Got Your SiX: Battle-Tested Leadership for Business and Life with Dr. Traci Eisenberg-Rayburn

Leadership communication is not what you say. It is what your people understand, repeat, and act on after you leave the room. If you rolled out a new process in one meeting and two weeks later nobody is doing it, the problem is not your team. You lived with that decision for weeks while you planned it. They heard it once, on a Tuesday, in between a million other things.

➡️ Bring one thing you took from this episode to a free 20 minute collaborative call with Dr. Traci, and her book Inside Out Leadership: Transforming Your Life from the Core, plus the companion workbook, are yours at no cost: https://drtraci.erbusinessconsulting.com/mission-check-in-call

On this solo episode of Got Your SiX, Dr. Traci Eisenberg-Rayburn, Retired U.S. Army Officer, leadership consultant, and creator of the Battle-Tested Leadership Methodology™, shares how her entire multi-component unit of over 200 soldiers showed up for a PT test while the sister unit had a handful. She walks you through four communication lessons learned the hard way: the teach-back habit she used after every briefing, why silence is not understanding, what broken Army radios and the drummers at Gettysburg teach about clear messages, and why shorthand only works when everyone knows it. Then she hands you three moves for Monday morning. Saying it was never the finish line. The finish line is when they understand it.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

• What leadership communication really means: your message is not delivered when you say it, it is delivered when the people following you can repeat it and act on it.
• Why one announcement is a hope, not a plan, and how Dr. Traci got her whole unit to a PT test by communicating early, midway, and again as the date got close.
• How to use a teach-back instead of asking “Any questions?” by picking a different person each time to say back what they heard, so it never feels like a punishment.
• Why silence is not understanding, and why a quiet room at the end of your meeting usually means people are afraid to be the one who did not get it.
• What Army radios that cut out mid-transmission and the drummers and flag bearers at Gettysburg teach leaders about clear, concise messages that get through the noise.
• How undefined acronyms, emojis, and Slack shorthand break team communication across generations, and why shorthand only saves time when everybody understands the shorthand.
• One leadership communication move to make before your next meeting: decide what people must walk out understanding, and do not leave until someone says it back to you.

We talk about:

00:00 How did you get everyone to show up?

02:47 Why leadership communication matters at work and home

04:00 What was really behind the PT test turnout

06:17 Why one announcement is not a plan

06:56 Now you tell me what I just said

09:12 The telephone game happening in your workplace

12:01 Why silence is not understanding

12:45 What Army radios teach about clear communication

13:58 Who carried the message at Gettysburg?

15:00 Acronyms, emojis, and shorthand nobody defined

18:03 Three leadership communication moves for Monday

20:32 One last question: do not leave until they say it back

Connect with me

• Leadership Call: https://www.erbusinessconsulting.com/coaching/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-traci-55410868/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrTraciER/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drtraci_battletested/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gotyoursixpodcast/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@erbusinessconsulting
• Website: https://www.erbusinessconsulting.com/
• Email: [email protected]

#Leadership #LeadershipCommunication #CommunicationSkills #EffectiveCommunication #TeamCommunication #ClearCommunication #CommunicationInTheWorkplace #LeadershipDevelopment #LeadershipSkills #MilitaryLeadership #VeteranLeadership #BusinessOwner #LeadingTeams #GenerationalDifferences #LeadershipPodcast #ComposedOperator #BattleTestedLeadership #GotYourSiX

Authentic leadership does not mean falling apart in front of your people. It means you stop pretending the hard call was easy to make. If you have ever made a decision with half the information, walked out of the room looking calm, and then sat in your car for 10 minutes before driving home, you know the gap between real and polished. Everyone tells you to be authentic. Nobody shows you how when the whole room is watching your face.

➡️ Bring one thing you took from this episode to a free 20 minute collaborative call with Dr. Traci, and her book Inside Out Leadership: Transforming Your Life from the Core, plus the companion workbook, are yours at no cost: https://drtraci.erbusinessconsulting.com/mission-check-in-call

On this episode of Got Your SiX, Dr. Traci Eisenberg-Rayburn, Retired U.S. Army Officer, leadership consultant, and creator of the Battle-Tested Leadership Methodology™, sits down with Toni Will, General Manager and Governor of the Kalamazoo Wings and the first woman to hold that role in team history. Toni also hosts the Women In podcast, is a TEDx speaker and two-time IRONMAN, and wrote Rebellious Success: Six Truths to Release Perceived Weaknesses and Become Unstoppable. You hear how Toni led through a player strike and an arena move, why she called out a fan who attacked her personal pages, and why a leader who announces psychological safety probably has not built it. Dr. Traci shares the colonel who told her she never had to dim her light. Be real. Own the call. Stay with it.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

