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Words from the Wise
Join Words from the Wise with Gary Wise, a retired Navy Command Master Chief, for authentic leadership insights forged in real-world experience. Through engaging discussions and actionable strategies, Gary empowers you to master emotional intelligence, build resilient teams, and unlock your full potential. Tune in for practical advice on delegation, conflict management, and inspiring others, drawn from his over 28 years of service and ongoing leader mentorship headquartered now in Ocala, Florida.
Words from the Wise
When Everything Falls Apart: How Great Leaders Rise
When chaos strikes, true leadership is revealed. Drawing from decades of military experience as a Command Master Chief and damage control specialist, Gary Wise unpacks seven battle-tested strategies that help leaders not just survive but thrive during challenging situations.
The journey begins with a fundamental mindset shift: seeing obstacles as disguised opportunities. Gary shares a compelling story from his time on Guam during COVID-19, where his team transformed pandemic challenges into operational improvements. This relentless forward momentum becomes the foundation for standing tall when everything seems to be falling apart.
Decision-making emerges as a critical leadership skill — not just making choices, but standing firmly behind them while creating space for team input and healthy debate. Gary's experiences aboard naval vessels illustrate how this balance between confidence and collaboration leads to better outcomes, especially under pressure.
Leadership truly shines in how we guide our teams through difficulty. Through vivid storytelling about emergency ship recalls in Singapore and firefighting on aircraft carriers, Gary demonstrates how challenges create unique opportunities to build team cohesion, trust, and pride that last long after the crisis passes.
What separates exceptional leaders is their response to adversity: they sharpen their minds, maintain unshakable consistency, embrace a learning mindset, and inspire through visible engagement. Each principle is illustrated through real-world examples that translate across industries and leadership contexts.
For anyone navigating uncertainty or preparing to lead through future challenges, these seven strategies provide a roadmap to not just weather the storm, but to stand tall and guide others through it. What obstacles might you transform into your team's greatest opportunities?
All right, hey everybody, how you doing. It's Gary here. Gary Wise, wise Leadership Solutions. Tonight I'm actually here to talk to you about seven ways you can stand tall as a leader during any and I really I mean any casualty, problem, tough situation. These are the seven ways.
Speaker 1:As I've thought about the ways that I've survived throughout this chaotic life as a leader, these are the things that I've leveraged throughout chaotic life as a leader. These are the things that I've leveraged throughout my journey. I want to share it with you because I think that there's a lot of goodness in learning from other people, as well as sharing from them their insights into what they use to get themselves out of bed in the morning. What do they use to help them want to get out there and go to work and do the things that they do every day, all right. So the first thing I want to cover today is I want to recognize that obstacles, challenges, times that you don't feel like you're making the right maybe not even the decision, but just the impact that you think you're going to be making or that you need to make, or that, when the cards just don't seem to go your way, that is quite likely a setup. It really is an opportunity typically for you to recognize what's going wrong, look what you can do to fix it and then, by the way, possibly even grow.
Speaker 1:I remember being on Guam and going through COVID and talking with my boss about how we could. You know, we have this huge pandemic. We're on a forward deployed island, or we're on a forward operating base is what we used to call it. We have very limited resources, we have very limited medical capabilities, we have very limited lodging. We're getting asked to do all of these things in support of the Pacific Fleet and in support of our community. And oh, by the way, he and I both had already had a long list of things that we had wanted to do during our tenure as the commanding officer or as the command master chief. So I told him, I said well, you know what, sir, we got to do all these operational taskings anyway. We have already got to do all these things that are going to make the island a better resource for the Pacific fleet, in support of all these sandbox liberties, in support of a fleet that's looking for a place where they can come get some downtime without the possibility of getting exposed to this pandemic. Right, why should we not also then sprinkle into the planning all the things that we wanted to do before all of this and then leverage these opportunities to get the job done? So, for example, we had some buildings up at one of our top upper installations on top of essentially, a mountain on an island of Guam, that were really getting reclaimed by the jungle, so that we could use them as a way to house people that were looking for places to either do their quarantine or do their time before they get embarked on board a ship, or even to go to the island, do their little 14 days and then fly off the island. And that was just one example.
