Key Highlights

• The humility myth debunked: Humility is not about retreating, withdrawing, or diminishing yourself - it's an active behavior of putting others higher, not putting yourself lower
• Selfless self-promotion: You can still be proud and confident while expressing humility - shift from singular to inclusive pronouns, frame success around organizational impact, and highlight what you learned in the process
• Extend credit in the widest sphere possible: Don't just credit the most visible contributors - look for ways to shine a light on those with first, second, and tertiary connections to the work
• The compounding effect: What feels like a short-term cost of humility becomes a long-term reputation as someone who scales impact and cultivates excellence in others - it bounces back and reflects on you
• AI amplifies the need for humility: As AI democratizes capability and knowledge, what differentiates leaders will increasingly be uniquely human qualities - those who acknowledge AI's capabilities while shining a light on others' unique human contributions will stand out

Notable Quotes

• "Humility is not thinking less of yourself - it's thinking of yourself less." - Rick Warren
• "Being humble means recognizing that we are not on earth to see how important we can become, but to see how much difference we can make in the lives of others." - Theologian quoted in Field Note
• "You don't have to put yourself back in order to push someone forward. Both of those things can be true at the same time."
• "If I only extend credit in those instances where I'm expecting a really high return, that feels transactional. In order for humility to be credible, it needs to be demonstrated consistently."
• "We can drive way more impact when we're moving others and amplifying others to be their most successful - we only get a one-to-one return when we do that on ourselves."

Featured Speakers

• Ben Stringfellow is an Executive Coach and Partner at CRA | Admired Leadership, known for his ability to turn either-or conversations into both-and conversations and his talent for making complex leadership concepts immediately actionable. A passionate advocate for the behavioral view of leadership development, he uses Alex daily as an "intentional contrarian" - asking it to prove him wrong and push his thinking in new directions. His coaching approach is grounded in the belief that leadership is simply making people and situations better.
• Wes Bender serves as a facilitator and thought leadership coordinator at CRA | Admired Leadership, helping to connect practical leadership insights with real-world application through webinars and educational content. 

Resources Mentioned

• Field Note: "The Humility Myth"

Key Highlights

• The origin of "pressure is a privilege": Billie Jean King coined the phrase spontaneously in 2000 when Lindsay Davenport was "freaking out" before facing a nemesis - but the full quote is critical: "Pressure is a privilege, and champions adjust"
• Your body isn't betraying you: Clammy hands, racing heart, breathlessness - these physiological signals mean your body is preparing you for high performance, not warning you to retreat
• The 30-second pre-routine: Recognize your personal pressure signal, label it ("I feel this because it matters and I'm ready"), then control your pace of breath, voice, and movement to project composure
• Specificity over intensity: When communicating pressure to teams, don't rise with rousing speeches - be very specific: "We need to focus on these 3 things for the next 3 weeks" moves people to action rather than panic
• Protect your bandwidth: Build a "to don't do" list before high-pressure days - pre-decide what to wear, eat, and your one non-negotiable outcome to preserve cognitive capacity for consequential decisions

Notable Quotes

• "Pressure is a privilege, and champions adjust." - Billie Jean King, 2000 Fed Cup locker room
• "The physiological response is actually a signal. Our body is not betraying us - it's preparing us for high performance, preparing us to meet the moment we're uniquely equipped for."
• "Great leaders don't feel pressure less. They just meet it slightly differently, from a place of resourcefulness because they're uniquely equipped to tackle that moment."
• "When pressure hits, label it: I'm feeling this because it matters, because I care, and I'm ready. That creates distance from the idea of a threat to considering it as a challenge."
• "I'm here because my experience, my relationships, the hard moments I've passed have equipped me to meet this moment. That's the piece that allows you to meet pressure as a privilege."

Featured Speakers

• Emma Mufraggi is an Executive Coach at CRA | Admired Leadership who has led executives across Europe, Latin America, and North America through their most challenging moments. Joining from France, she brings deep expertise in sports psychology, high-performance coaching, and the practical disciplines that separate leaders who thrive under pressure from those who are overwhelmed by it. A practitioner of everything she teaches, she bookends every day with time outside as her non-negotiable recovery routine - a habit born during COVID that has become a cornerstone of her own high performance.
• Wes Bender serves as a facilitator and thought leadership coordinator at CRA | Admired Leadership, helping to connect practical leadership insights with real-world application through webinars and educational content. A father of an 18-year-old heading to college who experienced his first genuine "pressure as privilege" moment the morning of this very webinar - his 50th - thanks to coaching from Emma the day before.

Resources Mentioned

• Field Note: "Pressure is a Privilege"

Key Highlights

• Excellence vs. expertise: Leaders don't struggle with what to say, they struggle with how to say it concisely - leading with all your expertise actually works against you by muddying the water
• The three-question framework: Every headline should answer - What is this really about? Why does it matter? What do I need from you? - in just a few sentences without data or slides
• Headlines as frames, not reveals: Don't save your recommendation for the end of a presentation - start with the headline to frame what's inside the box you want to discuss, then invite questions
• Brief, brilliant, be gone: When 30 minutes gets squashed to 5, leaders who start with headlines can adapt instantly while those who planned to build to a reveal get flustered and lose credibility
• Daily practice builds the muscle: Watch a show and summarize the headline, read articles and improve their headlines, or prepare morning coffee headlines about your work - ritual repetition makes headline thinking automatic

Notable Quotes

• "People follow leaders who create clarity, and headlines create that clarity. We're going to help you tell people what matters, why it matters to them, and how they should understand the conversation."
• "If you can't get to the headline within just a few sentences, then you probably aren't prepared as you need to be."
• "The ability to be concise and clear and focused is really a credibility marker and allows us to be heard more effectively, particularly with senior audiences."
• "We want to make sure that when we're talking to people, we're really crystallizing what those headlines are. The interesting information will muddy the water for us."
• "Communication is about an interaction, not just a one-way message. Message sent is not message received."

Featured Speakers

• Kristen Fenty is a Managing Director at CRA | Admired Leadership, specializing in coaching and advising leaders on strategic communication, particularly during high-stakes organizational change including new strategies, technologies, mergers, acquisitions, and layoffs. With extensive global experience recently spanning Mexico and India, she helps leaders cut through complexity to create clarity in moments of maximum anxiety and ambiguity. 
• Wes Bender serves as a facilitator and thought leadership coordinator at CRA | Admired Leadership, helping to connect practical leadership insights with real-world application through webinars and educational content. 

Key Highlights

• Excellence vs. perfection: Perfection is an unattainable ideal; excellence is the highest quality you can achieve given your constraints - time, people, resources, and context
• The foundation of excellent teams: Three pillars - permission to hold each other accountable to shared standards, constant environment of feedback, and low personal ego where success is collective not individual
• The 2-3 rule: You can't be excellent at everything - choose what you're uniquely equipped to do better than others, focus there intensely, and be content with good enough elsewhere
• Values hierarchy matters: When excellence conflicts with speed (or other values), leaders must explicitly clarify which supersedes - if excellence wins, you do fewer things at higher quality rather than more things faster
• Excellence is both achievement and pursuit: You can achieve excellent work (Olympic medals, perfect dishes), but the best performers are always hungry for more - it's simultaneously a destination and a journey

Notable Quotes

• "Excellence is the consistent pursuit of the highest quality you can achieve within a given set of constraints. Perfection is an ideal abstraction - it's not truly attainable in any pursuit."
• "Excellence is real. We can see it. The question is how do we get there ourselves and build that pursuit among our teams?"
• "The baseline table stakes is: excellence is what we are about. There's a stated agreement amongst the team that we want to be excellent."
• "Excellence itself, for most people, is motivating. When I'm on an excellent team surrounded by excellent people, I want to show up for them in a way that I'm carrying my own weight."
• "Were the Chicago Bulls perfect? No. It's very obvious they weren't. But excellence is not perfection - it's the pursuit of the highest level of quality given the constraints."

Featured Speakers

• Matt Coyne is a Managing Director at CRA | Admired Leadership based in Chicago, specializing in strategic communication, leadership, and increasingly AI integration for organizational excellence. With nearly a decade of experience helping senior leaders define and achieve excellence in practice (not just theory), he brings a unique perspective shaped by studying excellence across domains from Michelin-starred kitchens to Olympic athletes. 
• Mallory Stacey is a Managing Director at CRA | Admired Leadership, an executive coach and leadership advisor who specializes in helping leaders and teams navigate the tension between high standards and sustainability. A parent of young children who understands firsthand the challenge of pursuing excellence across competing priorities and domains. Guest host filling in for regular host Wes Bender.