• What authentic leadership really means: being real does not mean falling apart in front of your team, it means refusing to pretend a hard call was easy when it was not.
• Why Toni Will shows up as the same person in front of 1,000 people, 10 people, or at the grocery store, and why calculated, over-polished leaders lose trust.
• How to respond when you are told “It’s okay to speak up, just not too loudly,” and the colonel’s advice that taught Dr. Traci you never have to dim your light to be heard.
• Why psychological safety at work cannot be announced by a leader, and how Toni keeps her team through a player strike and an arena move by letting them bring her the hard days.
• How to lead people through change they did not ask for: find an expert, put skin in the game, and accept that real, sustainable change takes longer than you want.
• The rebel mindset behind Rebellious Success, and why setbacks, messy moments, and perceived weaknesses do not cancel out your success or define who you are as a leader.
• One authentic leadership move to make today: Toni’s “just be you” awareness challenge, plus why she tells leaders to read one book when so few leaders actually do.

We talk about:

00:00 What authentic leadership really means

02:41 Meet Toni Will, first woman GM of the Kalamazoo Wings

05:23 Why perceived weaknesses can be strengths

10:05 What does being real as a leader look like?

14:41 When a fan went after her personal pages

17:38 You don’t need to dim your light

21:56 Lift each other up, get mad at time

25:05 How do you lead people through change?

29:33 Why psychological safety cannot be announced

32:41 The rebel mindset behind Rebellious Success

36:30 What do you give up to lead at this level?

41:28 Just be you: one move to make today

Connect with Toni

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tonilentini
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/imtoniwill/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonildaniels/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ToniWill
• Website: https://www.toniwill.com/
• Website: https://kwings.com/

Connect with me

• Leadership Call: https://www.erbusinessconsulting.com/coaching/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-traci-55410868/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrTraciER/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drtraci_battletested/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gotyoursixpodcast/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@erbusinessconsulting
• Website: https://www.erbusinessconsulting.com/
• Email: [email protected]

#Leadership #AuthenticLeadership #RealLeadership #LeadingUnderPressure #HardDecisions #PsychologicalSafety #LeadingThroughChange #WomenInLeadership #WomenInSports #WomenInHockey #LeadershipDevelopment #BusinessOwner #ValuesBasedLeadership #MilitaryLeadership #LeadershipPodcast #ComposedOperator #BattleTestedLeadership #GotYourSiX

Command and control leadership is the instinct to make every call yourself, and it is usually what got you promoted in the first place. Then one day it becomes the reason nothing moves without you. If you are a business owner, a senior manager, or a leader at any level, you know the trap. First sentence: "I am the bottleneck." Second sentence: "But if I don't make the call, it won't get made right." Both can be true. The question was never whether you are a good leader. The question is which leader this exact moment needs.

➡️ Bring one thing you took from this episode to a free 20 minute collaborative call with Dr. Traci, and her book Inside Out Leadership: Transforming Your Life from the Core, plus the companion workbook, are yours at no cost: https://drtraci.erbusinessconsulting.com/mission-check-in-call

On this episode of Got Your SiX, Dr. Traci Eisenberg-Rayburn, Retired U.S. Army Officer, leadership consultant, and creator of the Battle-Tested Leadership Methodology™, sits down with Jeanine Becker, founder and CEO of On Purpose Together, former corporate attorney, and a negotiation and collaboration instructor at Stanford for a decade. They do not agree on everything, and that is the point. You walk away with Jeanine's three pillars of collaborative leadership, a decision-making matrix that tells you when to tell, test, consult, or co-create, and the story of a foundation leader who moved $3.5 million instead of $1 million by changing how she saw her role. Command when it matters. Convene when it counts. Know the difference before the moment decides for you.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

• When command and control leadership works and when it fails: simple or complicated problems call for a decisive call, while complex problems with no single right answer demand input from others.
• The three pillars of collaborative leadership Jeanine Becker taught at Stanford: agency (knowing what you want and saying it), curiosity about what others bring, and the ability to sit in the unknown.
• How to stop being the bottleneck as a leader by choosing one lever, owning it up and out, and giving your team the freedom to experiment on how to move it.
• Why your meetings should be a series of questions instead of report-outs, and what a four-star general taught Dr. Traci about the cost of reading slides to a senior leader.
• Who owns the outcome when the team owns the decision: the leader owns the lever and the direction, while the team owns the experiments, the results, and the failures.
• Why leaders promoted for having the answers feel like imposters once they lead areas outside their expertise, and how inviting questions replaces the need to know everything.
• How autonomy, belonging, and competence build internal motivation that outlasts "because I said so," and why command and control leadership alone cannot create it.

