How Leaders Decide and Win:
Get Your Advantage

4 min readJun 28, 2022

“What you don’t know can kick you in the teeth,” I said, coaching my client, Susan.

She was stepping up into a new chapter of life. Instead of remaining a graphic artist, she sought my coaching. I helped her rise to the level of director for a department. As she made progress, she said, “This is so helpful. It’s like you’re the Communication Sage.”

I smiled. For years, I had been known as the Spoken Word Strategist. More importantly, another client was stepping into her power. How? By using communication secrets for excellent leadership.

How do you want to upgrade your leadership skills? What do you want to get done?

When I speak on the Darkest Secrets of Scaling, I share these Essential Truths. When business leaders want to scale up their business, they need to focus on core ideas and core disciplines.

Essential Truths

· You can lose all trust in one moment.
· It is easy to make people afraid to tell you the truth.
· “If you don’t have a reserve now, how can you handle more?”

(I remember this with “T.T.R.” — Trust, Truth, Reserve.)

1) You can lose all trust in one moment.

Here is an example of trust. At Pixar, there is an open environment where everyone can suggest a new idea. It doesn’t matter what your position is. Pixar’s leadership says, “The script is just the starting point.”

My friend Jon shared the experience that his friend Steve had. Steve confirmed the Pixar philosophy.

But then Steve went to another animation company that gave lip service to the idea of “we want to hear everybody.”

Steve offered a great idea, and the whole room laughed.

The so-called leader said, “What is your name? What do you do?”

“I’m a storyboard artist.”

“Well, then stick with that,” the so-called leader said.

This was an example of not living the philosophy you give lip service to.

That’s losing trust in one moment.

Do people trust you? Do they see you as calm and able to make great decisions?

2) It is easy to make people afraid to tell you the truth.

It’s reported that Steve Jobs said on various occasions, “That’s the stupidest idea I ever heard.”

How many ideas did Steve Jobs never hear?

Are you going to stick your neck out for someone who kicks you in the teeth?

My question is: How can you lead if you don’t know what’s really going on?

Make sure you have patterns in place in which people can tell you the truth about various situations.

Avoid “beating up” somebody in front of other people.

Everybody watches.

Do you make sure that you build your reserves? Do you have disciplines that keep you strong and cheerful?

3) “If you don’t have a reserve now, how can you handle more?”

How can you expand your business and scale up, if you’re already upside down?

Do you have a reserve of patience so you can handle all the disruptions of daily business life?

Do you have a reserve of time so you can think clearly?

Here are other reserves that empower you as a leader:

· Energy
· Health
· Sleep
· Recreation

Holding Reserves involves disciplines that keep you strong and cheerful.

Every day, people watch you. Can I trust this leader to hold his or her calm? Can I trust this leader to make great decisions?*

In summary, let’s remember these words: Trust, Truth, Reserve.

Essential Truths

· You can lose all trust in one moment.
· It is easy to make people afraid to tell you the truth.
· “If you don’t have a reserve now, how can you handle more?”

How will you implement patterns and actions to strengthen yourself and your leadership?

Many great moments on your path.

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As a bonus, I’m sharing this set of questions that I wrote and use to help my clients make great decisions:

* 6 Golden Questions of Great Decision Making

Will I learn, grow, and form alliances?
Am I listening to fear or intuition?
What do I say are meaningful measurements?
What do I call “peanuts” or “coconuts”? [Small considerations versus big trouble. A coconut can break your nose.]
Can I make money all the while?
Am I blinded because I want this too much? [Wanting doesn’t make it true.]