Resources Mentioned

• Field Note: "In Search of Excellence" (embodied excellence concept)

Key Highlights

• Resilience is a skill set, not an event: Rather than something you call upon in extraordinary moments, resilience requires daily practice, preparation, and intentional habits built during quieter times
• The flashlight technique: When facing uncertainty, narrow your focus to "what is important now" rather than trying to see everything in the shadows - shine your flashlight on the one next step that will create momentum
• Shift from "why" to "what's next": Move from rumination (getting stuck asking "why is this happening to me?") to agency by reframing around choices and actions - even choosing to pause is taking control
• Three pillars of preparedness: Build margin and space in your calendar now, prepare for multiple scenarios (not pessimism, but readiness), and practice maintaining composure in low-stakes moments before high-stakes ones arrive
• The intersection of urgency and intentionality: Resilience is measured by how you show up when pressure demands speed - slow your physical pace, speak deliberately, and create pauses to signal composure and control to your team

Notable Quotes

• "We are in a marathon and not a sprint. How do we keep our energy, our focus, our commitment up for the long term through the lulls and valleys of everything we're experiencing?"
• "Ignore the landscape for right now. If we can just narrow the focus, hyper-focus on what can I do next, or what do I choose to do next - even if I choose to do nothing, I'm choosing to do nothing."
• "Rather than going into 'why is it happening to me?' if we can move to a statement - here's what we can do - and turn to action, that's where agency comes from."
• "Control the controllables. The uncontrollables are always going to change - the weather, the dynamics, the situation. But if we come back to here's the narrative that will gain me momentum, that's really powerful."
• "Reflection is important, but we don't want to get stuck in rumination. How do you get out of the rut of pondering and worrying and fretting? Change from looking backwards to looking forwards."

Featured Speakers

• Diana Hong is a Partner and Executive Coach at CRA | Admired Leadership with over 20 years of experience advising senior leaders on strategic communication and leadership through major organizational changes. Known for helping leaders cut through complexity and create clarity, she specializes in preparing teams for uncertainty and building resilience as a daily practice rather than an emergency response.
• Emma Mufraggi is an Executive Coach at CRA | Admired Leadership, an executive coach who has led executives across Europe, Latin America, and North America through their most challenging moments. With deep experience in both elite athletics and executive leadership, she brings unique insights on composure under pressure, the power of preparation, and building support networks that sustain performance.
• Wes Bender serves as a facilitator and thought leadership coordinator at CRA | Admired Leadership, helping to connect practical leadership insights with real-world application through webinars and educational content.

Resources Mentioned

• Field Note: "Resilience as Preparation" (spare tire analogy)

• The four levels of inquiry framework: Level 1 ("What do I do?"), Level 2 ("Here's what I think, what do you think?"), Level 3 ("Here's what I'm doing, course correct me if I'm wrong"), and Level 4 ("Here's what I did, FYI") - plus Level 0 (unaware of problems) and Level 5 (going rogue)
• Accidental Level 1 behaviors: "See below" emails and quick-hit text messages without context are the most common ways competent leaders accidentally signal they need hand-holding
• The competence-confidence relationship: Moving to Level 3 or 4 requires both competence (can you do it?) and confidence (do you believe you can?) - leaders must give people "enough rope" while providing air coverage when they misstep
• Signs you stand well with your leader: They ask for input outside your scope, share confidential information, defend you when you're not in the room, compensate you well, invest time in your development, and give you immediate access when you need it
• Challenge the urgency excuse: Unless you're on a trading desk or in an operating room, most "fast-paced" environments still have time for Level 2 or 3 thinking - test the limits before defaulting to Level 1

Notable Quotes

• "If you have a lot of Level 1s, you probably have a time issue. You spend your whole day answering questions, and 5, 6, 7 o'clock rolls around and you haven't done any of your own work."
• "Never send 'see below' emails. That's a straight-up Level 1. That's where I see people get caught up all the time who typically operate at a 3 or 4."
• "You have to give them just enough rope that they might hang themselves, but then be there to catch them if something happens. They'll misstep - that's part of the time you're gaining back."
• "It's not just your directs - maybe you level up your team to be threes and fours, but you let your peers or stakeholders constantly be Level 1s to you. Not always giving that answer back immediately is how we start to level them up."
• "Take this home: When your kids ask 'What's for dinner?' that's a Level 1 question. I need you to at least be a Level 2 and say 'I was thinking Thai food, what do you think?'"

Featured Speakers

• Mallory Stacey is a Managing Director at CRA | Admired Leadership based in Charlotte, North Carolina, specializing in leadership coaching with over 15 years of experience helping leaders build and strengthen relationships with those they report to. Known for getting stuff done, dreaming big, operating from mission, and having fun along the way, she has worked with leaders at Bank of America, Broadridge, Fidelity, Morgan Stanley, and Northwestern Mutual.
• Wes Bender serves as a facilitator and thought leadership coordinator at CRA | Admired Leadership, helping to connect practical leadership insights with real-world application through webinars and educational content. 

Resources Mentioned

• Field Note: https://admiredleadership.com/field-notes/where-do-you-stand-with-your-leader/

• The curvilinear relationship between confidence and persuasiveness: Too little confidence undermines your message, but too much confidence also reduces persuasiveness - the goal is finding the "sweet spot" at the top of the curve where you're most effective
• Four elements of presentation success: Singular and advancing message (keep movement going), optimistic energy (even with difficult content), humanness/authenticity (show up the same everywhere), and turning anxiety markers into confidence markers (replace "ums" with purposeful pauses)
• The 80% rule for your go-to speaking style: Find where you look and sound your best (usually mid-range), then speak from that place 80% of the time while using your full dynamic range for the remaining 20% to create conversational variety
• Four critical presentation foundations: Master your intro (practice 5x more than anything else), build transitions in advance (where most filler words happen), prepare for Q&A with 5 likely questions in your pocket, and close strong (never end with awkward "any questions?" silence)
• Presentations are conversations within a series of conversations: Stop treating them as one-moment-in-time events that amp up anxiety - engage before, during, and after to build authenticity and reduce pressure

Notable Quotes

• "Today, the power's with the audience, not the presenter anymore. The audience decides how persuasive you're going to be and how much attention they're going to give."
• "People make up their mind in the first 30 seconds of a presentation how much they're going to pay attention all the way through. When their phone buzzes 10 minutes in, they've already decided if they're going to look at it."
• "The way I'm talking to you right now is my go-to speaking style. I've watched myself record it, I know this is where I look and sound my best. I bring my go-to everywhere."
• "Perfection is the enemy of engagement. The more you try to be in your head about how you deliver, the more you're gonna disengage the audience."
• "You speak in your natural speaking voice 99% of the day. But we've created these formulaic presentation styles that aren't us. You don't have to change who you are to be a better speaker."

Featured Speakers

• Dan Couladis is an Executive Coach at CRA | Admired Leadership, specializing in presentation coaching and leadership communication. Over 14 years, he has developed a proprietary approach to public speaking that reflects how audiences engage today, working with leaders from MBA students to Fortune 100 C-suite executives. A devoted Buffalo Bills fan who brings optimistic energy and conversational authenticity to every interaction, he has studied the evolution of public speaking from ancient Greek philosophers to TED Talks to create frameworks that help leaders find their natural voice and command attention in an era of unprecedented distraction.
• Wes Bender serves as a facilitator and thought leadership coordinator at CRA | Admired Leadership, helping to connect practical leadership insights with real-world application through webinars and educational content. A self-described enthusiastic presenter working to master his own go-to speaking style.

Resources Mentioned

• Field Note: "The Singular Message" on creating a through line in presentations

Key Highlights

• Silence is not neutral: Choosing not to speak is an active decision that affects outcomes - you're making a choice to withhold wisdom and perspective that could benefit the situation, and people will interpret your silence
• Two primary fears drive silence: Fear of being perceived incorrectly (what will people think of me?) and fear of damaging relationships (will this move us backwards?) - but judgments happen whether you speak or stay silent
• Retrain the silence habit: If you have a self-limiting narrative ("I'm not someone who speaks up"), commit to asking at least one question in every meeting to build the muscle of contributing your voice
• Frame feedback for the future, not the past: Instead of "Let's talk about how that meeting went," say "For the next meeting, here's what I want to see more of or less of" to reduce defensiveness
• Know when to stay out of it: Not every problem requires your voice - ask if you're the right person to have the conversation, and don't give oxygen to secondhand complaints or hearsay

Notable Quotes

• "Silence is not neutral. It's a choice that affects the outcome - you're making a choice to not play and not have people benefit from your wisdom."
• "Whether you're speaking up or not speaking up, there's always a judgment, there's always an interpretation. So you might as well participate so there's a conclusion based on something, not based on silence."
• "You're in that room for a reason. You wouldn't be in the discussions if your point of view wasn't important."
• "You have the agency to move a relationship forward or backwards. When you choose not to speak, you miss that opportunity."
• "Our voice is a really big part of making people and situations better as leaders."