We talk about:

00:00 Are you the bottleneck in your business?

02:15 Leading without rank or title

06:47 When the board overruled her legal advice

09:00 The Disneyland lesson on command versus curiosity

15:10 Why a four-star general stopped a slide briefing

16:34 The identity shift from expert to leader

18:14 Three pillars of collaborative leadership

19:46 How a $1M grant plan became $3.5M

27:09 Choose one lever, then get out of the way

33:53 Who owns the outcome when the team decides?

38:05 Command and control leadership or convening

40:48 Tell, test, consult, or co-create decision matrix

Connect with Jeanine

• Discover your style of engaging difference + the Decision Making Matrix: www.onpurposetogether.com/grow
• Collective Counsel: www.onpurposetogether.com/collective-counsel
• Website: www.onpurposetogether.com
• LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/beckerjeanine

Connect with me

• Leadership Call: https://www.erbusinessconsulting.com/coaching/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-traci-55410868/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrTraciER/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drtraci_battletested/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gotyoursixpodcast/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@erbusinessconsulting
• Website: https://www.erbusinessconsulting.com/
• Email: [email protected]

#Leadership #CommandAndControl #CollaborativeLeadership #DecisionMaking #LeadershipDevelopment #BusinessOwner #ExecutiveLeadership #Delegation #TeamOwnership #Accountability #MilitaryLeadership #VeteranLeadership #LeadingTeams #LeadershipPodcast #ComposedOperator #BattleTestedLeadership #GotYourSiX

Leadership style vs leadership traits is the distinction most leaders skip, and it is the reason a strong trait can still produce the wrong result. Your traits never reach your team directly. They travel through your leadership style first, and that style decides how much of what you intended actually lands. If your decisiveness has started to feel like control, or your collaboration has quietly turned into paralysis, the trait is probably not the problem. The way it is being expressed is. Across autocratic, democratic, transactional, transformational, and laissez-faire leadership, the same strength shows up as either an asset or a liability depending entirely on the style carrying it.

Retired U.S. Army officer and Got Your SiX host Dr. Traci Eisenberg-Rayburn walks through all five styles from her book, Inside Out Leadership: Transforming Your Life from the Core, using Patton, Eisenhower, Alfred Sloan, Nelson Mandela, Howard Schultz, and a pointed comparison between Warren Buffett and Ken Lay to show exactly where each style earns its keep and exactly where it collapses. You will leave with three questions to identify the leadership style you default to under pressure, the trait it is quietly costing you, and the style your team may need from you that you have been avoiding. Lead with clarity. Lead with courage. Dr. Traci has got your six.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

• Why the same leadership trait, like confidence or accountability, changes meaning entirely depending on the leadership style carrying it, and why adding more traits never fixes a style problem.
• How autocratic leadership earns its place in a crisis the way General Patton used it, and the exact point where that same decisiveness turns into control.
• Why democratic leadership still needs a boundary, using General Eisenhower's D-Day decision as proof that real collaboration still ends in one clear call.
• What happened inside General Motors when Alfred Sloan's transactional leadership traded long-term commitment for measurable performance, and what that trade actually costs.
• Why transformational leaders like Nelson Mandela and Howard Schultz become the single point of failure the moment their vision never gets built into a lasting system.
• What Warren Buffett and Ken Lay's nearly identical hiring philosophy reveals about the real difference between healthy autonomy and abandonment, and why only one of those companies still exists.
• The three questions Dr. Traci wants every leader to ask under pressure to name their default leadership style, the trait it is overusing, and the style their team actually needs from them.