Speaker 1:And you know, throughout my career, I've just had so many setbacks in my life that, when I look back on them, more often than not there was an opportunity there to regroup, to recognize the reality of the situation. Right, this is not what we planned. This is something that we weren't planning on happening to our team, to our organization. This was a curve ball, but how can we line up and make the move to go forward? Right, and I love the opportunity to just we're going to keep moving, we're not just going to stop, because that's just not the way the world goes. So I'd say number one if you're the leader or you want to be a person who's responsible to one day become a leader, look at obstacles as opportunities. Look at them with the frame of mind of this is exactly why I've got the job right. This is exactly why I have job security, because this moment right here, all right, so that's just having that relentless mindset is going to be crucial for you and your team.
Speaker 1:Next up is making choices and standing on that business right, like if you make a decision. I'm not saying don't ever change your mind, because, yes, if you make a bad choice, admit it as soon as you recognize it's the wrong call. I maybe even apologize for it, because if you made the bad call and it negatively affects people within your organization, maybe you should apologize for that right A hundred percent. If you make a bad decision and people are that you trust are coming up to you and they are they are questioning as to why we made a certain choice you got to have those people that you can trust, that you can listen to. On the reverse side, when you make a choice, you typically need to stick to your guns right. Hopefully you did some due diligence ahead of time, hopefully you thought it out, hopefully you prepared for the opportunity.
Speaker 1:And I will tell you for me, one of the greatest tricks as a leader is to give yourself decision-making space and have people that will make recommendations around you, so that way you can not be the only person that's making the choice. I don't mind making the decision. Leaders cannot mind making the decision. You just can't mind it. Right, you cannot be afraid to make a choice if you're going to be the leader. But I love letting people give me the recommendations and I love listening to them debate it in front of me. I don't mind it. I don't mind hearing the debate. I think it's important to hear both perspectives.
Speaker 1:And when I was the command master chief, I was quite often the person that would play the role of devil's advocate. I would come in there and say, hey look, I hear what you're saying, but I want to go ahead and shoot a few arrows at you to make sure that you can stand up to that conversation, because my boss is the ultimate decision maker at this moment in time and if it's got to go above his head, he really needs to know all of the important information. And if he chooses to make the decision at this level and it doesn't go right, then a lot of us are going to be looking foolish, right, and so us are going to be looking foolish, right, and so we've got to be critical when we think about these things. We've got to be honest with ourselves and we've got to ask those tough to hear questions. You know, I remember one spot of time they sent us to Guam.
Speaker 1:I was on board a ship at this time and they told us we were going to embark a very important vessel. Right, it's a boat, it's not a ship, because boats ride on ships. Right, it was a boat and this boat was going to embark on our ship. And nobody really told us how it was going to happen. They just told us that it was going to happen and that we were going to take it out to sea. We were going to do some really cool operations, and so the whole team gets together with the people on the beach deck, people on our crew, and they come tell the captain this elaborate plan of how we're going to rig it all up. We're going to use the cranes, we're going to swing it around with the ship the flight deck, and that's what we're going to do and it's ultimately what we did.
Speaker 1:But I will tell you at the end of that entire evolution we learned a lot of lessons that probably we could have used ahead of time. And if we had been more questioning as to higher headquarters as to how they wanted us to do something, we would have found out that there was guidance in another document from the Marine Corps side of the military that tells you exactly how to do this thing, but it tells you to use the well deck instead of the flight deck because of the safety. And why does all that matter to me? Because there was some safety concerns and some safety challenges and it was quite risky concerns and some safety challenges. And it was quite risky the things that we did. And everybody came out of there 10 toes, 10 fingers, but still right. And this is where leaders have got to not be afraid to ask the questions and run it up to all areas and say look, this is something that's not normal. Is there anything else out there that can help us with this?