Featured Speakers

• Michelle McDermott is a Partner at CRA | Admired Leadership, specializing in strategic communications and leadership coaching with over 20 years of experience advising senior leaders through organizational changes, crises, and high-stakes decisions. A mother of three who has worked with organizations including Bank of America, Bristol Myers, Dell, McDonald's, and World Bank Group, she helps leaders find their voice in moments that matter most.
• Wes Bender serves as a facilitator and thought leadership coordinator at CRA | Admired Leadership, helping to connect practical leadership insights with real-world application through webinars and educational content.

Resources Mentioned

• Field Note: "Why Saying Nothing Usually Makes Things Worse"

Or schedule a time to talk directly to our team here

Key Highlights

• Celebration signals what you value - what leaders celebrate, how they celebrate, and why they celebrate communicates their standards of excellence and the behaviors they want replicated across the organization
• Specificity creates authenticity - generic praise like "good job" falls flat; authentic celebration requires naming specific behaviors, staying consistent with stated values, and matching the scale of recognition to the size of the accomplishment
• Celebrate behaviors, not just outcomes - when you only celebrate results, you train people to hide messy processes and cut corners; celebrating how work gets done shapes culture and defines what excellence looks like
• Frequency matters more than scale - small wins deserve immediate recognition to reinforce behavior in the moment; big wins deserve extended celebration with a "long shelf life"; don't save all recognition for year-end events
• Create collective celebration, not transactions - the most powerful celebrations foster "we" moments where teams share ownership of success, rather than one-way acknowledgments from leader to individual that feel performative

Notable Quotes

• "What we celebrate, how we celebrate, and why we celebrate really signals what we value, what our standard of excellence is, what behavior we're looking to promote and have more of or less of."
• "There's a dissonance when what is said we value and what is actually celebrated are two completely different things. That can really create significant tension."
• "Good job—it's very thin. There's not a lot of impact there. But great job and how you opened the energy, how you opened the conversation—there's a specificity to how you approach that. When we bring that, that just signals authenticity."
• "When we only talk about outcomes, then we message, just the bottom line is the only thing that really matters. I'm gonna hide my process. It could be messy, it could be ill-formed, but if it's just about outcomes, you're training people to say that's the only thing that really matters."
• "This is an opportunity for us to celebrate as a we. It's our team. What have we done collectively? We really want to create a collective experience around celebration."
• "If you want to celebrate that cross-functional partnership, that's what we want more of, that's what's going to create excellence. That's what we want to celebrate. One of the key tenets of celebration is how can it shape behavior?"

Featured Speakers

• Meghan Sharron coaches and advises senior leaders and teams in Fortune 500 companies to maximize their impact on performance and organizational success. Her focus is optimizing key leadership areas, such as strategic decision-making, effective relationship management, high-caliber talent development, and delivery of exceptional outcomes.
• Wes Bender serves as a facilitator and thought leadership coordinator at CRA | Admired Leadership, helping to connect practical leadership insights with real-world application through webinars and educational content.

Resources Mentioned

https://admiredleadership.com/field-notes/finding-reasons-to-celebrate/

Or schedule a time to talk directly to our team here

Key Highlights

• Good leaders don't act aggressively on purpose - aggression is perceived as a personal or professional threat and damages loyalty, even though it may produce short-term compliance when you have status and power
• Turn up respect, not down aggression - instead of trying to suppress forceful behaviors, focus on maximizing respect in conversations, which naturally prevents interrupting, yelling, intimidation, and other behaviors people interpret as aggressive
• Assertiveness requires advocacy with respect - you can be direct, passionate, persistent, and forceful about what you believe while still being hugely respectful to others; these aren't mutually exclusive qualities
• Exit aggressive conversations in the moment - when someone is being aggressive, that's not the time for productive confrontation; leave the room, lower your energy when theirs goes up, and address the relationship pattern later when emotions aren't running high
• Apologies require behavior change - if you've been aggressive, saying sorry matters but real relational repair requires changing your pattern of interaction going forward, not just acknowledging what happened

Notable Quotes

• "Do good leaders ever act aggressively? Not on purpose. Aggressiveness is almost always perceived as a personal or professional threat by other people. Good leaders don't try to threaten people."
• "The problem with being aggressive is it tends to work. It has efficacy, especially if you have status. But in the long term, it's not, because anybody who's got real talent is going to have too much self-respect to keep working for me."
• "If you're trying to treat people with the maximum level of respect, it would be very difficult for you to engage in behaviors that are seen as aggressive."
• "When somebody's aggressive, and you challenge them, I guarantee you they will become more aggressive. So timing matters."
• "Just because someone is direct does not mean that they are aggressive. It means they're direct. There are entire cultures that are highly direct, like Holland, like Israel."
• "Mending the relationship is really about changing the pattern of interaction. You have to change how you talk to people. You have to bring more respect to those conversations."

Featured Speakers

• Alan Nelson is Co-Managing Partner & Executive Coach at CRA | Admired Leadership with over three decades of experience advising senior leaders through major mergers, restructurings, crises, and high-stakes leadership transitions. Known for his direct yet respectful coaching style, Alan has been in the room when leaders have had to make incredibly difficult decisions under enormous pressure and specializes in helping leaders be forceful and firm without damaging relationships or credibility.
• Wes Bender serves as a facilitator and thought leadership coordinator at CRA | Admired Leadership, helping to connect practical leadership insights with real-world application through webinars and educational content.

Resources Mentioned

• Field Note: "Small Signs of Respect Tell People You Honor Relationships"

Or schedule a time to talk directly to our team here

Key Highlights

• Credibility has two dimensions: Competence (your ability to do the work) gets presumed as you become more senior, while character (how people perceive your integrity) requires intentional demonstration through small signs of respect
• Consistency matters more than grand gestures: How you do one thing is how you do everything - showing respect to the front desk greeter the same way you show it to senior leaders reveals your authentic character
• Common unintentional disrespect signals: Canceling meetings last minute, not responding to emails timely, interrupting people, not greeting colleagues in hallways, and being distracted during conversations all compound over time
• Listen to understand, not to reply: Write down what you want to say instead of interrupting, pause 3 seconds before responding, and practice saying "tell me more" to demonstrate genuine listening
• Virtual respect requires extra effort: Be intentional about camera usage, avoid eating on camera when others aren't, schedule meetings that accommodate different time zones, and work harder to convey respect with limited context

Notable Quotes

• "Respect is about wanting our teams to hold us in high regard, to believe we have value, and to trust our judgment - and it's not just about our teams, it's about people we need to influence down, across, and up."
• "How you do one thing is how you do everything. That's the way people judge you and the lens through which they evaluate who you are."
• "There's a tendency to be more respectful up to people who are more senior, and less respectful when leading across or down. But you should be showing signs of respect regardless of hierarchy."
• "As leaders, our time is highly symbolic of what's important to us. If we're being intentional about being present and listening, we're saying that you matter and you're important to me."
• "Sometimes increasing your urgency around response can really increase your ability to be seen as someone who's respectful and values other people."

Featured Speakers

• Katie Angstadt is an Executive Coach & Partner at CRA | Admired Leadership, known for making people feel like they're the only person in the room through her warm, thoughtful, and fully present approach. With extensive experience coaching senior leaders on credibility and relationship building, she specializes in helping leaders demonstrate character through consistent, authentic actions. A triathlon participant who practices the respect principles she teaches.
• Wes Bender serves as a facilitator and thought leadership coordinator at CRA | Admired Leadership, helping to connect practical leadership insights with real-world application through webinars and educational content. Fresh off facilitating a successful on-location event in Boston.

Resources Mentioned

• Field Note: "Small Signs of Respect Tell People You Honor Relationships"

Or schedule a time to talk directly to our team here

Key Highlights

• Opinion vs. perspective defined: Opinions are immediate reactions grounded in feelings and bias that often shut down conversations; perspectives are broader views based on data that raise questions and open up thinking
• When opinions are appropriate: Three situations call for direct opinions - time-sensitive decisions, when someone explicitly asks for your judgment, and very high-stakes scenarios where deliberation isn't feasible
• Four question frameworks for offering perspective: "What lens are we using?", "If we thought of this as an X problem instead of Y, how would we approach it?", "What would [person/role] say that we're not seeing?", and "What are we optimizing for?"
• Acknowledge your bias to counter it: Either admit your bias upfront and ask others for different perspectives, or actively seek people with different biases and ask "What would be true if I abandoned my bias?"
• Perspectives early, opinions at decision time: When you have the benefit of time, gather perspectives through questions; when it's "go time" and a decision must be made, that's when opinions are needed

Notable Quotes

• "An opinion is your immediate reaction, grounded in feelings and bias. A perspective is a broader view based on data that raises more questions than answers."
• "Opinions often shut down conversations, especially if you're a leader. If you have a really strong opinion, everyone goes 'well, I'm not going to bother to weigh in.'"
• "When you have the beauty of time, let's get perspectives. If it's go time - high stakes, decision needed - that's where opinions come in."
• "Before you assert an opinion, ask yourself: What am I assuming here? The problem may be misidentified."
• "If you always offer opinions, your team gets lazy - they just wait for you to give the answer. If you offer perspectives, they learn to understand trade-offs and ask better questions."