We talk about:

00:00 Why the same leadership trait can create the wrong impact

01:29 Meet Dr. Traci and the Got Your SiX mission

02:49 Leadership traits are not the same as leadership styles

09:07 Autocratic leadership and the Patton decision that ended a career

12:52 What is your team's buy-in actually worth

15:22 Transactional leadership and the General Motors reputation problem

18:52 When inspiration turns into exhaustion

21:27 Mandela, Schultz, and what happens when vision has no system

25:47 Buffett, Ken Lay, and the leadership style everyone misreads

29:32 How does confidence change depending on your leadership style

35:38 Three questions to find your default leadership style

38:41 How to get the free Inside Out Leadership book and workbook

Resources:

• Bring one thing you took from this episode to a free 20 minute collaborative call with Dr. Traci, and her book Inside Out Leadership: Transforming Your Life from the Core, plus the companion workbook, are yours at no cost: https://drtraci.erbusinessconsulting.com/mission-check-in-call

Connect with me

• Leadership Call: https://www.erbusinessconsulting.com/coaching/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-traci-55410868/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrTraciER/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drtraci_battletested/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gotyoursixpodcast/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@erbusinessconsulting
• Website: https://www.erbusinessconsulting.com/
• Email: [email protected]

#LeadershipStyles #LeadershipTraits #BattleTestedLeadership #GotYourSiX #ComposedOperator #LeadershipDevelopment #MilitaryLeadership #SituationalLeadership #SelfAwareLeadership #AutocraticLeadership #DemocraticLeadership #TransformationalLeadership #TransactionalLeadership #LaissezFaireLeadership #InsideOutLeadership #LeadershipUnderPressure #ExecutiveLeadership #WomenInLeadership #VeteranLeadership #LeadershipPodcast

Identity after change is the part nobody schedules for. The role gets restructured, the company sells, the career you gave twenty years to ends on somebody else's timeline, the house goes quiet. Every piece of advice you get after that is about the calendar, update the resume, find the next thing, fill the week. None of it touches the real question, which is who you are once the thing that used to answer that question for you is behind you.

Dr. Douglas R. Lindsay, Lt Col (Ret), USAF, has crossed this gap more than once and spent a career studying what happens inside it. Twenty-two years in uniform, a PhD in the psychology of how leaders actually get built, editor of the peer-reviewed Journal of Character and Leadership Development, and now deputy editor at Military.com and founder of Next Mission Leadership, where he coaches leaders at organizations including Walmart and ExxonMobil. He and Dr. Traci Eisenberg-Rayburn get into why looking backward feels so much easier than looking forward, which of your patterns are worth carrying into whatever comes next, and what retrospective versus prospective identity actually means for a leader standing in the middle of change.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

• Why change is an identity question dressed as a logistics problem, and why filling the calendar is real work that still is not the work.
• Why the patterns that made you effective never came from your title, and why they are the most portable asset you carry into whatever comes next.
• The difference between retrospective identity, which is finished and knowable, and prospective identity, which is neither, and why looking backward always feels easier.
• What Dr. Douglas Lindsay's peer-reviewed research on courage, stress, and resilience says the leadership industry gets wrong.
• Why Next Mission Leadership is built on the idea that leadership is defined by how you perform next, not by what you have already done.
• Doug's argument that organizations should maintain their people the way they maintain equipment, on a schedule and before something breaks.
• Why the one-thing rule on Dr. Traci's free collaborative call filters for people who actually engaged with the episode, not just the free book.

We talk about:

00:00 Change tests your patterns, not your plan

00:03:00 Welcome to Got Your SiX with Dr. Traci

00:04:15 Meet Dr. Douglas Lindsay, a career built like scaffolding not a ladder

00:10:53 What is actually pulling you toward this work

00:13:26 Which turn in his career was hardest, and why

00:17:04 Why he named it Next Mission, not a second act

00:20:38 What is the change actually asking of you

00:36:00 Choose your hard, staying versus taking the risk

00:44:00 Why looking backward feels easier than looking forward

00:47:13 One leadership truth to take with you today

00:53:07 Bring one thing, get the book and workbook free

Resources:

• Bring one thing you took from this episode to a free 20 minute collaborative call with Dr. Traci, and her book Inside Out Leadership: Transforming Your Life from the Core, plus the companion workbook, are yours at no cost: https://drtraci.erbusinessconsulting.com/mission-check-in-call

Connect with Doug

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/douglaslindsayphd/
• Author page: https://www.military.com/author/douglas-lindsay
• Website: https://www.nextmissionleadership.com/

Connect with me

• Leadership Call: https://www.erbusinessconsulting.com/coaching/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-traci-55410868/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrTraciER/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drtraci_battletested/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gotyoursixpodcast/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@erbusinessconsulting
• Website: https://www.erbusinessconsulting.com/
• Email: [email protected]

#LeadingThroughChange #IdentityAndChange #LeadershipPodcast #ChangeManagement #ExecutiveLeadership #ResilientLeadership #BattleTestedLeadership #ComposedOperator #LeadershipDevelopment #CareerTransition #NextMissionLeadership #LeadershipResearch #ChangeReadiness #SelfLeadership #PersonalGrowth #LeadershipMindset #TransitionCoaching #GotYourSiX

Leadership traits are the automatic behaviors you default to when there is no time to decide, not the impressive qualities listed on a job posting.

