LeadershipTraction® Coaching and Mentoring 

– Why Traction Matters

Leaders hold a unique position of authority in business for the people they work with and themselves. Not only do have the ability to make things almost infinitely better, but based on their leadership style and (lack of) skill, they also have every ability to make things almost infinitely worse.

• When leaders can’t effectively manage complex tasks and information, it directly affects:

• Project and Program Management Success
• Accountability Discussions and The Shaping Others’ Behaviors
• Effectively Managing Up, Down, and Across The Organization
• Collaboration
• Executive Intelligence

• When leaders can’t constructively manage conflict or difficult and challenging conversations, it directly impacts:

• Giving and Receiving Truly Effective Performance Feedback
• Preparing for Big Meetings
• Evaluating Key Metrics
• Managing Conflict
• Clarity of Communications

• When leaders can’t consistently think, feel, and act in ways that motivate, impress, and truly inspire others, it directly limits:

• Team and Team Member Performance
• Thought Leadership and Vision
• Priority Management and Follow-through
• Change Management
• Inspiring Others to Demonstrate Greater Urgency, Thoroughness, and Consistency in What THEY Do

• When leaders get unnerved by sudden shifts in plans, priorities, and responsibilities, it directly dilutes:

• Flexibility and Organizational Agility
• Intelligent Conversation
• Working Through Ambiguity
• Mood Management
• How Others Achieve

• When leaders can’t successfully control their reactions to stress, strain, and worry, it directly weakens:

• Organizational Capacity-Building
• Leveraging Employee Strengths And Mitigating Their Weaknesses
• Control, Challenge, and Commitment
• Grit, Resolve, and Resilience
• Work/Life Balance
• Delivering Key Business Deliverables

With the proper guidance, leaders can not only improve their own success and satisfaction, they can improve the productivity and engagement of those they work with, and for, as well.

They key, of course, is to be open to recognizing the need for, and value of, building your leadership traction. And then committing to make it happen. That’s where we come in.

– Get in Gear ⤞ and Drive

Your long-standing assumptions, misconceptions, and self-limiting thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and behaviors – and those of those in your sphere-of-influence – are often what keep us from meaningfully upgrading our performance, satisfaction, and success.

So to change that, consider the following shifts in how to think about leadership and your role as a leader so you can start generating some REAL traction:

• Every conversation you have as a leader has two distinct, yet related, purposes:

• To address the work at hand
• To build and sustain the relationships (and organizational capacity) needed to successfully complete all future work

• Conflict is an inherent part of everything a leader does:

• Asserting priorities always involves the potential for conflict
• Knowing how to effectively navigate through conflict (and helping others do so, as well)  is a fundamental leadership competency

• Just doing your job is not enough:

• That may get you an ‘average’ performance review
• If you and those in your charge can’t consistently demonstrate a meaningful, timely, and visible business impact, however, you’ll rarely be recognized as essential contributors

• Accountability and recognition flow directly from better commitment-management:

• In terms of holding others responsible for their performance and engagement
• In terms of holding yourself responsible for your performance and engagement

• Admitting you’d benefit from ‘outside assistance’ is NOT a sign of weakness:

• Pretending you know is irresponsible and unsustainable, and sends the absolute wrong message as the role model you already are
• Properly focusing your learning (and the learning of others) not only reduces fear, stress, and strain, but naturally encourages everyone – including yourself – to perform at increasingly higher levels

– Trusted Coaching and Mentoring

Hi, Barry Zweibel, MCC-Master Certified Coach, Mentor, and Founder of LeadershipTraction (and its parent, GottaGettaCoach!®, Inc.), here.

I left my ‘day job’ as vice president and corporate officer of telecommunications at what was the world’s largest futures and options exchange on July 4, 2000 – Independence Day! – and I’ve been coaching, professionally, ever since.

LeadershipTraction was created to help leaders focus on increasing their confidence, clarity, decisiveness, and impact – at work, and in life – quickly, clearly, creatively, respectfully, and in engaging and counter-intuitive ways.

Fast forward so many years, I’ve since become a truly trusted external resource for organizations, leaders, leaders of leaders, and HR/OD professionals, alike – those charged with helping leaders grow, organizations succeed, and employees thrive.

Maybe that’s why clients who hire me once, so often hire me again…and again.

– Traction by the Numbers

Based on what clients reported after working with me:

• 99% – the percent satisfied, or better, with the personalized coaching, mentoring, and support they received.‌⁣

• 23-45% – the average improvements cited across more than 10 essential leadership development competencies directly related to improving their impact, influence, strategic thinking, and TRACTION.‌

• 4x – the multiplier of value received for every $1 spent, that is, the average ROI (return on investment) that clients calculated having received.‌

• One – the number of conversations it typically takes for real, relevant, and irrefutable traction to start kicking in. Try for yourself and see.

– Client Endorsements

❝Barry speaks to the human element that we all deal with in business which underlies many of our interactions on a daily basis at work. He was completely engaged in the conversation and attaining some results from it. He helped me get to another level of communication in my new position which has greatly helped, not only me, but the entire office. He was flexible and gave me ideas that made sense for each conversation. I didn’t feel like his ideas were a pre-programmed ‘canned’ process.❞

Vice President | Client Services/Banking, Minneapolis, MN

❝Barry’s instincts were ‘spot-on’ in identifying roadblocks to professional growth and his ideas for resolution were workable and reasonable. He intuitively understood our limits of endurance on sensitive issues and could safely walk us through them to careful and thoughtful results. I would highly recommend his services to anyone interested in engaging a professional coach.❞

Director | Administration/Financial Services, Chicago, IL

❝Barry has a unique gift of listening and asking the right questions to drill down to the key points and identifying patterns. I found myself looking forward to each next coaching session with great anticipation. Barry made me think about and question my long-standing, self-limiting, assumptions and thoughts and then gave me ways to overcome them. I liked the way he never told me what to do. Instead, he helped me tell myself what to do. Thanks for helping me enjoy life (all aspects) much more.❞

Director | Human Resources/Government, Louisville, KY

❝I am truly grateful for the opportunity to work with Barry Zweibel. Barry brings relevant business knowledge and profound insight to coaching that encourages life changing development in business and personal endeavors.❞

Executive Vice President, Sales/Manufacturing, Atlanta, GA

And there are plenty more client testimonials and endorsements, too, if you’re interested.

The whole point of any leadership development effort is to help leaders learn to think more clearly, collaborate more freely, take full responsibility for all of their decisions, and create more positive and lasting outcomes – more quickly and easily than they might, otherwise.

If you think a brief exploratory conversation about your leadership development needs – or those of others in your organization – would be a good use of your time, call or email to coordinate calendars.

I encourage you to take that step.