Featured Speakers

• Dr. Suzanne Peterson is a Partner at CRA | Admired Leadership with over 25 years of experience coaching Fortune 500 executives. Known for helping leaders shift from "here's what I think" to "here's what you might not be seeing," she specializes in expanding how leaders see their challenges and opportunities. Her work focuses on high-performance coaching with teams already operating at top levels who want to get 10-20% better.
• Wes Bender serves as a facilitator and thought leadership coordinator at CRA | Admired Leadership, helping to connect practical leadership insights with real-world application through webinars and educational content. A proud Tennessee Volunteers fan navigating parenting teenagers.

Resources Mentioned

• Field Note: "Leaders Give Perspective More Than They Give Opinions"

Or schedule a time to talk directly to our team here

Key Highlights

• The praise-stingy paradox: Leaders with extremely high standards tend to withhold feedback because excellence is simply expected - but this silence causes people to presume negative, making regular feedback essential even for high performers
• The 2x2 feedback framework: Effective feedback balances valence (how it's received - positive or negative) with utility (how actionable it is), aiming for the "Holy Grail" of positive reception with high usefulness while avoiding the "insult bucket"
• Be specific when seeking feedback: Never ask "Give me some feedback" - instead, identify one specific area you're working on and ask people who see you in action to tell you when they observe you doing it well or poorly
• Leading without domain expertise: When leading people whose expertise exceeds your own, focus on developmental experiences, removing roadblocks, and creating high-performing team dynamics rather than trying to match their technical knowledge
• The 1-10 framework for actionable feedback: Ask "On a scale of 1-10, how am I doing as your [role]?" then follow with "What one thing could I do to get from a [X] to a [X+1]?" to generate specific, actionable insights

Notable Quotes

• "Leaders who demand the best from others tend to be praise stingy because that desire for excellence is so high. But when they do give feedback, it lands with real power and meaning."
• "The Holy Grail is feedback that's received in a positive way and also has usefulness - it's actionable, I can do something with it in the future."
• "How you do anything is how you do everything. If you have blind spots at work, they're likely showing up at home or in the community too."
• "Leadership is a contact sport. There is feedback all around you if you're open to it - in how people react to your presentations, in the questions they ask, in their behavior."
• "The best teams are more player-led than leader-led. Your job isn't to know their role better than they do - it's to create clarity around goals, remove obstacles, and point to the North Star."

Featured Speakers

• John Cook is a Partner & Executive Coach at CRA | Admired Leadership, specializing in executive coaching and leadership development. A father of four and avid fly fisherman, he works extensively with C-suite leaders while also developing emerging coaches within the firm. Known for his constant pursuit of feedback and commitment to continuous improvement, he brings practical frameworks for talent development and team performance.
• Wes Bender serves as a facilitator and thought leadership coordinator at CRA | Admired Leadership, helping to connect practical leadership insights with real-world application through webinars and educational content. A proud Tennessee Volunteers fan from Knoxville.

Resources Mentioned

• Field Note: "In the Absence of Feedback, the Most Experienced People Presume the Negative" (inspired by Pat Summitt)

Or schedule a time to talk directly to our team here

Key Highlights

• Reframe speed vs. quality: Leadership strength isn't about making fast decisions - it's about making quality decisions informed by the right people, aligned with values, and considering second-order consequences
• ASAP vs. ALAP framework: Distinguish between decisions that must be made "as soon as possible" (low consequences or time-sensitive) versus "as late as possible" (complex decisions where maintaining optionality reveals better options over time)
• The dangers of binary thinking: Black-and-white decision-making leads to missing facts, flip-flopping on decisions later, and ignoring your own judgment in favor of perceived group wisdom
• Train yourself to ask questions first: Instead of immediately answering "yes" or "no" to requests, develop the habit of responding with questions like "What needs to be true for this to happen?" to create space for better thinking
• Ladder of autonomy for teams: Help staff understand when to seek input (political decisions, precedent-setting, budget thresholds) versus when they have autonomy to act, preventing the "checkbox mentality" while ensuring quality decisions

Notable Quotes

• "We confuse strength of leadership with decisiveness, and really decisiveness meaning speed of decision-making. We think we need to know the right answer and say it quickly, and if we can't, it makes us look weak."
• "When people say 'I don't have time to think in the gray,' my reaction is you don't have time not to, because you're going to end up going back on decisions you made."
• "Train yourself to never answer a definitive question at the beginning, and start asking questions. If somebody says 'Do you think we should do this?' do not say yes or no."
• "Quality decisions often come down to: Have you gotten the right people to weigh in on it? Options will reveal themselves over time if you're not trying to be fast and decisive."
• "Values-driven leaders are often the most admired leaders. Spend time thinking about how you can be a values-driven leader too."

Featured Speakers

• Carolynne Thomas is a Partner & Executive Coach at CRA | Admired Leadership, known for her expertise in organizational culture transformation and strategic decision-making. With extensive experience helping leadership teams articulate and implement cultural change, she exemplifies the ability to operate in gray areas while maintaining clarity on values and outcomes. Her work focuses on creating experiences that help leaders and teams align around shared objectives.
• Wes Bender serves as a facilitator and thought leadership coordinator at CRA | Admired Leadership, helping to connect practical leadership insights with real-world application through webinars and educational content.

Resources Mentioned

• Field Note: "On Thinking Gray"

Or schedule a time to talk directly to our team here

Key Highlights

• Common goals vs. common ground: While we naturally gravitate toward people who share our interests or backgrounds, focusing on what we're building together creates stronger, more sustainable relationships than waiting for personality clicks
• Effort matters more than ease: The relationships that required the most work to build often become the deepest and most trusted - don't assume that natural or easy connections are automatically better
• Incremental trust building: When relationships are damaged, create small, shared goals with quick wins rather than attempting one big conversation - trust builds through repeated small promises kept, not dramatic gestures
• Organizational impact of leader relationships: When leaders have tension, it forces team members to pick sides and creates psychological unsafety - people have to watch what they say and consider political repercussions
• Building collaboration muscles: Start with deliberately created shared projects, even if they're not mandated from above, to develop habits of communication and accountability that transfer to future collaborations

Notable Quotes

• "If you focus less on commonality and more on common goals - what are we building that we can share together - that ends up actually unifying us more over time than waiting for some magical click to happen."
• "Effort matters, and that's actually completely controllable, because we can control the amount of effort we put into a relationship. It doesn't have to be this mystical personality match."
• "Trust happens incrementally. Trust doesn't happen in big, dramatic swoops - it's small, incremental promises that were made, kept, and followed through."
• "When leaders have tension, we're subtly telling people around us that you gotta pick a side. That makes people feel less safe because now they have to watch what they say."
• "Just by the fact of signing up to say 'I'm committing to doing this, it's not natural, it's not easy, but I'm committing' - that's what actually makes the relationship start gelling together."

Featured Speakers

• Diana Hong is a Partner & Executive Coach at CRA | Admired Leadership, specializing in organizational change and relationship dynamics. With extensive experience coaching senior leaders through complex interpersonal challenges, she brings practical insights on building trust and collaboration in high-stakes environments. Her approach emphasizes actionable strategies over theoretical frameworks.
• Wes Bender serves as a facilitator and thought leadership coordinator at CRA | Admired Leadership, helping to connect practical leadership insights with real-world application through webinars and educational content.

Resources Mentioned

• Field Note on finding common ground vs. common goals

Or schedule a time to talk directly to our team here

Key Highlights

• The Clarity Index reveals five essential topics for regular communication: strategy, culture, functional strategy, role clarity, and employee value proposition (why work here vs. elsewhere) - lack of clarity in these areas directly impacts engagement and decision-making speed
• Connect everything back to strategy: Don't just communicate strategy once in January - every decision, change, or new initiative should be explicitly connected back to your organizational strategy throughout the year
• Cultural clarity requires specificity: Values like "excellence" or "trust" are meaningless without behavioral examples - use promotions, hiring decisions, and daily interactions to demonstrate what these values actually look like in practice
• Conditions of accountability drive clarity: Set clear expectations (format, detail level, deadlines), provide proper resources (templates, examples of excellence), give appropriate autonomy, and define positive/negative consequences
• Tailor detail to audience: With senior leaders, be brief, brilliant, and be gone - they'll ask for more if needed. With teams, mix formats using pre-reads, focused meetings, and detailed follow-ups rather than cramming everything into one communication

Notable Quotes

• "Message sent is rarely message received. People are looking at your actions, decisions, and interactions to see what's really true."
• "When senior leaders want three things from you: be brief, be brilliant, and be gone. If they want more detail, they'll ask."
• "Your strategy can only be clear if there aren't detractors from it. You have to proactively look for where skeptics will roll their eyes."
• "Do a little bit more work up front to create clarity for better results the first time, rather than going back and forth on details later."
• "Before important communications, ask yourself: What is the one thing I want people to take away from this?"
• "Culture itself is intangible - we have to tie cultural values into things we're already communicating about, like promotions and daily interactions."

