Author: Jim Lukaszewski

11 Self-Inflicted Leadership Crisis Response Failure Behaviors (CRFBs)*

The Background

The Background

Early in my crisis response career, I had a revelation that all crises are patterns of human behavior. Furthermore, crisis response patterns themselves are pretty uniform across the board, geography, culture, and organization’s attitude.

In the next few pages, I discuss the problem of self-inflicted leadership and the behaviors that cause crisis response failure behaviors (CRFBs). These are the ingredients of the patterns of mistakes, errors, and intentional misbehaviors at play in crises.

The more senior you are, the more you are going to be skeptical and frustrated. The major takeaway from the hundreds of situations I’ve been through with clients is that these bad behaviors do happen. They are obstructive to response success. All are preventable. But first, we need to recognize the symptoms before we can understand the solutions required.

These leadership problems are explained in very plain straightforward language. I think you will find this approach to be refreshing in the absence of excuse-making, justification, and blame shifting.

Perhaps the most important issue in readiness is preparing management, leaders, and responders. Most critical of all is the emotional readiness to respond. It turns out that leadership emotional readiness is far more important in responding to urgent situations than logistical or tactical readiness.

11 Crisis Response Failure Behaviors (CRFBs)
In the Order They Occur

  1. Surprise
  2. Disbelief
  3. Silence
  4. Stalling
  5. Denial
  6. Victim Confusion
  7. Testosterosis
  8. Arrogance
  9. Search for the guilty
  10. Fear of the media
  11. Whining
  1. Surprise: Stems from the U.S. management culture that stresses the invincibility of managers and leaders. Today’s prevailing attitude is that smart managers are unlikely to suffer a crisis. The unintended consequence of this delusion is that much necessary readiness activity never takes place.

    Lesson 1: The smarter they are, the harder and faster they fall.

  2. Disbelief: Arises immediately in a crisis because of the ingrained belief that, “It must be a mistake. Crisis doesn’t happen here, to me.” So, the word goes forth to demonstrate that, “it’s a crisis” is false. Even if something adverse is clearly occurring, the lies begin. The instruction from management is interpreted to mean: “find out that it’s not a crisis,” plus, “don’t do or say anything until you talk to us.” The response is held up, and the cover-up expands.

    Lesson 2: In crises, badly handled things get worse from the start and stay worse.

  3. Silence: The most toxic strategy possible. Silence makes you look like a perpetrator, sound like a liar, and quickly become untrustable, whether you or someone else is at fault. How can leaders be seen as credible, reasonable, rational, or honorable while avoiding action and whining about the unfairness of it all while real victims are piling up?

    Lesson 3: Silence is quickly toxic to reputation and is the most frequent CEO career-killer.

  4. Stalling: The process of waiting to talk and holding up decision-making until the right information arrives. This step requires enforcing a period of toxic silence on everyone at the top and to various depths of management. Doing nothing, even for what appears to be good reasons, is unexplainable. The clock starts ticking on top management’s departure.

    Lesson 4: Speed of action and decision beats smart every time. When in doubt, do something.

  5. Denial: Refusal to accept the fact that something bad has really happened and that there may be victims or other direct negative effects that require prompt public acknowledgment, disclosure, and response.

    Lesson 5: Denial once underway has a momentum all its own.

  6. Victim Confusion: Begins occurring almost immediately. Senior management introduces minimizing whatever the “non-crisis” impact will be on the organization. That’s when a problem that starts in the field is appropriated into the C-suite. The leadership of an afflicted organization is distracted, even blindsided by the continued attention given to those who are victims: people, animals living systems, sometimes all three.

    Lesson 6: Management confusion, irritation, and humiliation boils, “Hey, we are victims too!”

    Lesson 7: Despite senior executives whining and warning, the visibility and concern will still focus on real victims rather than the organization’s good behavior over the years.

    Lesson 8: When there are victims, most goodwill bank accounts dry up.

    Lesson 9: The creation of victims quickly overwhelms most or all of your prior good deeds.