If you have ever watched a confident, articulate leader run a team where nobody knows what is going on, you have already seen the gap between an impression and a trait. Job postings ask for charisma, commanding presence, and strong communication because those things are visible from across a room in the first ninety seconds. None of that tells you what a person does the morning the numbers come back wrong or the moment their best person resigns.

Dr. Traci Eisenberg-Rayburn, a retired U.S. Army officer and founder of E&R Business Consulting, walks through the traits everyone lists, integrity, vision, decisiveness, communication, and accountability, then shows why the definition most leaders carry for each one is only the easy half. She introduces uphill accountability, the harder half most leaders never practice, and two traits rarely discussed anywhere else: containment, the ability to absorb pressure without passing it down to your team, and the willingness to be disliked.

Using her Battle-Tested Leadership methodology, she gives you one simple exercise to build a single trait through deliberate repetition this week. Pick the trait you skipped past while listening, and go find the situation that requires it.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

• Learn the actual definition of a leadership trait, and why it is completely different from a leadership skill you can rehearse and perform on command.
• Discover why integrity in leadership is structural, and why your team is not testing your honesty, they are testing what you do when honesty gets expensive.
• Find out why vision is not prediction or enthusiasm, and how to hold a clear direction while the plan, the market, and your team keep shifting under it.
• Understand why decisiveness has nothing to do with speed, and why owning the outcome of a choice matters more than how fast you made it.
• Hear why accountability has to run uphill toward your own mistakes, not just downhill toward your team, or your people will stop bringing you problems early.
• Learn what containment and restraint actually require, and why absorbing pressure without dumping it on your team is a trait, not a personality type.
• Get the one exercise that builds a leadership trait through repetition under pressure, instead of reading about ten traits you will never practice.

We talk about:

00:00 What job postings get wrong about leadership

03:27 Meet Dr. Traci and Battle-Tested Leadership

04:16 What is a leadership trait, really

07:19 Why integrity in leadership is structural

09:32 What vision actually requires under pressure

12:15 Is decisiveness about speed or something else

15:25 Why articulate leaders still fail at communication

17:39 Accountability running uphill instead of downhill

21:13 What containment means under pressure

24:37 Why restraint stops you from becoming the bottleneck

26:15 The willingness to be disliked as a leadership trait

33:00 How to build one leadership trait this week

Resources:

• Dr. Traci’s Battle-Tested Leadership Action Plan: https://drtraci.erbusinessconsulting.com/battle-tested-leadership-action-plan

Connect with me

• Leadership Call: https://www.erbusinessconsulting.com/coaching/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-traci-55410868/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrTraciER/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drtraci_battletested/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gotyoursixpodcast/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@erbusinessconsulting
• Website: https://www.erbusinessconsulting.com/
• Email: [email protected]

#LeadershipTraits #BattleTestedLeadership #LeadershipDevelopment #ExecutiveLeadership #MilitaryLeadership #AccountabilityInLeadership #DecisiveLeadership #LeadershipUnderPressure #IntegrityInLeadership #VisionaryLeadership #PsychologicalSafety #ConsistencyInLeadership #RestraintInLeadership #ContainmentLeadership #WillingnessToBeDisliked #TraitsOfALeader #BusinessLeadership #TeamAccountability #LeadershipPodcast #GotYourSixPodcast

Leadership lessons from Gettysburg reveal something most leaders never get told: rank never made a single person a leader on that battlefield.

In this episode of Got Your SiX, Dr. Traci Eisenberg-Rayburn walks the actual grounds of Gettysburg with her husband Michael to unpack battle tested leadership, decision making under pressure, and what happens when you're leading through your own smoke, the moments at work when you can't see clearly and no one can hear you. If you've ever wondered whether your title is doing the leading for you instead of you, this episode answers that question on the same ground where it got decided in 1863.