Featured Speakers

• Sierra Holland is a Managing Director in CRA | Admired Leadership's Strategic Communications practice, specializing in helping leaders become better communicators for their teams. With expertise in organizational communication strategy and the proprietary Clarity Index research, she focuses on creating communication experiences that drive engagement and decision-making effectiveness. Known for her sharp facilitation skills and curiosity-driven approach to client work.
• Wes Bender serves as a facilitator and thought leadership coordinator at CRA | Admired Leadership, helping to connect practical leadership insights with real-world application through webinars and educational content.

Resources Mentioned

• Field Note - The Signs a Team is Waiting for a Decision or Strategy

Or schedule a time to talk directly to our team here

Key Highlights

• Values vs. virtues distinction: Values should be specific, actionable, and behavioral (like "I include every voice in meetings") rather than abstract virtues (like "inclusion") that don't provide clear guidance for decision-making
• The admiration approach: Instead of asking "What are your values?" ask "Who do you admire and what specifically do you admire about them?" This cuts through the noise of aspirational lists and reveals authentic priorities
• Focus on attributes, not whole persons: Rather than putting leaders on pedestals, identify specific behaviors or qualities you admire - collecting "points of reference" from multiple people to build your own leadership approach
• Making values actionable: Test your values by examining where they show up in daily decisions - who you hire, how you spend time, what you fund, how you give feedback, and who gets airtime in meetings
• Organizational vs. individual values: In team settings, use inclusive language ("What do we value?") and let organizational strategy be the equalizer when individual values conflict

Notable Quotes

• "Values should be specific and actionable and behavioral. Virtues are sort of that aspirational list of descriptors, but what we want to strive for are practical manifestations that show up in how we lead day-to-day."
• "It's really hard to put that lens on yourself and say, here's everything that I value. But a great indicator is discerning what people value or admire in others as a starting point."
• "I think about it as collecting points of reference. Pretty much everybody's got something you can admire - not a person as much as pieces and parts of lots of people."
• "The great equalizer is the organizational vision and strategy. When values are in tension, the question shouldn't be personal preference as much as what does the organization need."
• "If I've said this is important to me, would somebody else be able to observe that and say, yeah, that's important to you?"

Featured Speakers

• Ben Stringfellow is an Executive Coach and Partner at CRA | Admired Leadership, known for his expertise in organizational communication and strategic leadership development. Despite being one of the firm's busiest members, he's recognized for always making time to support colleagues and clients with thoughtful guidance and practical insights.
• Mallory Stacey is an Executive Coach at CRA | Admired Leadership, filling in as host for this session. She brings expertise in leadership coaching and team development, with a focus on helping leaders translate abstract concepts into actionable behaviors.

Resources Mentioned

• Field Note: Your Admiration for Others Reveals Your Core Values

Or schedule a time to talk directly to our team here

Key Highlights

• Two contrasting leadership stories: One showing how a senior admiral responded with grace when David made a career-threatening mistake with VHS tapes during a high-stakes presentation, and another where David's own reactive response to a difficult colleague cost him $50,000 in bonus and a promotion opportunity
• Moving beyond conventional wisdom: Traditional advice like "count to 10" treats symptoms rather than root causes - the best leaders develop consistent behaviors that create natural space between triggers and responses
• The power of inquiry over immediate answers: Develop the habit of asking 1-3 questions before responding, using phrases like "Tell me more about that" or "Say more about why you're feeling that way" to create thinking space
• Throwing problems back strategically: When someone brings you an emotionally charged issue, ask them for more context about how and why they feel that way - this gives you time to reflect while helping them process their emotions
• Judicious shows of emotion can be motivational: Sometimes a look or controlled display of frustration can be effective feedback, but only when built on a foundation of clear expectations and strong relationships

Notable Quotes

• "Leadership is what you do. It's how people react to you that's most important. Everybody else that engages with us is grading our papers based on our engagement."
• "Our goal isn't really to eliminate our emotional reactions because we are first human beings. What we want to do is develop consistent behaviors that create a space between the trigger and the response."
• "What we're not trying to do is automatically equal an answer in the immediate. What we're trying to do is become an excellent problem solver."
• "You owe them a response, not necessarily an answer to their question. Think about the difference in the frame with those two."
• "If you respond smartly, you can diffuse or derail a negative situation versus reacting immediately and viscerally and creating a kerfuffle."

Resources Mentioned

• Field Note: "Learn to Respond Instead of React"

Or schedule a time to talk directly to our team here

Key Highlights

• Leadership resides in behavior, not personality: Excellence in any domain comes from what you do, not who you are - leadership is a composite of choices, routines, and actions rather than innate traits or psychological dispositions
• Self-assessments can create self-limiting beliefs: Tools like Myers-Briggs, DISC, and others risk becoming excuses for behavior rather than catalysts for growth, leading people to say "this is just who I am" instead of "who do I want to become?"
• Focus on commonalities over differences: Great teams function because of what they share - values, standards, expectations - rather than constantly highlighting how members are different from each other
• Better alternatives for building awareness: Use direct feedback, smart questions, and honest conversations rather than formal assessments - ask "What's it like to be on the receiving end of me?" or "How do I get to the next number on a 1-10 scale?"
• The Venn diagram approach to development: Focus where two circles intersect - things you're not good at AND things others need you to be great at, discovered through conversation rather than assessment

Notable Quotes

• "Leadership resides in behavior. Who you are as a leader is a composite, a stained glass window of lots of things that you do or don't do."
• "I'm much more interested in teams about what we have in common than what we have in difference. Great teams don't function because they all talk about each other's differences all the time."
• "What a shame that I know what your DISC profile is, but I don't know why you asked your wife to marry you or where you asked her to marry you."
• "Don't work on what you want to get better at - work on what people need from you most that you're not good at."
• "The question is, who do you want to be? Not who are you today. I think that's the wrong question."
• "My job is to hold up a mirror that other people won't hold."

Resources Mentioned

• Field Note: "When Self-Assessment Harms Your Personal Development"

Or schedule a time to talk directly to our team here

Key Highlights

• The four-ingredient framework for compelling visions: Strong purpose (why do we exist?), vivid imagery (people can see and imagine the destination), credibility (prevents eye rolls), and cultural resonance (uses language that connects with your specific team)
• Strategic planning trap revealed: Most organizations develop strategy first, then try to communicate it - but once language gets "baked" into planning documents, it becomes nearly impossible to change the clunky management-speak
• The eye roll test: Before launching your vision, identify every policy, practice, or behavior that contradicts what you're saying - either eliminate them publicly or explain why you can't change them yet
• Leadership fatigue phenomenon: Leaders spend 6 months developing their vision and strategy, then get bored with it just as they need to start communicating it - "the song is in their head but not in anyone else's head yet"
• Making visions actionable: Your vision must be something your average team member can actually do something about in their daily work - if they can't see how they personally contribute, you won't create intrinsic motivation

Notable Quotes

• "You gotta keep the main thing the main thing" - everything you communicate should connect back to your vision and strategy
• "People will believe what you do before what you say" - contradictory actions will undermine even the most compelling vision
• "Everyone has a plan till they get punched in the mouth" - Mike Tyson's wisdom on why 5-10 year strategic plans may be foolhardy in today's world
• "Great place for great people to do great work" - a vision so memorable that an employee could recite it perfectly 10 years later at a new organization
• "You need to look for signals that you're not serious about your vision and strategy" - identifying and eliminating contradictions is critical for credibility

Featured Speaker

• Carolynne Thomas is an Executive Coach and Partner at CRA | Admired Leadership, specializing in strategic organizational communication and leadership coaching. She spends her time helping organizations mobilize around vision and strategy, working across both the leadership and strategic communications practices of the firm.