  7. Testosterosis: Often management’s first public response is to look for ways to hit back, rather than to deal with the problem. Refuse to give in, refuse to respect those who may have a difference of opinion or a legitimate issue. That’s because management’s first crisis response is usually emotional or emotionally driven. Crisis management always puts management in crisis. Testosterosis characterizes this puzzling and confusing first set of outbursts. Management testosterosis, spontaneous hitting back or striking preemptively, is the single most powerful recruiting tool trial lawyers need to secure clients, created freely by those now considered to be the perpetrator of the problem.

    Lesson 10: Like the crisis itself, things are about to get worse because crises always get worse before they get better. All crises ripen badly.

  8. Arrogance: Reluctance to apologize, express concern or empathy, or take appropriate responsibility because, “If we do that, we’ll be liable,” or, “We’ll look like sissies,” or, “We’ll set a precedent,” or, “There will be copycats.” Arrogance is also responsible for lack of readiness, which is an epidemic among arrogant inherently overly-optimistic, overly-confident management and leadership overwhelmed by crisis.

    Lesson 11: Every tick of the clock during this period of silence, confusion, stalling, and testosterosis represents a substantial nick in the organization’s reputation as well as the survivability of top management.

  9. Search for the guilty: Shift blame anywhere you can while digging into the organization, looking for traitors, turncoats, troublemakers, those who push back, and the unconvinceables.

    Lesson 12: The original order is changed to read, “Find out who screwed up.”

  10. Fear of the media: As it becomes more clear that the problem is at least partly real, the media begin asking, “What did you know, and when did you know it,” “What have you done, and when did you do it,” and other humiliating, embarrassing, and damaging questions for which have to be avoided because you have stalled so long.
  11. Whining: Head down, finger in your navel, shuffling around, whining, and complaining about how bad your luck is; about being a victim of the media, zealous do-gooders, wacko-activists, or that people don’t know anything; about how people you don’t respect have power; and, that you “don’t get credit” for whatever good you’ve already contributed.

The Biggest Lesson of All: A Surprise Ending

Leadership emotional readiness is far more important than logistical or tactical readiness.**

* Read the full article here.

**  For more on emotional readiness, read Helio Fred Garcia’s book, The Agony of Decision: Mental Readiness and Leadership in a Crisis © 2027, Logos Institute Best Practice Series, published by Logos Institute for Crisis Management and Executive Leadership.

©2026, James E. Lukaszewski. Contact the copyright holder at jel@e911.com for information and reproduction permissions. Editing or excerpting forbidden.

How She Learned She Was a Trusted Strategic Advisor and Influencer

Late on a Friday afternoon, I received a call from the president of a huge aluminum processing company. He was in the middle of labor talks, and things were going badly. In addition, he had just learned that the Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC) had publicly announced that his plant was a national target for aluminum oxide emissions. (Aluminum oxide, at that time, was on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s list of toxic substances. It has since been delisted.)

On top of this, the union and the NRDC had apparently formed a team to bring pressure on the company from different directions. The CEO’s general counsel found me through a colleague suffering a similar fate.

The CEO wanted me to come in Sunday night so I could spend some time with the senior management team before all hell broke loose. He mentioned that his director of corporate communications (whom I will call Susan) would meet me at the airport.

As I came off the plane, a woman called out a version of my name. I realized it was Susan and introduced myself. She told me to follow her to the baggage claim area. I sensed a little tension. I was taking up her personal family time, coming in on Sunday evening, somewhat late. My bags came, and as we walked to her car, I asked a couple of perfunctory questions about the weather and how things were going. She remained really quiet. As we put the luggage in the trunk, she said, “The boss only told me yesterday you were coming in.” I mentioned that the boss and I had talked a couple of times during the week, and he had only invited me late Friday afternoon.

As she started the engine, Susan mentioned a cab or car service would get me back to the airport when I was ready to leave. As we got on the highway, I said, “Let me tell you what I envision happening in the next day or two, so we can make some plans.” She grunted, and I began to outline what I saw the various meetings and activities to be, how we would start very early and rumble on through the day.