Speaker 1:And I remember talking to the commanding officer about this whole evolution, when it was all said and done and we were just thinking about, oh my gosh, like what a mess that we had been put in. And how has there been other information out there in the world and nobody brought that to us? If only there was people out there that was supposed to be planning these kinds of operations. You know, out of a higher level. I see you here, right, all right, next up, it is your responsibility to lead your people through the chaos. So you know you have got to be the inspiration they're going to look to. And oh, by the way, when there is hard times, that's an opportunity for you to build a spirit of core. That's an opportunity for you to build pride at the unit. That's an opportunity for you to build trust within the team. And so, when you have those hard times and you have those difficult challenges, don't just be upset Again. Figure out the way to go forward. Let the people get refocused as to what's going to happen, and then let's get through this right. I remember here we go. Here's another C story.
Speaker 1:Once upon a time, we were in I think it was Singapore. I was on board the USS George Washington. This was like 2012, 2011. And we had only been into Singapore at this point for a day. I think Not even we might have even pulled in that day. It was either we pulled in that day or we'd been there one night and it was the second day.
Speaker 1:But we get sorted or we get told that we've got to get the ship underway because there's something going on in the Philippines and they need us for humanitarian aid. And oh, by the way, you don't just have ship's company for the aircraft carrier on board the ship at this time, you've got the entire air wing plus ship's company. So we're talking about 5,000 people. And I've got duty right. My friend Rory Fried Bacon, if you're out there listening, rory, you're the section leader, I believe this day I'm the engineer duty officer. Rory is the section leader. And they bring in all the department heads, all the leaders for the ship and for the air wing, and they basically say look, we've got an operational tasking, we are getting the ship underway in the morning.
Speaker 1:Recall all of your people back right now and if they don't make it back in time, they're probably going to miss our movement. It's going to be a problem. So get them back here now. And I remember at first everybody was just like there's just no way, we can't do that. There's just no way we can't do that. There's just no way we're leaving already. We just got here.
Speaker 1:You know, some people were probably upset because they didn't have liberty yet. Some people were probably upset because they didn't get the chance to go out and see the town or whatever. But then there's the reality of recalling. I mean, we're typically in three to four section duty at this time to four section duty at this time. So you're probably trying to recall a good 75% of the crew, 66% of the crew and almost all the squadron. That's a lot of people. You got to get on the phone, you got to get word to them, they got to cancel their reservations, they got to get to a taxi or to a bus and get their butts back to the ship and so away we go.
Speaker 1:And I remember I got my whole duty section up at our Liberty desks. These are desks that we would essentially put in the hangar bay right and in the hangar bay we would man the hangar bay desks with sailors who would man the Liberty logs and so people, as they're leaving this ship, they would sign their name out and then, as they come back to the ship, they would sign their name in. And this is all secondary to the scanning of the ID cards, right? So we had two ways essentially to know if you were back or off the ship. We would check the ID card rosters and we would check, essentially, these liberty logs. Well, on these desks we had a bunch of cell phones that we use for the sailors to be able to contact us if they have any issues, right? And so we tell the sailors hey look, every sailor that has a hotel room is supposed to have contacted us and given us their hotel room information, ie the hotel they're in, the room number as well as the telephone number for the hotel. Good, call them all right now and keep calling them until you get positive contact with every one of the sailors on Liberty and let them know that you've got to get back on the ship.
Speaker 1:So I'm telling this to all my sailors and of course they're hemming and hawing and they're thinking man, I've got a work plan, I've got things they want us to do. And I'm telling this to all my sailors and of course they're hemming and hawing and they're thinking man, I've got a work plan, I've got things they want us to do, and I'm just like look, that's no longer the priority. The priority is that we get the engineering department for this aircraft carrier back on board the ship. That's our job. And one of my sailors in the department she says hey, I'm a singing chief. All the time she says singing chief, why don't we just use them like Facebook? And I was like what, what do you mean? I forget, I'm not that savvy on social media. And she's like well, we could just start messaging everybody on Facebook and they'll probably get it a lot faster than a hotel room calls because people are going to have their cell phones. I said, well, let's do all of it right, let's do all of it right, let's do all of it. And it was not even I'd say.