Resources Mentioned

• Field Note: "The Ingredients of a Compelling Vision"
• Four-question organizational messaging framework

Or schedule a time to talk directly to our team here

Key Highlights

• Redefining high potential: High potential does not necessarily equal ready to lead - the skills that make someone excellent in their current role don't automatically translate to leadership capability
• Two critical talent indicators revealed: - "Excellence Someplace Else": Look for people who've achieved excellence in any domain (sports, music, academics) as they understand the work ethic and commitment required to master skills - Deep Self-Awareness: True self-awareness means understanding not just your weaknesses, but how those weaknesses affect other people around you
• Strategic hiring approach: Don't overweight background and track record since you can't determine if success came from the platform, team, or market timing - focus on talent indicators instead
• Talent development principles: Leaders must get out of the way of talented people, remove obstacles, and focus on continuous feedback rather than annual reviews
• Making it systematic: Talent assessment, nurturing, and development should be a standing agenda item with quarterly conversations, not an annual afterthought

Notable Quotes

• "High potential does not necessarily equal ready to lead, or even fit to lead, for that matter."
• "Hiring and managing talent is one of the most strategic and symbolic acts you can do as a leader."
• "True talent finds a way to win in good times and bad, high tide, low tide. They tend to operate well in different contexts, and even different organizations."
• "When's the last time someone misperceived you? And why? Because true self-awareness is understanding weaknesses and also knowing how that rubs off on other people."
• "If they're truly stars, you got to provide direction and guidance... but then get out of the way. You're never going to know their job as well as they know their job."
• "If talent is the most important thing, then we need to make time for it... it needs to be a standing agenda item."

Featured Speaker

• John Cook is an Executive Coach & Partner at CRA | Admired Leadership, specializing in talent assessment and leadership development. As a father of four and avid fly fisherman, he brings both professional expertise and personal perspective to helping senior leaders identify and develop talent within their organizations.

Resources Mentioned

• Field Note: "High Potential for What? Exactly"
• Nine proprietary talent indicators framework
• 10-minute coaching conversations with Admired Leadership coaches

Or schedule a time to talk directly to our team here

Key Highlights

• Distinguishing between three key concepts: - Leadership style: How you express yourself verbally, non-verbally, and contextually - Executive presence: The energy you project when entering a room or engaging with others - Gravitas: Verbal precision and fluidity that makes others hang on your every word
• Understanding style as developable: - Like a singing voice, everyone has a natural range they can expand - Most people can improve their style by 20-30% while remaining authentic - Focus on small changes in verbal, non-verbal, or contextual elements
• Practical development strategies: - Collect and intentionally use more intense vocabulary - Increase lexical diversity to avoid overused words and phrases - Adjust your approach based on audience (more attractive markers with junior staff, more power markers with senior executives) - Start with power markers and then back off rather than starting too attractive
• Common coaching scenarios: - The "bull in a china shop" who needs to add more attractive markers - Leaders who struggle when changing contexts or industries - Those who need to balance being powerful enough to be listened to while attractive enough to be followed

Notable Quotes

• "Style is a set of behaviors or habits, and it's more about what you do than who you are on the inside. Therefore, everybody can flex their style and they can do so authentically."
• "Style is the largest contaminator of your competence. No matter how good you are, negative style can take away from your competence."
• "To have real executive presence would be to be powerful enough to be listened to, but have enough attractive markers to be followed and for people to want to be around you."
• "Much easier to start a little bit more powerful and then back off versus coming in more attractive and trying to go power from there."
• "When you enter any situation, you have to ask, how do I want to be seen?"

Featured Speakers

• Dr. Suzanne Peterson is a Partner at CRA | Admired Leadership and a leading expert on leadership style, executive presence, and gravitas. She specializes in helping leaders understand how their style impacts their effectiveness and how to make strategic adjustments to expand their range.
• Mallory Stacey is a Managing Director at CRA | Admired Leadership who partners with Suzanne on style code coaching and programming. She brings practical experience having transformed her own style from management consulting to leadership coaching.

Resources Mentioned

• Previous webinar recording on leadership style
• Style Code coaching program
• Power markers vs. attractive markers framework

Or schedule a time to talk directly to our team here

Key Highlights

• Understanding delegation as a strategic decision: - Delegation is itself a decision, not an abdication of leadership - Effective delegation serves as a performance multiplier for organizations - The best delegators view it as a developmental tool, not just time management
• What leaders should never delegate: - Strategy and strategic direction - Talent decisions for direct reports - Material legal or regulatory matters - Anything related to organizational character and values - Delivering bad news
• Framework for effective delegation: - Consider the strategic importance of the decision - Assess the urgency and reversibility of the decision - Evaluate team member capabilities and experience - Identify learning opportunities for team development
• Follow-up cadence after delegation: - Adjust based on the importance and urgency of the decision - Consider the experience level of the person you're delegating to - Focus on process over outcomes when evaluating results - Create psychological safety when mistakes happen

Notable Quotes

• "Deciding to delegate a decision is still a decision. You're not giving up decisiveness by delegating."
• "You're robbing yourself of free time to think strategically, robbing yourself of the force multiplier of other perspectives, and robbing individuals of developmental opportunities by not delegating."
• "As you get further in your career, you really start to have more of a focus on what your legacy is going to be, and your legacy is going to be the people."
• "Don't focus on the outcome. Focus on the process and how we got to this point."
• "The number one thing you never want to do to your leaders is give them work to do. You want to be taking work off their desk."

Featured Speaker

Bryan Downey is an Executive Coach and Managing Director at CRA | Admired Leadership with over 20 years of experience as a corporate executive, including roles as CEO and President in both public and private organizations. He specializes in helping leaders develop their decision-making capabilities and maximize their impact through effective delegation and team development.

Resources Mentioned

• Field Note: "When to Delegate a Decision"
• Jeff Bezos's approach to delegation using "one-way door" vs. "two-way door" decisions
• Style Code Webinar Series on executive presence
• Alex - Admired Leadership's AI executive coach

Or schedule a time to talk directly to our team here

Key Highlights

• Distinguishing problems from dilemmas: - Problems are solvable issues where you have control or influence - Dilemmas are situations largely outside your control that must be managed - Recognizing the difference changes your approach and energy allocation
• Hallmarks of a dilemma: - It's 90-100% out of your control - Attempting to solve it often makes things worse - It has a "long tail" with cascading effects - When you zoom out, you see it has many tentacles across the organization
• Effective approaches to dilemmas: - Reframe as "not yet" rather than "never" - Focus on what you can control rather than what you can't - Document potential solutions for when circumstances change - Choose effectiveness over being right
• Leadership communication strategies: - Help teams recognize dilemmas without becoming demotivated - Validate past work when implementing change - Involve people in data collection and analysis - Redirect energy toward solvable problems

Notable Quotes

• "Do you want to be right or do you want to be effective? Pick one."
• "Just because the answer is 'not yet' doesn't mean that it's 'never'."
• "You can't just only talk about the new legacy going forward because that erases what everyone else has done so far."
• "Think of yourself as a precious resource here... focus on the places where you're going to get the biggest return on your investment."
• "The measure of success is nobody's talking about it anymore."

Featured Speaker

Diana Hong is a Partner and Executive Coach at CRA | Admired Leadership with over 20 years of experience advising on strategic communication, change management, executive visibility, and stakeholder relationships. She specializes in coaching leaders and teams through complex organizational challenges and has worked with clients across numerous industries. Diana is known for her practical approach to leadership development and her ability to help leaders distinguish between problems they can solve and dilemmas they must manage.

Resources Mentioned

• Field Note on the distinction between problems and dilemmas
• Upcoming Style Code webinar series on executive presence
• On-location events in New York and other cities
• Option to schedule 10-minute coaching sessions with Admired Leadership coaches

Or schedule a time to talk directly to our team here

Key Highlights

• The Trust Equation: Understanding trust as a formula of credibility + reliability + intimacy divided by self-orientation
• Actions speak louder than words: The four loudest things in leadership (in order):
  1. What leaders do (behaviors and actions)
  2. What leaders measure
  3. What leaders decide in crucial moments
  4. What leaders say
• Building trust through the trifecta of relationship development:
  • Congratulations - recognizing what matters to others
  • Gratitude - expressing specific appreciation
  • Invitation - bringing others into your world
• Trust is gained in inches and lost in miles - the importance of consistent, intentional behaviors
• Relational closeness leads to clarity - understanding what truly matters to others
• The five levels of trust (referenced from a Field Note) as a framework for assessing relationship depth

Notable Quotes

• "When it comes to trust, everybody's from Missouri - they're from the 'Show Me' state."
• "What gets modeled gets mirrored."
• "The things that somebody says are actually the fourth loudest thing that you will see from them."
• "What gets measured gets done. The problem with that statement is, it's usually the only thing that gets done."
• "Closeness leads to clarity."

Featured Speaker

Eric Springer is an Executive Coach at CRA | Admired Leadership. He brings a unique perspective from his background as a retired Air Force Colonel with experience in special operations. Eric specializes in helping leaders build high-trust environments that drive both team performance and followership. His military experience in high-risk environments has given him firsthand insight into the critical importance of trust in leadership.