After I had been talking for a few minutes, she looked at me and exploded. “I’ve been here nine years. I’ve learned a lot, know a lot, help these people every day, and still they call in someone like you,” she said. “I’ve worked with consultants most of my career. You all make little messes that I have to clean up or live with after you are gone, and even with all the access people like you get to the CEO and other important people, they still wind up coming to me and taking my advice. But most of you do more damage than you realize and much more long-term harm to me and my communications program and what we’re trying to accomplish here with very limited resources.” She also indicated she felt a little betrayed by her boss since he only mentioned inviting me when he told her to pick me up at the airport.

By the time she finished airing her complaints, we were at the hotel. My final comment to her was that there were going to be a number of meetings, which I would do my best to get her into. Whatever transpired in those meetings, I would share with her fully, and I’d make sure that she was as much in the loop as she could be. She nodded and left.

The next day, she and I chatted a couple times about things we were learning, and I briefed her on those meetings I had attended without her.

The last day of my visit, we crossed paths and Susan rather cheerily said, “I’m going to be taking you to the airport this afternoon myself.” This was probably a good sign. I wondered what had changed.

As we packed up and started for the airport, I asked her why she decided to drive me there. She said, “I’ve been watching you very carefully for these two days, trying to figure out why they call people like you when I’m here. I’ve paid my dues, and it seems to me that we give almost identical advice.”

“What did you learn?” I asked. She responded by saying that she had observed some things that made her think a lot more carefully about how she does her own work.

She talked about how I handled highly charged topics in large groups. Her style, when she wanted to make a point, was to push as hard as she possibly could. “It doesn’t seem to go so well,” she said. “They like my ideas when the news is good, but they become hard of hearing when the news isn’t so good. But you have a way of telling stories or giving examples that tend to blunt people’s feelings or emotions, so they let you continue talking, and they listen. Many are writing while you are speaking. You have the habit that, when attacked by one individual, you turn your back and then, talking to someone else, you respond to the person who had attacked you or your idea, but to someone else. That was a very interesting technique.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because it worked.”

She said, “I need to think less about achieving the point I’m trying to make and see if I can find other ways to stay in the conversation that are meaningful to everyone in the room. I’d like them to write down what I say. . .”

“What else did you learn?”

She said, “You tend to use small numbers a lot when you talk—two, three, and four, mostly. I know this is intended to focus discussion, and it seems to get things moving. I thought that was a very helpful technique and something I could do if I thought about it.”

“Of course you can,” I said, “and of course you should. Using small numbers like that is very powerful, and does keep people better focused on what we are trying to accomplish. It is how I force them, sometimes almost against their will, to write things down. What else did you learn?”

“The biggest thing is the stories. You seem to have a story for everything. It sounds as though you’ve worked in every industry, worked on every kind of problem imaginable, and you have all these lessons to share through stories. This is my biggest problem. I’ve only really worked here. I don’t get out like you do to collect stories that might help me give more powerful advice.”

“Do you belong to any professional communicator associations, or organizations for HR people or administrators?” I asked. She said she did and talked about a couple of them. I suggested that she should take occasional days off to visit her colleagues and take a look at what was happening in those businesses, for the express purpose of developing or pulling together stories she can use in a variety of settings in her own work.

“Anything else you noticed that seemed important to you?” I asked.

“You do seem to be much more comfortable in the presence of our senior people than I often am. But I still think the advice I give is at least as good as yours, and ultimately that will be what people rely on.”

I asked, “Do you think it’s important that we give the same advice?” She said she thought so because too many distractions and different ideas would interfere with solving problems.

My response was that if I am successful, I can make, at most, three things happen that are significant in terms of moving the process forward and finding solutions or answers. In most cases, those solutions, answers, or insights rely on existing internal processes and people for execution, as well as those executives, usually the boss, who take on the advice as their own.

I asked Susan if she knew or could guess why the boss had called in someone like me, as well as a variety of other outside voices. “Yes,” she said, “He’s afraid, and his job may well be on the line if things really go badly here. He wants to be sure that he covers all his bases and is making the best decisions possible. And he wants a broader range of options to choose from. As much as I hate it, I know he needs to go beyond the advice and advisors he has every day to feel confident.”

