Speaker 1: Helping leaders motivate their people to a higher level of
Speaker 1: performance through strong human relations, team building, and goalajiving. This
Speaker 1: is the seven Minute Leadership Podcast with your host Paul Felloaledo.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome to the seven Minute Leadership Podcast.
Speaker 2: It's episode six point fifty eight. Let me ask you
Speaker 2: a question. Have you ever looked at a problem in
Speaker 2: your organization and thought, how did we not see this coming?
Speaker 2: A project collapses, a key employee quits, a customer complaint
Speaker 2: turns into a reputation issue. Of financial decision suddenly looks
Speaker 2: like a disaster, and everyone in the room says the
Speaker 2: same thing, we didn't know. But here is the uncomfortable
Speaker 2: reality of leadership. Most problems do not appear out of nowhere.
Speaker 2: They show up quietly. They whisper before they shout. They
Speaker 2: give signals long before they become a crisis. Great leaders
Speaker 2: develop something I call a risk radar, not paranoia, not
Speaker 2: over a reaction awareness. A leader with a strong risk
Speaker 2: radar sees patterns early. They notice small shifts. They catch
Speaker 2: warning signs when everyone else is still comfortable. Think about
Speaker 2: radar on an aircraft. The system exists for one reason,
Speaker 2: to detect something long before it becomes dangerous. The earlier
Speaker 2: you see it, the more options you have. Leadership works
Speaker 2: the exact same way. The earlier you see trouble, the
Speaker 2: easier it is to redirect the outcome. The problem is
Speaker 2: that many leaders run their organizations with the radar turned off.
Speaker 2: They only react when something crashes. So today I want
Speaker 2: to talk about how you build your leadership risk radar,
Speaker 2: because if you want to lead well, you must become
Speaker 2: a person who spots trouble early. The first signal your
Speaker 2: radar should pick up is behavior shifts. Organizations talk constantly
Speaker 2: about metrics, dashboards, and performance numbers. Those are important, but
Speaker 2: numbers are often the last signal. Human behavior changes first.
Speaker 2: The employee who normally engages in meetings suddenly becomes quiet.
Speaker 2: The high performer who used to volunteer for projects now
Speaker 2: stays in the background. The team member who was dependable
Speaker 2: begins missing small details. These signals are not random, they
Speaker 2: are information. A leader with a working risk radar notices
Speaker 2: these changes and investigates early. They ask questions before the
Speaker 2: situation escalates. The second signal is friction in the system.
Speaker 2: Friction shows up when processes begin slowing down, approvals take longer,
Speaker 2: communication becomes unclear, departments start blaming each other. Friction is
Speaker 2: one of the most overlooked warning signs in leadership. When
Speaker 2: a system runs smoothly, people rarely talk about it. When
Speaker 2: friction appears, it tells you something inside the organization has shifted.
Speaker 2: Strong leaders pay attention to friction because friction always points
Speaker 2: to a deeper issue. It might be a resource problem,
Speaker 2: It might be a leadership gap. It might be a
Speaker 2: process that no longer fits the organization. Whatever the cause,
Speaker 2: friction is the radar ping telling you something needs attention.
Speaker 2: The third signal is silence. Silence in an organization is
Speaker 2: rarely peaceful. It usually means people have stopped speaking up
Speaker 2: when employees no longer bring forward problems, suggestions, or concerns.
Speaker 2: Leaders sometimes believe everything is fine, and it is not fine.
Speaker 2: Silence often means employees believe speaking up will not change anything,
Speaker 2: and that is a dangerous environment. When leaders lose access
Speaker 2: to honest information, their risk radar goes blind. One of
Speaker 2: the most powerful things a leader can do is protect
Speaker 2: open communication. When people trust that they can speak freely,
Speaker 2: leaders receive early warnings, and early warnings are leadership gold.
Speaker 2: The fourth signal is small problems repeating themselves amidst deadline,
Speaker 2: a customer complaint, a minor policy violation. One occurrence might
Speaker 2: be random. Repeated occurrences are a pattern. Patterns are the
Speaker 2: language of risk. When something keeps happening, it means the
Speaker 2: system has a weakness. Great leaders never ignore patterns. They
Speaker 2: investigate them because a pattern today becomes a crisis tomorrow
Speaker 2: if left alone. The fifth signal is leadership complacency, and
Speaker 2: this one is uncomfortable. Sometimes the biggest risk in an
Speaker 2: organization is the leader. Success can create blind spots. When
Speaker 2: things have gone well for a long time, leaders can
Speaker 2: begin believing the system will always work. They stop asking questions,
Speaker 2: They stop challenging assumptions, They stop scanning the horizon. That
Speaker 2: is the moment when trouble begins building quietly. Strong leaders
Speaker 2: stay curious, They stay alert. They continue asking the uncomfortable
Speaker 2: question even when everything appears stable. That mindset keeps the
Speaker 2: radar active. Now Here is the important part. A risk
Speaker 2: radar is not about living in fear. It is about
Speaker 2: living in awareness. When leaders see trouble early, they gain
Speaker 2: something incredibly valuable. Time time to correct course, time to communicate,
Speaker 2: time to protect their team. And organization. Leadership is not
Speaker 2: about preventing every problem that's impossible. Leadership is about spotting
Speaker 2: the storm early enough to steer the ship safely through
Speaker 2: it or around it. The organizations that collapse rarely do
Speaker 2: so overnight. Warning signs were present, signals were visible, patterns
Speaker 2: were forming. The radar was simply ignored. So here is
Speaker 2: your leadership challenge today. Spend seven minutes thinking about your organization.
Speaker 2: What are the subtle warning signs? Is there a behavior
Speaker 2: shift you've been ignoring? Is friction building somewhere in your workflow?
Speaker 2: Has silence replaced honest feedback is a small problem repeating itself.
Speaker 2: Your job as a leader is not to wait for trouble.
Speaker 2: Your job is to see it coming. Because the leaders
Speaker 2: who survive long term are not the ones who react
Speaker 2: the fastest. They are the ones who saw it first.
Speaker 2: So leadership is awareness. It is attention. It is the
Speaker 2: discipline of watching the horizon even when the skies look clear.
Speaker 2: Develop your risk radar. Listen carefully to what your team
Speaker 2: is telling you through behavior, friction, silence, and patterns. Trouble
Speaker 2: almost all always send signals before it arrives. The leaders
Speaker 2: who succeed are the ones who pay attention early enough
Speaker 2: to act. 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
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