Resources Mentioned

• Field Note: "The Five Levels of Trust" - framework for assessing trust in relationships
• The Trust Equation - credibility + reliability + intimacy ÷ self-orientation
• The "Circle of Trust" concept from the movie "Meet the Parents"

Or schedule a time to talk directly to our team here

Key Highlights

• Moving beyond typical reflection patterns: - Most organizations limit reflection to annual planning, quarterly reviews, or post-mortems - The best leaders integrate reflection into regular routines and meeting cadences - Shifting from "fast and forward" to intentional slowing down
• Creating meaningful dialogue: - Reserve dedicated time (45+ minutes) for inquiry-based discussions - Focus on understanding rather than immediate action or solutions - Create psychological safety for all voices to be heard - Use provocative questions that encourage deep thinking
• Implementation strategies: - Set clear expectations before introducing new reflection practices - Provide pre-work and thoughtful questions to prepare participants - Establish ground rules to prevent premature jumping to solutions - Model reflection in your own leadership first
• Benefits of regular reflection: - Stronger team connection and understanding of diverse perspectives - Team members feel seen and valued when their voices are heard - Symbolic importance shows what the leader truly values - Better decision-making through deeper understanding

Notable Quotes

• "Slow is smooth, smooth is fast."
• "The quality of the reflection is directly correlated to the quality of the questions that you're asking."
• "The wisdom of anything is in the review or the wisdom is in the reflection."
• "Questions can often carry feedback."
• "It's super hard to slow down to go fast, but the payoff's worth it."

Featured Speaker

Katie Angstadt is a Partner and Executive Coach at CRA | Admired Leadership. She specializes in helping leaders and teams develop more effective communication and collaboration practices. Katie is known for her ability to facilitate meaningful dialogue and create spaces where teams can engage in productive reflection that leads to better outcomes.

Resources Mentioned

• "It's Not About the Nail" video - illustrating the importance of listening before problem-solving
• Field Note: "Asking a Crafty Question Upward Can Carry an Indirect Message"
• Upcoming events in Philadelphia, Miami, and New York in April

Or schedule a time to talk directly to our team here

Key Highlights

• Understanding AI technologies: - Machine learning (advanced statistics for prediction) - Generative AI (creating new content based on probabilities) - AI agents (specialized tools using large language models)
• Leadership approach to AI adoption: - Presume AI is coming and will be hugely powerful - Anticipate human factors (skill erosion, skill development, judgment) - Welcome AI where it makes teams better - Maintain transparency and authenticity
• Practical applications for leaders: - Use AI as a critic and thought partner - Generate alternative perspectives and explanations - Enhance research capabilities - Improve decision-making processes
• Adoption challenges: - Most leaders have limited experience with AI tools - Confusion about different models and capabilities - Unclear use cases for general purpose technology - Organizational barriers to implementation

Notable Quotes

• "People overestimate the first wave of a technology, and they tend to underestimate the effects of the second wave."
• "Good leadership looks exactly the same in the world of AI as it did before AI."
• "The role of authenticity for leaders is going to be more important in this world."
• "My ability to learn and be facile on ideas is so much more powerful... you can learn anything you want to learn."

Featured Speaker

• Alan Nelson is Co-Managing Partner at CRA | Admired Leadership and spearheads the firm's efforts to integrate generative AI into their client work. With over 30 years of experience advising senior leaders, he brings a unique perspective on how leaders can adapt to technological shifts while staying true to core leadership principles.

Resources Mentioned

• ALEX - Admired Leadership's AI coach built on Claude from Anthropic
• Confluence - Weekly newsletter on AI and communication
• Book recommendation: "Co-intelligence" by Ethan Mollick

Register to be part of future conversations in real time here

Or schedule a time to talk directly to our team here

Key Highlights

• Moving beyond to-do lists: - Keep task lists but don't lead with them - Focus on "who" before "what" - Create 10-15 minute relationship-building routines
• Building authentic connections: - Reach out to 2-3 people daily with genuine purpose - Mix communication mediums (email, calls, in-person) - Track important details about people's lives
• Making it practical: - Short, frequent touchpoints are more effective than long, infrequent ones - Create relationship-building habits that take 10 minutes or less - Strategy is in the planning, authenticity is in the execution
• Cross-generational application: - Core principles work across all age groups - Adapt medium choices to preferences - Focus on relationship quality over specific tools

Notable Quotes

• "Authenticity is in the execution."
• "With frequency of communication comes influence."
• "People are influenced by people that they know, like, and trust."

Featured Speaker

Suzanne Peterson is a Coach at CRA | Admired Leadership, specializing in leadership development and organizational communication. She brings extensive experience helping leaders build stronger relationships and increase their influence through intentional relationship-building practices.

Register to be part of future conversations in real time here

Or schedule a time to talk directly to our team here

Key Highlights

• Reframe onboarding from orientation to launch: - Focus on strategic priorities and trajectory - Create intentional symbols that demonstrate values - Build relationships with key stakeholders
• Everything communicates meaning: - Where leaders spend their time - Who they meet with first - Where they choose to sit - How they structure meetings
• Balance quick wins with long-term success: - Slow down to speed up - Listen through smart questioning - Build credibility through small, strategic victories - Avoid major changes before understanding culture
• Remote leadership considerations: - Prioritize some in-person time when possible - Multiple short touchpoints better than fewer long ones - Be intentional about communication frequency

Notable Quotes

• "As a new leader, you own your start, you own your performance, and you own your finish."
• "The best leaders slow down to speed up."
• "Four times fifteen is greater than sixty - multiple short touchpoints are more meaningful than one long conversation."

Featured Speaker

• Lisa Colella is a Coach at CRA | Admired Leadership, specializing in executive transitions and organizational communication. She brings extensive experience both implementing and leading executive onboarding programs across various industries.

Or schedule a time to talk directly to our team here

Key Highlights

• The Credibility Equation: Leadership effectiveness comes from both competence (skills and abilities) and character (values and behaviors)
• While competence is often presumed at senior levels, character must be deliberately demonstrated
• Success provides unique opportunities to showcase character through: - How victories are framed and celebrated - What gets measured and prioritized - The questions leaders choose to ask - How credit is shared
• Leadership character differs from personal character and includes elements like: - Degree of collaboration and inclusivity - Approach to accountability - Source and motivation of drive - Level of humility and openness to learning

Notable Quotes

• "Character is not just revealed in times of adversity - those times of success are also great opportunities for leaders and teams to really underscore and reveal character."
• "Watch the pronouns - there's a big difference between singular credit and group credit."
• "You can be a leader of high integrity as an individual, but that doesn't necessarily show up in terms of how you display that character as a leader."

Featured Speaker

• Ben Stringfellow is a Coach and Partner at CRA | Admired Leadership with 8 years at the firm and 20 years prior experience as a client and practitioner of the behavioral approach to leadership. Before joining CRA, he held senior operational roles at McDonald's Corporation.

Or schedule a time to talk directly to our team here

Key Highlights

• Change is not a curve but a wave - organizations and leaders need to develop skills for continuous adaptation rather than viewing change as a one-time event
• Common mistakes in change management include: - Over-relying on "selling" the change rather than addressing practical concerns - Focusing too much on macro vision while ignoring micro discomforts - Using awareness campaigns and branded merchandise instead of meaningful engagement
• The most effective change strategies: - Involve people early through pilots and focus groups - Use peer-to-peer influence rather than just top-down communication - Balance speed of implementation with organizational capacity
• Different organizational levels face unique challenges: - Top leaders must be willing to repeat messages multiple times - Middle managers need to focus on translation and cross-team collaboration - Front-line leaders must balance regular operations with change initiatives

Notable Quotes

• "Change is not a noun, it's a verb - let's get really good at changing."
• "The most credible people in a change are usually not the senior-most leaders... it's other peer-like people who have gone through it recently."
• "There's a myth that you can avoid all discomfort, that if somehow you get people excited enough and cheerleading enough that somehow, magically, all issues will go away."

Featured Speaker

• Diana Hong is an Executive Coach and Partner at CRA | Admired Leadership with over 13 years at the firm. Prior to joining CRA, she spent 10+ years in finance. She specializes in helping organizations and leaders navigate complex change initiatives effectively.

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Key Highlights

• Admired Leaders excel at both driving performance AND creating strong followership - a rare combination found in only a small percentage of leaders
• The Admired Leadership approach focuses on universal behaviors that: - Can be explained in under 5 minutes - Are immediately actionable - Work across all demographics and industries
• On Praise and Recognition: - Admired Leaders tend to be "praise stingy" but highly effective with positive feedback - They distinguish between general praise and specific positive feedback - When they do give praise, they make it count by being specific and meaningful
• Key Insight: The difference between praise and positive feedback is utility - positive feedback tells people exactly what they did well and what to continue doing
• Practical Application: - Leaders struggling with giving recognition can focus on specific positive feedback rather than general praise - Consider tracking system to ensure giving at least one piece of positive feedback daily - Recognition can extend beyond work to family and personal relationships

Notable Quotes

• "Leadership is what you do at the end of the day. It's how you approach a room and the behaviors and routines that you bring into that room."
• "We're not in the business of changing who people are - we're focused on behaviors that make leaders more effective."
• "When Admired Leaders praise, they praise the right people in the right way for the right things."