You'll hear what Colonel Strong Vincent, General Meade, and a staff engineer with no troops of his own actually did when the chain of command broke down, and why Lincoln's 270 words outlasted Edward Everett's two-hour speech at the Gettysburg cemetery dedication.

Dr. Traci also opens up about her book, Inside Out Leadership: Transforming Your Life from the Core, and its companion workbook, both free to anyone who books a collaborative call and shares one thing that landed from this episode.

Walk this battlefield with her, then ask yourself what your people would actually follow if you couldn't shout over the noise.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

• Leadership lessons from Gettysburg start here: a staff engineer with no troops of his own saw the Union's undefended flank, commandeered a hill on his own authority, and held it.
• How Colonel Strong Vincent intercepted an order meant for someone else, told his bugler he would take responsibility himself, and moved his brigade to that hill without waiting for permission.
• What General Meade faced after being woken at 3am and told he now commanded 90,000 men, just three days before the battle that would decide the war began.
• Why the drummer boys and flag carriers on the battlefield mattered as much as any general, and how their signals worked like the radios you rely on today.
• What gunpowder smoke actually did to soldiers in 1863, and why they ended up firing at movement in a cloud instead of an enemy they could actually see.
• Why Lincoln's two-minute Gettysburg Address is remembered and Edward Everett's two-hour speech from the same platform is not, and what that says about leadership communication.
• The story of Jennie Wade, the only civilian killed during the Gettysburg battle, and what her death in her own kitchen says about selfless service.

We talk about:

00:00 What leading in the smoke really means for you

00:42 Why powder smoke made officers lose sight of their own men

02:00 Welcome to Got Your SiX and the Battle-Tested Leadership Methodology

04:13 Recording live on the Gettysburg battlefield with Michael

06:43 Why drummer boys as young as eight carried the beat of battle

10:27 Standing on Cemetery Hill and why the high ground mattered

12:55 The moment that marked the surrender of Lee's army

14:05 How musket and cannon smoke turned soldiers into shapes in a cloud

16:03 Why rank never made the leaders who mattered at Gettysburg

20:16 The one civilian who died during the Gettysburg battle

24:39 Visiting the Jennie Wade House and her story of service

29:01 Why leadership was never about rank, then or in your job now

Resources:

• Dr. Traci’s Battle-Tested Leadership Action Plan: https://drtraci.erbusinessconsulting.com/battle-tested-leadership-action-plan

Connect with me

• Leadership Call: https://www.erbusinessconsulting.com/coaching/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-traci-55410868/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrTraciER/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drtraci_battletested/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gotyoursixpodcast/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@erbusinessconsulting
• Website: https://www.erbusinessconsulting.com/
• Email: [email protected]

#LeadershipPodcast #BattleTestedLeadership #GotYourSix #GettysburgLeadership #MilitaryLeadership #LeadershipLessons #LeadershipDevelopment #LeadershipWithoutRank #LeadershipUnderPressure #VeteranLeadership #BusinessLeadership #ExecutiveCoaching #LeadershipCoach #DecisionMakingUnderPressure #ChaosToClarity #InsideOutLeadership #CivilWarHistory #ServantLeadership #WomenInLeadership #GotYourSixPodcast

Servant leadership means showing up for your community long before anyone hands you a title, and Joy Hutter, executive director of the Greater Crofton Chamber of Commerce, is proof of it.

On this episode of Got Your SiX, Dr. Traci Eisenberg-Rayburn sits down with Joy to unpack what years of unpaid, unnoticed community work actually build: the credibility, trust, and relationships that get you asked to lead before you ever ask for the job. If you have ever wondered whether volunteering counts as a leadership strategy, this conversation answers that directly.

Dr. Traci Eisenberg-Rayburn, retired U.S. Army officer, founder of E&R Business Consulting, and creator of the Battle-Tested Leadership Methodology, walks through Joy's path from joining her local chamber in 2008 to running it. You'll hear how 19 years connecting Chick-fil-A restaurants to their community through the Passport to Serve initiative shaped Joy's approach, and how she grew the Crofton chamber to 200-plus members and 140-plus vendors at the Festival on the Green.