“This may be the biggest lesson from your visit,” she said. “Our job is to provide a suitable menu of alternatives from which the CEO will select the ingredients for solutions and actions.”

“It’s always about the boss,” I said. “He’s facing at least one career-defining moment. And one is all it takes. He’s getting all of his advisors aligned, organized, and ready to work before his struggle begins. The goal is to have a variety of ideas to choose from rather than one locked-up approach that he’s stuck with.”

As we neared the airport, I told her that one of the things I admired about her boss was his ability to actually accept, absorb, and apparently apply the advice he was getting. This was a major weakness in many executives with whom I have worked, especially when there is serious trouble.

I also told Susan that at every opportunity, the boss and other senior executives had praised her and said they could rely on her thinking and advice. Clearly, she already was a trusted strategic advisor/influencer.

The lessons Susan learned are powerful for every advisor who wants to be trusted and wants to play at a strategic level. Her story illustrates the transition even experienced pros need to make to become more effective advisors to senior leaders. This kind of work really requires putting yourself in the other person’s shoes, looking at the world from his or her perspective, and letting that approach dominate how you think, how you speak, how you coach, and how you contribute. It also means recognizing that the boss is rarely looking for advisor consensus or that single big idea, but rather good solid insight, options, and even conflicting views for his or her own decision making. Executives execute based on the choices at hand, usually when the clock is close to running out.

Visit Amazon.com to buy the book today!

©2026, James E. Lukaszewski. Contact the copyright holder at jel@e911.com for information and reproduction permissions. Editing or excerpting is forbidden.

Over the years, I’ve developed, taught, coached and advocated a very powerful and helpful communication philosophy. At the same time, this approach defines my ethical approach to life, work and trouble. I call these “intentions” because this is how I seek to operate my life every day, and to teach others to do the same. These behaviors build trust and reduce fear.

  1. Candor – Truth with an attitude, delivered now (the foundation blocks of trust).
    • Disclose, announce early.
    • Explain reasoning and reasons.
    • Discuss options, alternatives considered.
    • Provide unsolicited helpful information.
  2. Openness, accessibility – Be available for the disasters as well as the ribbon cuttings.
    • Be available.
    • Be willing to respond.
  3. Truthfulness – Truth is 15% facts and data, 85% emotion and point-of-reference.
    • Point of reference matters more than facts.
    • Factual overload victimizes people and makes them feel stupid, therefore angrier.
    • Unconditional honesty, from the start.
    • Get good at handling emotional situations, subjects and people.
  4. Empathy – Action always speaks louder than words.
    • Action illustrates concern, sensitivity, and compassion.
    • Act as though it was happening to you or someone you care about.
    • It is literally impossible to put yourself in someone else’s shoes in any meaningful way, from the victim’s perspective.
  5. Responsiveness – Answering questions relentlessly in every situation validates your integrity.
    • Every concern or question, regardless of the source, is legitimate and must be addressed.
    • Answer every question; avoid judging the questioner.
    • Avoid taking any question personally.
    • Build followers and be nice, even in the face of anger or aggressive negativity. Anger and arrogance create plaintiffs.
  6. Transparency – No secrets (because important things and stupid stuff always come out).
    • Our behavior, our attitude, our plans, even our strategic discussions are unchallengeable, positive, and explainable.
    • Our families would be comfortable reading about our actions, decisions, and discussions on the front page of tomorrow’s newspaper.
  7. Engagement – Face-to-face is the communications approach desired by just about everyone and every victim.
    • Take aggressive positive interaction with those who challenge us.
    • Our base and those who give us permission to operate expect us to deal with unconvinceables and victims.
    • Prompt direct interactive response, even negotiation, empowers the initiator.
  8. Destiny Management – It’s your destiny, which only you can manage in your own best interest.
    • Manage your own destiny, or you’ll find someone waiting on the sidelines to do it for you.
    • Relentlessly correct and clarify the record.
    • Prompt, positive, constructive elaboration of the facts preempts critics and empowers employees, supporters and those who give us permission to operate.
  9. Apology – The atomic energy of empathy. Apologies stop just about everything, including litigation.
    • Acknowledge personal responsibility for having injured, insulted, failed, or wronged another.
    • Explain what happened and the known reasons for the circumstance.
    • Talk about what you and your organization have learned that will help prevent it from ever happening again.
    • Humbly ask for forgiveness in exchange for more appropriate future behavior and to make amends.
    • Make restitution.

