Connecting to Admired Leadership

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• 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

• "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."

• 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.

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

• 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

• "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?"

• 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.

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

• 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

• "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."

• 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.

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

• 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

• "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."

• 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.

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

• 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

• "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."

• 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.

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

• 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

• "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."

• 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.

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

• 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

• "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."

• 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.

• Field Note: "On Thinking Gray"

• 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

• "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."

• 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.

• Field Note on finding common ground vs. common goals

• 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

• "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."

• 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.

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

• 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

• "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?"

• 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.

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