– 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
But, with the proper guidance, leaders can dramatically improve the productivity AND engagement of everyone they work with and for – including themselves.
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.
– Start Thinking Differently
What long-standing assumptions, misconceptions, and self-limiting thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and behaviors are keeping you – or those in your sphere-of-influence – from truly upgrading your performance, satisfaction, and success?
Let’s change that.
- Every leader conversation has TWO purposes – To address the work at hand AND to build the relationships (and organizational capacity) needed to successfully complete all future work.
- The potential for conflict is inherent in everything a leader does – That’s normal. The problem, though, is not knowing how to effectively navigate (or help others navigate) through those conflicts.
- Just doing your job is not enough – If you and those in your charge can’t consistently demonstrate a meaningful, timely, and visible business impact, you’ll rarely get the recognition you deserve.
- Commitment-management is a leader’s most secret not-so-secret superpower – Both in terms of how others will view you and how accountable they’ll be for the commitments they make to you.
- Admitting you’d like to do better is not a sign of weakness – Greater power, achievement, satisfaction, and success all stem from a prioritized intention to become a better leader.
❝We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.❞
albert einstein
– Trusted Coaching and Mentoring
I’m Barry Zweibel, MCC-Master Certified Coach and Founder of LeadershipTraction (and its parent, GottaGettaCoach!®, Inc.).
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.
I created LeadershipTraction to help leaders focus on increasing their confidence, clarity, decisiveness, and impact, while building build the traction they need to solve their most pressing and challenging problems – at work, and in life.
Focusing on both the personal and professional growth of leaders, as I have for the last two decades – in clear, concise, creative, respectful, and often counter-intuitive ways – is why I have become such a valued and trusted resource for so many organizations, leaders, leaders of leaders, and the HR/OD professionals charged with helping leaders grow, organizations succeed, and employees thrive.
If you think a brief conversation about your leadership development needs – or those of others in your organization – would be useful, let’s coordinate calendars.
– 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.
❝You may delay, but time will not.❞
Benjamin Franklin
– How Clients Say It
In their own words:
❝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.❞
-SA, Vice President | Client Services/Banking | Minneapolis, MN
❝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.❞
-JP, Director | Human Resources/Government | Louisville, KY
❝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.❞
-CK, Director | Administration/Financial Services | Chicago, IL
The whole point of any leadership development effort is in helping leaders learn to think more strategically, collaborate more freely, take full responsibility for their decisions, and create more meaningful and lasting positive outcomes – more quickly and more easily than they might otherwise.
So whether you’re reading this page for yourself or because you’re interested in helping other leaders in your organization, the opportunity to claim your leadership voice and vision, truly motivate and inspire, and start creating a significantly greater leadership traction, is just a conversation away.