You can call this anything you like: communications policy, guidelines or manifesto.
I like the word intentions because it signifies that we are fully engaged in communicating
in the most effective, honest, empathetic and open manner possible, all the time.

By publicly professing these intentions you will set a standard to which you can be held accountable.
This behavior can lead to an extraordinarily interesting, useful and trustworthy life and besides,
you sleep better at night.

©2026, James E. Lukaszewski, “Influencing Leaders, The Seven Disciplines of the Trusted Strategic Advisor,” Wiley; pages 62-65. Contact the copyright holder at jel@e911.com for information and reproduction permissions. Editing or excerpting forbidden.

It is extraordinary how the process of establishing trust is similar in situations and relationships between individuals and families; between individuals and organizations; between organizations themselves; between organizations and society; even between cultures. Establishing trust is the product of sensible, simple, constructive, and practical steps. It’s also been my experience that establishing and maintaining trust is a process, carried out with directness and simplicity. There are five elements in establishing and maintaining trust.

1. Provide Advance Information – a “Heads Up” – Whenever You Can

Advance information is the first and most important ingredient because its absence has one of the most toxic impacts on relationships. You trust another individual above all else because of their willingness to anticipate those situations that could be negative or threatening.

In the context of senior leaders, it’s making certain they have, from you, the information they need to achieve their objectives, or to defend or deflect actions or perceptions that could be detrimental to their success or progress. They expect to be warned of danger, damaging decisions or threats, potential disasters, and disloyalty.

2. Seek the Leader’s Input

Asking for input is the second most powerful ingredient of trust. Those being asked are also receiving a signal of their value to the requester. Taking action without asking or seeking input is considered to be arrogant and unempathetic. Early in my career, I was active in a wide variety of organizations engaged in security issues for companies. In one such organization, all members were Senior Vice Presidents of the Fortune 100 Companies. Several were clients of his.

One afternoon I was contacted by a senior security person to come down to the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami and conduct a briefing on some of the more important security issues of the day for an industry organization. I was happy to meet him; he was well known in the security community. I asked, “Well, about how long were you planning on my speaking?” He said, “About 20 minutes.”

It was a beautiful opportunity, but I had to make the comment, “That’s a pretty short amount of time to go all the way from New York to Miami Beach.” The caller responded, “Well Jim, what would be an ideal time for you to speak?” and I said, “I made a number of presentations to your group, and they averaged about three hours each.” There was a big pause. The gentleman said, “Well, I’m new to the group and the chair of the committee to put this program together. I don’t believe I can go back to the committee itself and say I have someone who wants to speak for three hours.” So I said, “I’ve been with your group for a number of years; let me give you the names of five different members that I’ve worked with over the years. Without prompting, ask them how long they would like me to be on the stage.” A couple days later I was contacted again. “I’ll be doggone.” the caller said, “Every one of them said three hours or more if he could get the time.” I got the gig.

These are wonderful people doing some of the scariest work you can do in your day job. The talk went very well, and when I returned to my office (this is a very old story) there were about 15 slips on my desk reflecting phone messages. I immediately became worried. What could I have possibly said?

Luckily, among the messages were two or three people that I knew in the organization, so I called them.

The first man worked for one of the top four auto manufacturers. He said, “Well Jim, I don’t know about the rest of the group, but I called you because I think you saved my career.” This is a true story. I cut to the chase immediately and said, “What did I say?” He said, “Well frankly, when you talked about going to the boss before you started planning for crisis situations and emergencies, and asking them what they were more afraid of or concerned about. I’ve never done that.”