Speaker 1:Three hours later we had positive contact with everybody in our department and, by the way, I was letting everybody else know hey, we're using Facebook as a way to communicate with people that are on Liberty, that they need to come back to the ship. And that was it was was a very, very slick way to do it, plus the phone calls. And and you know what's fun is, of course, engineering was the last department to have sailors return to the ship. It was about four o'clock in the morning I was up waiting on these sailors up there in the hangar bay me and the master chief and the xo and these guys showed up having a good time. They knew they'd been notified a long time before that to come back to the ship, but they had taken their sweet time to get there. They really had. And when they got there they were, they were not in trouble. They were not in trouble. But they they told me they ever said hey, senior, sorry you know, but we made it. We got everybody back on the ship and we got underway the very next day without everybody. We didn't leave not one person behind. That was a huge feat, right. That was a huge team building opportunity for any of my shipmates that were on the George Washington with me during that period of time. George Washington with me during that period of time y'all probably remember like that was a huge, huge deal for us to get recalled and then head over to the Philippines to help them out with their natural they had a natural disaster at the time, right.
Speaker 1:So definitely use challenges as opportunities to rally your people and to get them to want to not just, uh, to contribute, but also to connect with the people right and to hopefully learn more about each other. Next up is sharpen your mind right. If you are a leader and you get these challenges, hopefully they interest you, hopefully they frustrate you, hopefully they inspire you to want to make sure you know what you're talking about, to make sure you know what you're doing. You know I can't even tell you how many times, as a damage control man before I was a command master, chief, dc men are responsible essentially for taking care of all of these ships. You know, installed fire suppression systems, firefighting training for the crew, pipe patching and rupture training, flooding training for the crew, chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear stuff for the crew. We're responsible for essentially emergency response of any sort right Medical casualties, deep void escape and rescue, confined space rescue, toxic gas training All these industrial problems exist on a ship at all times and the damage controlman's job is to not just be the subject matter experts and to run the A team, which is what my team typically would be considered right. Our job is to be the first responders in conjunction with, like, the medical department, but also to train the entire crew, because the reality is a lot of us that were considered to be professionals are probably going to go down relatively quickly, and so you want to have the rest of the crew.
Speaker 1:You know, in the United States Navy, similar to the Marines the Marines, everybody is a rifleman right, or everybody is an infantryman. Well, in the United States Navy, everybody's a firefighter right, everybody's a firefighter. You, just you are. It is what it is, and so it's our job to train everyone. And then you would get these assessments from people that would come on board and they would essentially, you know, try to prove if you did your job or not. And I see this from both sides because I did this. I did that role from 2007 till 2010.
Speaker 1:All right, as a chief petty officer, I was a part of the afloat training group San Diego team, the afloat training group Pacific team. That's really where I got my reputation was when I was working for them and assessing ships in San Diego, and really the aircraft carriers became my bread and butter and that's ultimately how I got the job on board. The George Washington was through my time at ATG, but then I remember telling everybody how proud, how excited I was to go to an aircraft carrier of my own to take all these lessons learned, all of these things that I'd seen throughout my time as an assessor, as a trainer, and to go apply it on my own ship and then to go do that was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life. You know, it is so hard to find time to train people when everybody has a full-time job already. It's tough. Everybody has a full-time job doing their own job, plus we've all got it's tough. Everybody has a full-time job doing their own job, plus we've all got gobs of man, hours of maintenance to do. But then we've got to carve out time to do training.
Speaker 1:I had a commanding officer when I was on board the George Washington whose policy was we would run two general quarters or battle stations drills a week and that was import or underway, it did not matter. It did not matter, it did not matter Underway, import. Tuesdays and Thursdays were GQ right. The only thing that changed was the times. Underway. Tuesdays and Thursdays, gqs were in the evening, typically around 1830 till about 2030, right. And then my guys would be up till about midnight restowing gear, putting it all away, because you, you get out I don't know a good couple hundred scbas. You get out all this gear. It takes a while to put it all back. It doesn't just go back the right way immediately. So tuesdays and thursday nights for us was a late night, and then in port it was tuesdays and thursdays before working hours. So we'd be out there doing GQ at 6 o'clock in the morning, 5.30 in the morning.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, especially in the wintertime in Yokosuka, japan, it'd be freaking snowing outside and we're doing like we're shooting water off the side of the ship doing hose handling training. People would love to wear their flash gear then because it was so cold, you know. But you have to, just you have to to to prepare, you have to train and you've got the time that you got. And I remember these teams would come to my ship and it would feel like it was almost personal. Because, number one, I was really good when I was at a float training group, san diego pacific.
