This content was created by Chris Hunsicker. This content was uploaded by Chris Hunsicker. This is a YouTube episode titled "Episode 77: Living In Your Leadership Wake | The Dealership War Room" (created 2025-06-02). It contains a single-speaker motivational leadership monologue by Chris Hunsaker focused on the concept of a leader’s "wake" — how a leader’s tone, presence, and consistency shape team energy and performance. The speaker explains the psychological impact of leadership, offers a three-question inventory to evaluate your leadership wake, and issues a practical challenge to pull aside two team members and ask, without defending, “What was it like being led by me this week?”
Chapters
Foreign. You don't have to say a word to change a room. Your tone, it enters first. Your energy, it lingers last. And whether you like it or not, every single day, you are leaving behind you a leadership wake. The only question you need to ask yourself is, what kind of wake are you leaving behind? Because if your store feels chaos, chaotic, disjointed, or low energy, I need you to pause and ask yourself one brutal but freeing question. What kind of energy are you bringing into this store? Because as we've said before, leadership is never neutral, and it always leaves a mark. I'm Chris Hunsaker, and this is the dealership war room. Leadership fire. Built daily, fueled intentionally, and delivered relentlessly. This is day two from Santorini, and we're going to dive into your leadership wake and how it's affecting you and your team. I've been on boats for the last two weeks. Even this morning here in Santorini, we went on another boat. And every boat leaves behind it a wake. Ripples that go out long after the boat has passed. Some leaders leave a wake that is steady, purposeful, and directed. Others leave a wake that's erratic, disruptive, even dangerous. The question is, what's your leadership wake? Because leadership also leaves a wake. Every meeting you run, every huddle you lead, every reaction that you model leaves a psychological wake. And your people ride that water all day long. Here's what most leaders forget. It's not what you say. It's how you say it. It's not what you expect. It's how you enforce it. And it's not what you believe. It's how you model it. Let me give you a truth bomb. Your people are not resisting your expectations. They are reacting to your emotional tone. And if your tone is distracted, disorganized, inconsistent, what you do is you create tension and not traction. But when your presence is clear, grounded, consistent, then your people can finally breathe and just execute. So how do we clean up the wake? Take inventory. I want you to use what I would call the leadership wake. Check in three simple questions. Number one. What did my energy produce this week? Hope. Fear. Urgency. Calm. Confusion. Number two. What moments did I create? Clarity. And what moments did I just create? Noise. And number three, what would my team say? It was like being led by me this week. But don't guess. Ask. So here's your war room challenge for today. I want you to find two people on your team, pull them aside, and. And ask him this question. Hey, quick gut check. What was it like being led by me this week? Now, don't defend, don't explain, just listen. Because the best leaders, they're not obsessed with being right. They're obsessed with being better. And the better your wake, the faster your team can row. That's today's fire. Let's go out and build a wake. A wake that lifts and doesn't drown. And as if you were listening to today's podcast and someone's name or picture came to mind, share the podcast with them. Let them feel the fire, and let them do with what they want to do. And please follow through. Everyone kind of listens to this. It's like, yeah, I can talk to new people. I want you to right now, write down the names of the two people you're going to talk to. And then today, before the sun sets, I want you to go find them and have that conversation. Hey, what was it like being led by me this past week? Remember, you're not going to explain, you're not going to defend. You're just going to listen. And I want you to focus on what can you do to improve the quality of your wake. With that, I will see you tomorrow in the dealership war room.