He said, “I’ve been here a long time. I’m usually in the habit of preparing a proposal and then walking in and having a complete but short discussion. I tried your way yesterday.” I said, “So, what was the difference?” “The boss immediately relaxed and said, ‘This is the first time you’ve ever had this kind of a conversation with me and I’m delighted. There are three things that keep me awake at night . . .’”

He said, “I suggested I send him a proposal that focused on the three areas that he was most concerned about.”

Later that day, other men that I knew (in those days all top security people were male) each, without having spoken to each other, said the same thing. They had always planned on their own without talking ahead of time with their boss on the issues.

Every one of these 12 people had the same question. What if the boss says no? My answer was immediate: do something else.

But the questioners persisted. What if this is really crucial to the survival of the company and terribly important? I answered with a question: Whose name is on the door, and who is driving the bus? It’s their bus. If you want to ride up front, seek their advice first. Long story, lots of powerful lessons here.

3. Listen Carefully

Careful listening is driven by the conversation or information that is exchanged, the constructive and open nature and the questions that are asked for clarification, and a real sense that each individual or organization is engaged in the conversations that take place during the relationship. Trust depends on careful listening, in both directions.

SSOLLERR* is a listening technique to enhance personal communication. It can be very effective, depending on the situation, and the individuals involved. Gerald Egan recommended using an ‘acronym’ to help build all the components into communication with others. The SSOLLERR theory has seven basic components:

  1. Stop what you are doing and focus.
  2. Sit squarely and face people; the bodily orientation that you adopt conveys a message that you are involved.
  3. Open body shape; an open posture is generally seen as approachable. Crossed arms or legs might convey that you feel distant with the individual.
  4. Leave your phone turned upside down on the table or, better yet, off the table completely.
  5. Lean forward slightly; a slight inclination forward is taken as showing personal interest and commitment.
  6. Eye contact; regular but varied eye contact is conveyed as interest in the person.
  7. Relax; maintain a relaxed appearance and manner.
  8. Reflective questions; ask who, what, why, where, when, and how.

SSOLLERR can help to guide you when you are discussing sensitive information. Within the main content, active listening is essential. Active listening involves trying to understand the meaning of the words being used by the service user and the context from which they originate. Active listening is developing an interaction with the service user that helps to identify the real issues and to provide a meaningful dialogue in exchange.

4. Change Your Approach Based on What You Hear

When you change or modify your plans or expectations as a result of listening and input, it further demonstrates that you can be trusted. Active engagement, paying attention, and reflecting what is heard is demonstrated by changing previously announced actions, planned behaviors, and outcomes.

5. Stay Engaged

Trust maintenance is an ongoing, interactive process. Rather than waiting for others to contact you or maintain the relationship, you call, on your own behalf and in their own best interests, to keep the relationship moving, alive, and essential.

The wise advisor helps leaders recognize that their own ability to establish, maintain, and restore trust rests on these same five actions.

You’ll find more on this topic in my new book, Influencing Leaders: The Seven Disciplines of the Trusted Strategic Advisor.

* This version of the technique was adapted from Egan’s original 1975 SOLER model.

©2026, James E. Lukaszewski, “Influencing Leaders, The Seven Disciplines of the Trusted Strategic Advisor,” Wiley; pages 62-65. Contact the copyright holder at jel@e911.com for information and reproduction permissions. Editing or excerpting forbidden.

Gaining and Keeping the Confidence of Senior People

If you want to be listened to and have an impact, start where the boss believes they are. Focus, first and foremost, on establishing the relationship of trust and common direction with the boss. These are the relationship elements that matter. It is the mutual recognition of common direction that provides the platform for fixing various other shortcomings that may indeed be present.

Work Against the Patterns That Bother Bosses

In talking with chief executives and leaders, specifically about advice they get both internally and externally, a pattern of frustrations surfaces relatively quickly. These are the most frequently mentioned frustrations. You would be well advised to avoid them.