Speaker 1:I'd gotten a reputation, and so then I'm on board the ship, the only forward deployed aircraft carrier, and we also were carrying ourselves, I think, pretty well. And so we had to defend our reputation. We had to defend our training plans and our pipelines of why we did the things that we did, our pipelines of why we did the things that we did and it would make you have to get critical. You'd have to be in the books, you'd have to be in the pubs, you'd have to understand what was going on, because these outside eyes would show up and they would just question things and you'd have to breathe. Remember, they're doing their job, but part of their job is to understand how you're doing your job and what does that look like. And that was a tough time because you'd have to really be up to date on the current instructions. I see the same thing also now, even as a high school teacher. You've got to be up to date when it comes to the things that you've got to teach in the classroom or like drill.
Speaker 1:When I got to the NJROTC community after my job, when I got to the NJROTC community after my job, after my career in the Navy, I got very little drill experience right. Maybe during the chief petty officer initiation season, maybe around chief petty officer pride days, we didn't drill a whole lot in the Navy. That's just not our thing. We're typically me. I prided myself on wearing coveralls and liking to fix things that were mechanical and not being afraid to go fight fires and toxic gas or whatever it was by getting the ship underway safely. I was not worried about could we do a really cool drill formation, right. But now I'm in this program where these cadets are putting in hours upon hours of training because they want to go to these competitions and not suck right.
Speaker 1:We don't want to disappoint ourselves. And I tell them don't worry so much about winning. Winning is great, but being competitive is always my goal. Let's be competitive, let's be respected and let's work with what we've been given as we figure out what we're going to do Right. And so we've got to get into the books. We've got to, we've got to dive into the manuals and figure out what are the rules, what are the requirements, what are the right ways to do things and can we answer those questions? You know and that's definitely something I think for a leader you get against those questions and that's definitely something that I think for a leader. You get against those challenges. You hit those ropes. Things go a way that you're not planning it. Maybe it's going to make you hit those books and you're going to remember those nuances of things you're going to pick up. So I think that's a good thing.
Speaker 1:Next up is you've got to be consistent during the chaos. You cannot afford to just lose your mind, right? You've got to be the same person, you've got to be authentic, you've got to be steady and you've got to just breathe and figure it out. I used to always tell my sailors on the ship especially when I was a firefighter was that I didn't run. Typically, when I had six first classes that worked for me, they all ran to the fire.
Speaker 1:I would get there quickly, but I didn't need to run unsafely through the P ways, right, I learned as I got older, kind of like the whole two bulls on a Hill, you know, let's, let's run down there, dad, or let's walk down there and take care of our business, right, I learned that I can get there almost as quick as they got there without all the crazy running, and that when I got there, if they didn't have it handled, then the problem probably deserved my attention. And if I got there and they already had it all resolved, good job, guys, that's your job, you know. Win for everybody, and I think that's an important thing for them to understand that you're going to be consistent when it comes to chaos. The other thing I would tell them is get there fast, make sure nobody's at risk of being hurt or in an unsafe environment and once we've confirmed that, lock it down. Lock it down, shut down the boundaries, isolate everything and then let's figure out how we work our way back in. That's it and that's how you fight things on board ships, because on board ships it's all about compartmentalization. It's all about making the boxes and making the squares and tightening it up and then working our way methodically and using our people appropriately.
Speaker 1:I've seen, unfortunately, chaos in fighting the ship and that's hard. I get it. I don't blame people because it's super scary, it's super. There's just a lot going on and that's why you have to really rely upon the training. Uh, you've got to train your people. Your people need to know how to expect you to operate in a casualty. I remember once again in the service the service actual casualties.
