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662. From Reactive to Intentional: How Leaders Stop Managing Fire Drills · Daily Influence

• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to Daily Influence, your daily dose of positive influence.
• 0:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm Brian Smith founder of IA Business Advisors and co-author of the Iain team series.
• 0:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Each day we share stories and insights to help you find be and build your influence in a positive and responsible way.
• 0:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm Greg Clino, partner at IE Business Advisors, and co-host of Daily Influence.
• 0:32
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• 0:39
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• 0:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Hey everybody, Brian Smith here with the IM team series and your daily influence and today we are going to talk about going from being a reactive leader to an intentional leader and how, you know, we can stop managing fire drills.
• 1:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: We hear this a lot at IA.
• 1:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: We hear about, you know, what happens throughout the day and how timelines get pushed and, you know, leaders, they don't wake up.
• 1:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: planning to react all day.
• 1:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, they may understand that that's what's going to happen.
• 1:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: But that wasn't the plan, but somehow urgency keeps winning in the day-to-day cadence a lot of small business leaders.
• 1:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: And for that matter, even larger organization leaders.
• 1:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, what happens is emails, pull focus, problems, demand, attention, and decisions begin to stack up faster than they can be made.
• 1:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, what it all leads to is depression, delay, frustration.
• 1:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: We'll look today.
• 1:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: I am going to talk about why reactivity.
• 1:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's not a leadership flaw.
• 1:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's
• 1:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: a systems signal.
• 2:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: And what I mean by that, I will explain soon, but it's how disciplined structure and accountability allow leaders to move from managing emergencies to leading with intention.
• 2:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: reactivity is a symptom.
• 2:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's not a failure.
• 2:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: When everything feels urgent, it's rarely because everything is important.
• 2:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you have to really think about that.
• 2:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think if you challenge what you're reacting to, you'll learn that a lot of it.
• 2:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: isn't really important.
• 2:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Reactivity usually means that priorities haven't been visible, decision rights weren't clear, and progress really isn't being measured early.
• 2:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's being measured reactively.
• 2:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: Fire drills are what happen when systems don't surface issues soon enough.
• 2:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: Emergency thrives where structure is missing.
• 2:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Emergency feels productive, but it's often a
• 2:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: when there's no cadence, decisions get delayed, issues escalate emotionally, and leaders become the bottleneck in the overall progress of the areas of influence they find themselves.
• 3:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: And intentional structure will replace urgency.
• 3:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: with a rhythm, a cadence, that we can become comfortable and not just as a leader, but that our whole organization can become comfortable in.
• 3:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Intentional leaders, they design time, not just goals.
• 3:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Most leaders plan goals, but don't plan how the time is used to manage them.
• 3:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's where the interaction of smart goals to smart tactics, to smart communication, to smart framework, all come together and make smart management so important in what we teach.
• 3:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Intentionally, there shows up in regular check-ins.
• 3:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Clear, meaning purposes, agendas that have a purpose and that are understood.
• 3:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: And defined review cycles, divine teams of communication between people.
• 4:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: time when designed well becomes a leadership asset instead of a constraint.
• 4:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Discipline and accountability create predictability.
• 4:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: Productability isn't boring.
• 4:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: It sounds boring, but it isn't boring.
• 4:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: What it is is stabilizing.
• 4:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: When teams know when progress will be reviewed, how decisions are made, and what happens when something slips through the cracks where we have a plan for that,
• 4:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: then people become more trustworthy and our teams grow in strength, not just individually, but overall as an entire organization, anxiety drops, ownership increases, and leadership stops being pulled into every single issue that is ongoing.
• 4:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: What's most exciting about all of this,
• 4:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: smart turns leadership into a rhythm, not a rescue.
• 4:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: Smart one practice as a discipline, not just a framework, but a discipline creates forward motion automatically.
• 5:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Positive and responsible evolution happen continuously through this continuous improvement within your organization.
• 5:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because we see,
• 5:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: progress early.
• 5:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: We adjust sooner and we influence calmly, which supports a real positive organizational structure.
• 5:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's not just engagement, that's mature leadership, that's a mature business operating system.
• 5:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Reactivity isn't a personal weakness.
• 5:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's a design opportunity.
• 5:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: urgency loses its grip and intention takes its place.
• 5:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Leadership becomes quieter, decisions become cleaner, and progress becomes steadier.
• 5:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's how influence scales.
• 5:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: Not through constant presence, but through systems that work even when you step back and let them go.
• 6:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: So look, I hope you've enjoyed today's daily influence.
• 6:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Again, we are really pushing for you to lead into
• 6:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: smart as a discipline smart as a communications style.
• 6:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I hope we'll see you again on our next episode of daily influence.
• 6:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: Have a great day.