Connecting to Admired Leadership

• 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

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

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.

• 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

• "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."

• 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.

• 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

• "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."

• 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.

• 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

• "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."

• 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.

• 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

• "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."

• 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.

• 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

• "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."

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.

• 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]"

• "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."

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.

• 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

• "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."

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.

• 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

• "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."

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.

• 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

• "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."

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