1. Unintelligible, therefore unusable, approaches.

If you want something done by an operating person, you need to describe it appropriately. Speak management’s language

2. More ideas and concepts than can possibly be achieved or even considered.

Remember the most important reasons CEOs lose their jobs relate to failure to perform. If your methodology is to suggest new ways of doing things, or simply new things to do, you would be well advised to emphasize what needs to get done smarter, in a more focused way, and that is doable. And what has yet to be completed rather than putting even one or two new ideas on the boss’s desk.

3. Time wasting and non-specific (purposeless) conversations.

Even if it is the boss who brings up vacations, the family, what seems like chit chat, the trusted advisor’s role is to keep these encounters focused on what truly matters when getting things done. Yes, it is true, over time, you will develop a relationship where a lot of personal information is known and seems appropriate to discuss, but our advice remains, keep these meetings and encounters as focused and professional as possible. Keep your actual role in focus at all times.

4. Information that is late, incomplete, and with some key facts and data or interpretations apparently being purposely withheld.

Senior executives already know that the information they get is filtered, detoxified, and often pretty harmless. One of your most important currencies is candor: this important, concise, prompt dis-closure of things you know that the boss should know. Information withheld or that is late for whatever reason reflects on the trust in your relationship. Even just a couple of incidents where the feeling persists on the part of the boss that you are intentionally failing to be forthcoming, and your invitations will decline.

5. Information that is already known or could be thought up independently.

Stick to what matters. If it is something you know they know, move on. Count on it; you are wasting their time. Avoid doing that or risk losing a good part of your relationship.

6. Giving only partial input, apparently on the assumption that the boss knows more than they do, or should know more than they do.

Use a structure for giving advice with options to prevent providing only partial information. To avoid leaving out key information, talk in terms of timelines or priorities. What should be done first, second, or third, or apply a calendar or a clock to the information you have to share. This way, things the boss already knows get put in a new, useful, more strategic context.

7. Reluctance to be candid.

This behavior is a relationship killer . . . Whether it is fear, lack of preparation, or simply timidity, lack of candor is the fastest way to become disemployed as a Trusted Strategic Advisor. If you want to be there, be ready, be actively engaged, and tell the truth promptly.

The problem with these behaviors and approaches is that they distract and irritate top executives and erect barriers to taking your advice or even taking you seriously.

Visit Amazon.com to buy the book today!

©2026, James E. Lukaszewski, “Influencing Leaders, The Seven Disciplines of the Trusted Strategic Advisor,” Wiley. Contact the copyright holder at jel@e911.com for information and reproduction permissions. Editing or excerpting forbidden.

We begin our discussion by identifying the eleven most important attributes of a successful Trusted Strategic Advisor and Influencer:

  1. Seek the truth first, find ethical, civil, and decent pathways promptly and urgently.
  2. Truth is generally best expressed in positive, declarative language and consists of fifteen percent facts and data, eighty-five percent emotion and emotional explanations.
  3. Use truth-hiding and truth-confusing techniques very carefully, if at all.
  4. Avoid known patterns of failure, e.g., silence, stalling, denial, victim-confusion, testosterosis, arrogance, searching for the guilty, fear of the media, whining.
  5. Ask better, tougher, more constructive questions than anyone else.
  6. Be fifteen minutes early or first.
  7. Avoid surprises, forecast trouble (have a readiness plan in hand).
  8. Think before you edit. Put your pencil down. Question all edits.
  9. Constantly challenge the standard assumptions and practices of our profession.
  10. Be productive – do the doable, know the knowable, get the getable, arrange the arrangeable.
  11. Say things others fear to say, voice them first.

