: through the personal habits that quietly determine whether a leader rises, stalls,
Speaker 2: or fails. And I want you to listen closely because
Speaker 2: this is where the real work is. The first habit
Speaker 2: you do what you say you're not going to do.
Speaker 2: Sounds simple, right, It's not. Most leaders break promises in
Speaker 2: small ways every single day. I'll follow up later, I'll
Speaker 2: take care of that tomorrow, or I'll get back to you,
Speaker 2: and then you don't. Every time that happens, you take
Speaker 2: a small hit to your credibility. And here's what most
Speaker 2: leaders miss. Your team is always watching patterns, not promises.
Speaker 2: If your pattern is followed through, your team trusts you.
Speaker 2: If your pattern is excuses, your team learns to work
Speaker 2: around you. Leadership success starts with personal reliability, not speeches,
Speaker 2: not strategy, doing what you said you would do. The
Speaker 2: second habit you control your emotional reactions. You can't lead
Speaker 2: people if your emotions lead you. Think about this. Every
Speaker 2: leader gets frustrated, every leader gets stressed. Every leader has
Speaker 2: bad days. The difference is what you do with it.
Speaker 2: Do you snap at people, do you carry your bad
Speaker 2: mood into every conversation, Do you let one bad situation
Speaker 2: poison the rest of your day, or do you pause, reset,
Speaker 2: and lead with intention. Your team doesn't expect you to
Speaker 2: be perfect. They expect you to be stable. If they
Speaker 2: don't know which version of you they're getting, they stop
Speaker 2: trusting you. Emotional control is not soft leadership, it's disciplined leadership.
Speaker 2: The third habit, you protect your time like it matters,
Speaker 2: because it does. Most leaders waste time on things that
Speaker 2: don't move anything forward. Meetings that go nowhere, conversations that
Speaker 2: don't matter, distractions that feel productive but aren't. Then they
Speaker 2: say they don't have time to lead. That's not a
Speaker 2: time problem, that's a priority problem. Successful leaders are ruthless
Speaker 2: with their time. They know what matters, they know what doesn't.
Speaker 2: They focus on decisions, people and progress. Everything else is
Speaker 2: just noise. If your calendar is full but nothing is improving,
Speaker 2: your habits are the issue. In the fourth habit, you
Speaker 2: tell the truth, especially when it's uncomfortable. This is where
Speaker 2: a lot of leaders fall apart. They avoid hard conversations,
Speaker 2: they soften feedback, They delay addressing problems, and they convince
Speaker 2: themselves they're being nice and they're not. They're creating bigger
Speaker 2: problems later. Strong leaders tell the truth early. They address
Speaker 2: issues before they grow. They don't hide behind corporate bs
Speaker 2: or soft language to avoid discomfort because they understand something critical.
Speaker 2: Clarity builds trust, avoidance destroys it. In the fifth habit,
Speaker 2: you stay consistent when motivation disappears. Motivation is unreliable, It
Speaker 2: comes and goes. Discipline is what stays. The leaders who
Speaker 2: win are not the ones who feel motivated every day.
Speaker 2: They're the ones who show up the same way every day, prepared, focused, intentional,
Speaker 2: even when they're tired, even when things aren't going their way,
Speaker 2: even when nobody is noticing. Because leadership is not built
Speaker 2: on your best day, it's built on your average day,
Speaker 2: and your average day is controlled by your habits. The
Speaker 2: sixth habit, you invest in your growth without being told to.
Speaker 2: And this is a big one. If you only grow
Speaker 2: when someone sends you to a class or tells you
Speaker 2: what to do, you're not leading yourself. You're waiting, and
Speaker 2: waiting leaders fall behind. Strong leaders are always learning. They read,
Speaker 2: they listen, they reflect, they adjust. They take ownership of
Speaker 2: their development because they understand something most people ignore. The
Speaker 2: moment you stop growing, your leadership starts declining. Not immediately,
Speaker 2: not dramatically, but slowly and slowly is how most leaders
Speaker 2: lose their edge. In the last habit, in this one
Speaker 2: ties everything together. You hold yourself accountable before anyone else
Speaker 2: has to. You don't wait for feedback. You don't wait
Speaker 2: for problems to be pointed out. You don't wait to
Speaker 2: be corrected. You look in the mirror and ask yourself.
Speaker 2: The hard questions, did I lead well today? Did I
Speaker 2: follow through? Did I avoid something I shouldn't have? Did
Speaker 2: I make things better or more complicated? That level of
Speaker 2: ownership is rare, and that's why it predicts success because
Speaker 2: leaders who hold themselves accountable don't need constant supervision. They
Speaker 2: self correct, they adjust fast, they improve daily, and that's
Speaker 2: where the real power is. So here's the bottom line.
Speaker 2: Leadership success is not built in big moments. It's built
Speaker 2: in daily habits that most people ignore. What you do
Speaker 2: consistently will always outweigh what you do occasionally. So if
Speaker 2: you want to become a stronger leader, don't start with
Speaker 2: a big plan. Start with your habits. Because your habits
Speaker 2: are already building your future. The only question is are
Speaker 2: they building the right one. So as you move through today,
Speaker 2: take seven minutes and it's an audit yourself, not your team,
Speaker 2: not your organization. You look at your habits, your patterns,
Speaker 2: your follow through, Pick one habit from today's episode and
Speaker 2: tighten it up. That's how leadership actually improves, one intentional
Speaker 2: move at a time. And this has been the seven
Speaker 2: minute Leadership Podcast, and as always, I thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: For more. Paul fell Of Alito podcasts. Visit paulfellowalito dot com.