Joy shares her practical answer for anyone who wants to get more involved, what to do if your town has no chamber at all, and why she believes real leaders have to be willing to clean the toilet. Stop waiting for permission and start building the kind of trust that gets you asked to lead.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

• Why credibility gets earned in the unpaid hours nobody is tracking, and how that history is exactly what gets you asked to lead when a community needs someone.
• How Joy Hutter turned volunteering into a strategy, joining her local chamber in 2008 and building the relationships that eventually led to her executive director role.
• What "date your chamber" means in practice, and how a chamber of commerce can become your fastest path into community leadership if you're new to a town.
• Why Joy treats AI as an extra team member so a two-person chamber staff can still put one-on-one relationships first with every new member.
• The exact sponsor conversation that forced Joy to fix a stale event lineup, growing it into 140-plus vendors at the Festival on the Green.
• Why leadership isn't about the label you're given but the trust you build day after day, one relationship and one act of service at a time.
• Joy's test for whether a leader has actually earned the right to be followed: are you willing to clean the toilet yourself.

We talk about:

00:00 Why titles are given but leadership is earned

02:16 Meet Joy Hutter, executive director of the Greater Crofton Chamber

05:05 How volunteering became Joy's declared hobby

06:20 19 years connecting Chick-fil-A to the community

09:00 Why you should date your chamber before you commit

15:18 What do you do when a sponsor calls you out on your event

20:27 How the executive director title finally shifted Joy's role

22:00 Using AI to protect one-on-one relationships

26:08 Chamber of commerce or BNI, which one is right for you

28:52 One practical step to build community roots this week

32:24 Joy's one piece of advice, don't be afraid to clean the toilet

Resources:

• Dr. Traci’s Battle-Tested Leadership Action Plan: https://drtraci.erbusinessconsulting.com/battle-tested-leadership-action-plan

Connect with Joy

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joy-hutter-a4139a18/
• Website: https://www.croftonchamber.com/

Connect with me

• Leadership Call: https://www.erbusinessconsulting.com/coaching/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-traci-55410868/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrTraciER/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drtraci_battletested/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gotyoursixpodcast/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@erbusinessconsulting
• Website: https://www.erbusinessconsulting.com/
• Email: [email protected]

#ServantLeadership #CommunityLeadership #BattleTestedLeadership #ChamberOfCommerce #VolunteerLeadership #LeadWithTrust #SmallBusinessCommunity #LeadershipDevelopment #WomenInLeadership #EarnedNotGiven #CommunityInvolvement #NonprofitLeadership #NetworkingStrategy #TrustBasedLeadership #GotYourSix #LeadershipPodcast

You are always the one holding everything together. But when the weight becomes too heavy, who is holding you?

In this solo episode of Got Your SiX, Dr. Traci asks leaders, business owners, high performers, and habitual problem-solvers a question they may not know how to answer: Who has your six?

In military terminology, your “six” is the position directly behind you, the one place you physically cannot see or protect by yourself. Yet many leaders leave that structure behind and build lives in which everyone depends on them, while they depend on no one.

Drawing from a deeply personal season in her military career, Dr. Traci reveals what happened when she became the person who could always handle one more responsibility. While supporting her colleagues, caring for her hospitalized husband, travelling hours to be present for her children, and continuing to lead, she created a reputation for being fine even when she was quietly reaching her breaking point.

This episode explores why high-performing leaders struggle to ask for help, how self-reliance can become a dangerous identity, and why building a support system for leaders is an operational necessity, not a sign of weakness. Dr. Traci also explains why relying on your team or family to absorb your unfiltered stress can shift the emotional burden onto the very people you are trying to protect.

You will walk away with four practical steps for finding peer-level support, making your first honest ask, and creating a structure that allows someone else to watch the place you cannot see. Because asking for help is not where leadership ends. It is one of the most important leadership skills you can model.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

• What “I’ve got your six” really means and why no one can cover their own six.
• How being known as the reliable one can quietly become an exhausting identity.
• Why people may not offer support when you have taught them to believe you are always fine.
• How leaders become a single point of failure in their businesses, teams, and families.
• Why an unsupported leader can eventually become an unpredictable leader.
• The difference between authentic vulnerability and transferring your emotional load.
• Why your team and family may not be equipped to provide the support you need.
• How asking for help demonstrates leadership rather than diminishing it.
• Why finding peer-level support may require changing the room you are in.
• Four practical steps for building a genuine support system before burnout takes over.

We talk about:

00:00 Intro

00:42 Who has your back when everything falls apart?