Speaker 1:I believe it's the senior leader's jobs to get in there and fight Nothing against the junior guys. I love the fact that they're excited and they're motivated, but whenever there was a real fire or whenever there was a real problem, I was going to be involved with the leading of that team period and it's not because I didn't trust my guys, it's because I was not going to just put their lives in the hands of somebody else just because I was older than they were or I was more senior than they were. No, that's not how it works, right. And then, once I can I mean now, if it's not too complicated of a situation, and I want them to get some training, sure, sure, but if I think somebody could die, that's going down that hole. You're not. There's just no way in hell. I'm not in charge of that because I'm going to be the one that's leading that team.
Speaker 1:What was hard about that was once I became a command master chief. Well, now that's no longer my position right now. I had people for that. So then I had to stay out of the way because I didn't want to throw everybody off their game by going down there and getting involved and inserting myself, and I thank God that we never had anything too challenging happen where I had to then go down there and do what I can do. You know, thankfully, thankfully, thankfully, all right Next up is going to be so I talked about, talked about how we have got to turn obstacles into opportunities, talked about how you've got to make decisions and own them.
Speaker 1:You've got to own your decisions. Talked about how to rally your people so that they could want to get down there and fight and learn and trust one another and work together. All those are good things. Talked about sharpening your mind when you. All those are good things. Talked about sharpening your mind when you come against challenges. Got it Talked about being consistent in the chaos Next up right.
Speaker 1:This next one for me is there's something to learn always. There's always something to learn, and so when you find that there's a setback or there's there is some variable that wasn't being tracked, or you find that a person does something that was unethical or immoral or illegal, or you find that you made a mistake or whatever, it is right, god just it's going to be okay, it's probably going to pass. Hopefully nobody got hurt or died. Right. And then learn something from it. Take that note, share it with a friend, debrief your team. So, once again, in the service, we have this thing where we plan something right, we brief it so we get everyone together, we talk about it, everybody's on the same page. We get it done, we execute it right, we operate it and then we debrief it and in that debrief there's a process to where we're going to capture lessons learned and things that caught us off guard.
Speaker 1:When I worked with the nukes on board the ship, one of the things I learned about them was their introduction of anomalies right, how they would bring anomalies into a problem set to make it a little bit more challenging. We did the same thing in the damage control community by introducing additional casualties, but we didn't use the term anomaly, but that was essentially just a word that would introduce something that you just didn't prepare for, didn't see coming. And how would you respond to that? I think where a lot of people in the leadership positions I don't care if it's military, I don't care if it's in high school, I don't care if it's in the corporate sector we just don't do a lot of training or drilling with our people for challenging situations or scenarios. So what you've got to do then in those moments is take the real time things you go through and capture the lessons learned and then figure out a way to not only train everybody on what happened but to keep that information, so that way, if you ever have to go through something again, it's easy to find it right. It's easy to find the information as to how you conquered that challenge the previous year or the previous class or whatever it was.
Speaker 1:That's one of my favorite things is, when I got, I always tell my first period they're like my beta test for everything. By sixth period I usually got it figured out pretty good, right. So I'll start off first period with a plan and after doing it five times in a row, by sixth period I've gotten it pretty locked down. Really, by fourth period it's locked down. I'm usually fifth and sixth. I'm running more a little bit on fumes because it's after lunch, but they still get a much better product, I believe, than the first period. And what does first period get? Well, they get the full energy of the morning rush right, which is also a fun time to be involved.
Speaker 1:Last but not least, as far as today's lessons, or as far as today's video is going to go, it's going to be, you know, inspire your people by coming to work, and I see so many people that are in leadership positions that think it's just a job to go sit behind a desk and send out taskers, and I just don't believe it can be farther from the truth. Working the problems, working with the people, or at least monitoring, being visible, being available and just having them know you care enough to get out of your office and come down there and be around. Now the challenge is and this is where a lot of leaders have a conundrum it's that what we don't want to do is cause everybody to stop what they're doing because they're uncomfortable because we're there. But are they uncomfortable because we're there? Are they uncomfortable because they're not doing it all the way? Right, something to think about. Are they uncomfortable that we're there, or are they uncomfortable because they don't really know what they're doing? Or that they're worried about something and they don't want us to find out? It's just.
