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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)

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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)

Key Highlights

• 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/

Key Highlights

• 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

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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"

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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/

Register to be part of future conversations in real time hereOr 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"

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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"

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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"

 

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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)