02:44 What “I’ve got your six” actually means

04:26 How leaders become known as the one who always handles it

05:43 When “I’ll figure it out” becomes an identity

06:00 The military assignment that left Dr. Traci without support

08:00 Reaching the breaking point and finally asking for help

10:00 Why nobody checks on the person who always appears fine

10:59 The danger of becoming a single point of failure

12:57 How an uncovered leader becomes an unpredictable leader

14:13 Why your team and family cannot always be your six

18:02 Asking for support is not a sign of structural damage

20:55 Four steps for building a support system for leaders

Resources:

• Dr. Traci’s Battle-Tested Leadership Action Plan: https://drtraci.erbusinessconsulting.com/battle-tested-leadership-action-plan

Connect with me

• Leadership Call: https://www.erbusinessconsulting.com/coaching/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-traci-55410868/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrTraciER/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drtraci_battletested/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gotyoursixpodcast/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@erbusinessconsulting
• Website: https://www.erbusinessconsulting.com/
• Email: [email protected]

#LeadershipSupport #SupportSystemForLeaders #LeadershipDevelopment #LeadershipBurnout #LeadershipResilience #ExecutiveLeadership #AskingForHelp #PeerSupport #StrongLeaders #SelfLeadership #LeadershipWellness #BusinessLeadership #LeadershipCoaching #WomenInLeadership #VeteranLeadership #MilitaryLeadership #BattleTestedLeadership #GotYourSiX

Would people still follow you if your title disappeared tomorrow?

In this episode of Got Your SiX, Detria challenges one of the most persistent myths about leadership: that authority creates influence. Titles may give leaders power on paper, but trust, loyalty, and lasting impact are earned through service.

Drawing on more than two decades of leadership across the nonprofit, healthcare, housing, corporate, and financial sectors, Detria explains why servant leadership is not soft, passive, or incompatible with accountability. It is an intentional leadership practice that puts people first while still expecting them to perform, grow, and contribute to the mission.

You will also hear why serving yourself is not selfish, how leaders can hold people accountable without abandoning compassion, and the simple act you can take today that may give someone the strength to keep going.

Discover why the strongest leaders do not lead from above. They serve from within.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

• Why servant leadership creates more influence than status, rank, or authority ever could.
• How servant leadership strengthens trust, loyalty, relationships, and organizational performance.
• Why serving others does not mean lowering expectations, avoiding difficult conversations, or allowing yourself to be overlooked.
• How accountability becomes easier to accept when people trust that their leader has their best interests in mind.
• How leaders can use their influence in service to others, even without a large platform or public recognition.
• Why legacy is built through the way you show up every day, not only through achievements that can be measured.

We talk about:

00:00 Would people follow you without your title?

02:21 Meet Detria and the mission behind Serving Is a Superpower

06:04 Why leadership is a service, not a status

07:30 The example that first shaped Detria’s leadership

09:51 Authority, trust, and the actions people are watching

12:45 Why service creates more influence than power

14:49 Servant leadership does not mean being soft

17:35 Holding people accountable while putting them first

18:35 The story behind Serving Is a Superpower

22:05 Grief, purpose, and the decision to finish the book

25:12 Building a legacy that cannot always be quantified

28:43 Why serving yourself is vital, not selfish

33:41 Small acts of service that can change someone’s day

Resources:

• Learn more about Detria and Serving Is a Superpower: www.servingisasuperpower.com
• Serving Is a Superpower by Detria Austin Everson is available through Amazon, Kindle, and major booksellers.
• Dr. Traci’s Battle-Tested Leadership Action Plan: https://drtraci.erbusinessconsulting.com/battle-tested-leadership-action-plan

Connect with Detria

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/detriaaustineverson/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/detria.everson/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/detriaaustineverson/
• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@detriaaustineverson
• Website: www.servingisasuperpower.com

Connect with me

• Leadership Call: https://www.erbusinessconsulting.com/coaching/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-traci-55410868/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrTraciER/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drtraci_battletested/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gotyoursixpodcast/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@erbusinessconsulting
• Website: https://www.erbusinessconsulting.com/
• Email: [email protected]

#ServantLeadership #ServiceBasedLeadership #LeadershipDevelopment #LeadershipInfluence #LeadershipAccountability #LeadershipTrust #PeopleFirstLeadership #LeadByExample #EmployeeEngagement #LeadershipLegacy #PurposeDrivenLeadership #SelfLeadership #WomenInLeadership #VeteranLeadership #BattleTestedLeadership #ServingIsASuperpower #GotYourSiX