Speaker 1:I think those are the things where leaders kind of get hamstrung once in a while because they don't know what's really going on. And there's this say do mismatch. And I think when you, when you allow yourself to become blissfully ignorant, you line yourself up to hear some bad news that unfortunately, you should have projected or protected your team from right. So my job is every day, then, as a leader, is to be the most motivated person in the room and to come every day ready to do the work Again, that was what I used to tell my chiefs all the time. If a chief petty officer is not the most motivated person in the room, then what are we really doing? Right, we are career sailors, career leaders within this organization. It is our job to want to be there. It's the same thing when it comes to educators. It's the same thing when it comes to law enforcement, firefighters you pick your flavor right Medical professionals.
Speaker 1:If you are a career professional leader in that environment, you have got to bring the energy every day. You have got to bring the enthusiasm every day. You have got to bring the integrity and the attitude of we are going to do what we all signed up to do, period. And we're going to do it with all signed up to do period. And we're going to do it with a smile on our face and joy in our hearts and we're going to get the job done.
Speaker 1:And so I think that too often people forget that leading is more than just a position and they get really focused on having the space between them and the problem and, hopefully, less stress. But the problem is is, when the stress does get to you as a leader, it is magnified and typically you have a smaller decision-making time zone because by the time it got to you, you quite possibly owe the answer to somebody else. You quite possibly owe the answer to somebody else and now you've just been given a gobbledygook sandwich that you've got to take a bite out of right. So insert yourself into the problem much sooner. Be critical at the planning process, be very strategic at the briefing process, listen to what they're saying, ask critical questions or plant people in your team that will do the critical questioning for you, right, right, and encourage an environment that everyone's going to ask the questions they want to have asked, because you might have somebody that's going to ask the question that you need to hear. When the execution happens, make sure people are doing what they said they were going to do and then, when it's all said and done and everything is restored to a normal configuration, make sure everybody gets together and talks about how it went, what could have gone better thankfully it didn't go worse and how do we wrap all that up into a bow and keep it for the future All things that I think leaders need to remember. But I just want you to understand that leaders should not worry about the hard times. As a matter of fact, we should welcome them because, again, it's job security for us. It's an opportunity for us, as leaders, to put our best foot forward and do the things that make us who we are today Right and showing your people, showing your family, that you're not just going to quit. Even when the going gets tough, or especially when the going gets tough, we'll model exactly what you want from them, and not only as followers but as future leaders, and I concur with everybody in the world that says leaders should not just grow followers. We should grow future leaders that choose to serve together. That's huge. Okay, everyone. Well, thank you very much for listening to the sound of my voice and watching the video. Wise Leadership Solutions Ocala, florida. I do want to put a plug in for Ocala Inspired. If you get the chance, check out our website wiseleadershipsolutionscom.
Speaker 1:July 25th, we have a leadership development event happening here in Ocala. We are open to local businesses sponsoring us and getting involved with the event. We're going to have live speakers. We're going to have Coach Hart from Trinity Catholic talking about stress management. We're going to have Mr Elgin Carelock talking about data-driven decision-making. We're going to have Ms Consuela Shaw talking about emotional intelligence. We're going to have Dr Lee Byers talking about positive intelligence. I'll be talking about hybrid learning and hybrid environments.
Speaker 1:Oh man, pastor Mark Cummins, pmc, from Church of Hope, is going to be talking about high road leadership. Miles McConnico from Cut Different is going to be talking about digital detox and how do you manage in this technological world. So it's going to be in person. We've got a limited amount of seats, but it's an opportunity for people to come from around Ocala. 50 bucks gets you registered. You're going to get fed lunch. All money left over is going to pay the bills and then go to local nonprofits.
Speaker 1:We're looking at Cut Different, we're looking at the Greater Ocala Community Corporation, we're looking at church of hope to be the ones that are going to receive the remaining excess funds, and it's just going to be a great opportunity for leaders to come together. So, if you have some time on your calendar, it's July 25th 2025. It's still a ways down the road, I know, but I know the leaders are also typically planning out their summers already and I want to get that on the calendar for you so you can possibly come join us right. That'd be awesome to see you there. Thank you all very much for everything. I appreciate you listening and I'm going to go ahead and sign off right here.