Featured Speaker

• Suzanne Peterson Ph.D. is an Admired Leadership Coach and Partner. She provides counsel and coaching to senior leaders primarily on Wall Street and other financial services companies.

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Key Highlights

• Leadership Behaviors: - Universal and immediately actionable - Can be explained in under 5 minutes - Work across personal and professional contexts
• Third-Party Compliments: - Sharing positive feedback about someone to another person - Acts like a "time-release vitamin" - impact happens when it naturally comes back to the person - More powerful than direct praise because there's no "but" attached - Works in both professional and personal contexts
• Implementation Tips: - Start in low-risk situations - Practice across all areas of life (work, family, community) - Share genuine, authentic observations - Focus on both who people are and what they do
• Common Pitfalls to Avoid: - The "crap sandwich" feedback technique (praise-criticism-praise) - Using behaviors as techniques rather than developing them as authentic routines - Trying new behaviors first in high-risk situations - Over-using or forcing the behavior insincerely

Notable Quotes

• "Leadership is what you do. It's how you approach a room and the behaviors and routines that you bring into that room."
• "Who we are for our kids the research suggests at times is more important than what we do for them."
• "Try it on... especially if you're a skeptic, see what happens."

Featured Speaker

John Cook is an Admired Leadership Coach and Partner. He primarily works with senior executives across organizations from small companies to the largest financial services firms in the world.

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Key Highlights

• Framework for Managing Uncertainty: - What will definitely happen - What will probably happen - What we don't know yet - What probably won't happen - What definitely won't happen
• Communication Principles: - You cannot "not communicate" - everything sends a message - Information vacuums get filled with assumptions, usually negative ones - Higher uncertainty requires more frequent communication - Even "no updates" updates are valuable during uncertain times
• Best Practices: - Align leadership team on messaging before communicating - Be transparent about what is known and unknown - Commit to specific timeframes for updates - Treat people like "fully formed adults" - Avoid hiding or staying silent out of fear of misspeaking
• Key Leadership Insight: - Clarity doesn't mean having all the answers - It means being clear about what you know and don't know - Consider using this framework: "We don't know everything yet, we reserve the right to get smarter and change course, but we won't compromise on [core value]"

Notable Quotes

• "You cannot not communicate - everything you do sends a message."
• "The higher the degree of uncertainty, the more frequent your communication needs to be."
• "Don't hide in your office - treat people like fully formed adults."

Featured Speaker

Carolynne Thomas is an Admired Leadership Coach and Partner at CRA | Admired Leadership. She specializes in leadership and communication, particularly during times of organizational change and uncertainty.

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Key Highlights

• Meetings vs. Conversations: - Meetings are typically transactional, agenda-driven, and task-focused - Conversations are more exploratory, relationship-focused, and dynamic - Both serve different purposes and are valuable in different contexts
• Characteristics of Effective Conversations: - Usually involve fewer people than meetings - More question-based than agenda-driven - Follow the energy of discussion rather than rigid structure - Focus on creating shared understanding - Often lead to unexpected insights and connections
• Implementation Strategies: - Assess existing organizational norms before making changes - Take incremental steps rather than dramatic shifts - Be explicit about expectations and intentions - Consider breaking larger groups into smaller conversation clusters - Use conversations as pre-work for larger meetings
• Managing Conversation Dynamics: - Carefully select participants based on contribution potential - Stay open to valuable tangents while managing disruptions - Balance loud voices by amplifying quieter ones - Create space for multiple perspectives

Notable Quotes

• "Leadership is what you do - the actions, behaviors, habits, and routines that you bring into a space."
• "You can actually get as much if not more done through really good curated conversations than you can in meetings."
• "Don't ask yourself if you need a meeting or conversation accidentally or subconsciously - think deliberately and strategically about it."

Featured Speaker

Ben Stringfellow is an Admired Leadership Coach and Partner at CRA. His operational leadership experience with large organizations brings practical, action-oriented approach to leadership development.

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Key Highlights

• Five Levels of Trust: - Initial rapport and first impressions - Consistency and reliability - Competence and expertise - Emotional safety and vulnerability - Deep mutual reciprocity and shared goals
• Building Trust: - Trust is not all-or-nothing - Different relationships require different types of trust - Trust must be built intentionally and strategically - Trust becomes more resilient with depth and breadth
• Best Practices: - Show genuine curiosity about others - Track and follow up on important details - Focus on understanding others' motivations and goals - Create opportunities for reciprocity
• Common Challenges: - Avoiding "manufactured" or inauthentic relationship building - Building trust when it doesn't come naturally - Recovering from broken trust - Balancing professional and personal connections

Notable Quotes

• "Trust is not all-or-nothing - there are different levels and types of trust for different relationships."
• "The head is a terrible place to keep things - being disciplined about relationships shows you care."
• "Think about feeding relationships like a balanced diet - you need variety and depth to build resilience."

Featured Speaker

Diana Hong is an Admired Leadership Coach and Partner at CRA | Admired Leadership.  She primarily focuses on helping leaders build authentic relationships and develop effective leadership styles.

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Key Highlights

• Leadership Policies and Culture: - Policies act as powerful symbols of organizational values - Example: Including cultural behaviors in performance evaluations - Hybrid work policies reflect cultural priorities around collaboration - Every policy decision communicates organizational values
• Effective Leadership Communication: - Leaders must be goal-oriented in communications - Everything communicates something - even silence or inaction - Style should match the situation and relationship - Balance between powerful and attractive communication styles
• Cultural Pillars vs Company Values: - Values are foundational beliefs - Cultural pillars are the behavioral expressions of those values - Pillars show how values should be lived day-to-day - Culture is only as strong as leadership's tolerance for misalignment
• Building Strong Culture: - Culture is built through daily choices and behaviors - Not about perks but about consistent leadership actions - Requires intentional, ongoing practice - Must clearly connect policies to business needs and values

Notable Quotes

• "There's no way to not communicate, and there's no way to not have a culture. Everything you say or do, or don't do, is communicating something."
• "Culture can only be as strong as the degree to which leadership tolerates any misalignment to it."
• "It's not about the fancy ping pong tables - it really comes down to the day-to-day choices of leadership and team members."

Featured Speaker

Lisa Colella is an Admired Leadership Coach at CRA | Admired Leadership. She has extensive experience helping organizations align their policies, communications and culture.

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Key Highlights

• Change Management Framework: - Traditional change curve comes from grief literature - Change is better viewed as a wave rather than a curve - Focus on building adaptable skillsets that transfer across different changes - Success comes from co-creation rather than top-down implementation
• Effective Communication During Change: - Balance between over and under-communication - Use "best case/worst case/reality" framework - Maintain consistent communication cadence - Be transparent about what is known and unknown
• Action Steps for Leaders: - Categorize what can be directly controlled vs influenced - Identify what are problems (solvable) vs dilemmas (must be managed) - Create opportunities for team members to co-create solutions - Build transferable change management skills
• Common Pitfalls to Avoid: - Over-communicating without sufficient details - Under-communicating and allowing rumor mills to develop - Making unrealistic promises about control over outcomes - Treating change as a one-time event rather than ongoing process

Notable Quotes

• "Change is a wave, not a curve - there's always another change coming."
• "The change people most adopt is the one they're co-creating."
• "If you end up getting bored with a message, it's probably the right amount of times you're repeating it."

Featured Speaker

Diana Hong is an Admired Leadership Coach and Partner at CRA | Admired Leadership. She specializes in helping leaders navigate organizational change and development.

Or schedule a time to talk directly to our team here

Key Highlights

• Strategic Relationship Assessment: - Consider both relevance and influence when evaluating relationships - Align relationship investments with personal and professional goals - Be intentional about tracking and managing key relationships - Anticipate future relationship needs before they become critical
• Building Strong Relationships: - Focus on reciprocity in relationships - Increase frequency of meaningful interactions - Add value to create natural reciprocity - Change conversation quality and depth to deepen connections
• Best Practices from Admired Leaders: - View world through both problem-solving and relationship lenses - Track and measure relationship progress - Set specific relationship goals - Be curious and create conversation continuity
• Managing Relationship Portfolio: - Regularly assess relationship priorities - Consider deprioritizing relationships that don't align with goals - Make thoughtful transitions rather than abrupt changes - Balance time investment across key relationships

Notable Quotes

• "Everything happens because of or within a conversation."
• "Time is the great equalizer - we all have the same amount, and how we spend it counts."
• "The best leaders anticipate relationships they might need in the future and start cultivating them before they're needed."

Featured Speaker

Katie Angstadt is an Admired Leadership Coach and Partner at CRA | Admired Leadership. She has extensive experience helping leaders develop strategic approaches to relationship building and management.