Some of the Most Important Patterns Trusted Strategic Advisors and Influencers Need to Recognize

  1. Decision-Making Patterns
  • Recognize how leaders make decisions under pressure, including their preferences for information, risk tolerance, and typical responses to crises.
2. Organizational Behavior Patterns

  • Understand recurring dynamics such as resistance to change, groupthink, and the informal networks that drive real influence within the organization.
3. Communication Patterns

  • Identify how information flows, where bottlenecks occur, and which channels are most effective for reaching leaders and stakeholders.
4. Crisis and Conflict Patterns

  • Spot early warning signs of emerging crises or conflicts, and understand how these typically escalate or resolve within the organization.
5. Leadership Style Patterns

  • Discern the unique leadership styles of those you advise, including their motivators, blind spots, and preferred ways of receiving advice.
6. Cultural and Ethical Patterns

  • Be attuned to the organization’s culture, values, and ethical boundaries, as these shape what advice will be accepted and acted upon.
7. Patterns of Success and Failure

  • Analyze past initiatives to identify what has led to success or failure, using these insights to inform future recommendations.
8. Patterns That Flow From Scenarios

  • Scenario and pattern sensitivity is a state of mind and a discipline one chooses to acquire and use. The benefits are extraordinary. I have literally hundreds of scenario files that I’ve have been involved with or interested in throughout my career.

Visit Amazon.com to buy the book today!

©2026, James E. Lukaszewski, “Influencing Leaders, The Seven Disciplines of the Trusted Strategic Advisor,” Wiley. Contact the copyright holder at jel@e911.com for information and reproduction permissions. Editing or excerpting forbidden.

The very first tenent in the Trusted Strategic Advisor’s Manifesto is, first of all, to become a Trusted Strategic Advisor you must change your mindset and your entire philosophy of work. To have the influence you seek:

  • Realize that all problems are management and organizational problems before they are any other kind of problem (including communications). Start where managers and leaders are rather than where you are. Look at the world from management’s perspective first. Your job is to start where managers and leaders are rather than where you are. If you start somewhere else, you’ll end up somewhere else. And you definitely want to end up where management is.
  • Treat all management problems as leadership challenges. Your job is to help reduce contention and get to consensus and decisions, maybe even agreement. Stay focused on the problem rather than distractions like what the media might do. Find the truth as soon as possible.
  • Leadership resides with those who can maintain more supporters than detractors. Help management and leadership stay focused on what matters. Help the leaders preserve and develop new followers.

What is your personal manifesto – your beliefs, concerns, and aspirations?

Here are some of the common pitfalls or behaviors that prevent people from becoming truly Trusted Strategic Advisors and Influencers.

  1. Holding on to Staff-Based Assumptions
    Failing to adopt the leader’s perspective and instead focusing on your own function or agenda relegates you to being “just a staff person.”
  2. Narrow Functional Focus
    Viewing every problem through the lens of your own discipline (e.g., seeing all issues as HR, finance, or communication problems) rather than as management or leadership challenges.
  3. Face-Time Fantasy
    Believing that more time spent with the boss automatically increases your influence, rather than focusing on the value and relevance of your contributions.
  4. Whining and Complaining
    Engaging in negative talk about management, other staff, or lack of respect for your function undermines your credibility and value.
  5. Time-Wasting and Non-Specific Conversations
    Failing to keep meetings focused on what matters most to the leader, or engaging in purposeless discussions.
  6. Providing Unintelligible or Unusable Advice
    Using jargon, presenting too many ideas, or failing to communicate in clear, actionable terms that leaders can use.
  7. Withholding or Delaying Information
    Not providing timely, complete, and candid information erodes trust quickly.
  8. Partial or Redundant Input
    Giving only part of the picture or repeating information the leader already knows wastes their time and diminishes your perceived value.
  9. Reluctance to Be Candid
    Avoiding honest feedback or difficult truths out of fear or timidity is a relationship killer.
  10. Criticism and Negativity
    Using criticism as a coaching or advising technique leads to defensiveness and marginalization.
  11. Focusing on the Unimportant or the Past
    Spending time on issues that don’t matter to the leader’s current goals, or dwelling on past events instead of focusing on future outcomes.
  12. Failing to Develop Real Expertise Beyond Your Function
    Not building operational or strategic knowledge limits your access and influence with leaders.

Visit Amazon.com to buy the book today!

©2026, James E. Lukaszewski, “Influencing Leaders, The Seven Disciplines of the Trusted Strategic Advisor,” Wiley. Contact the copyright holder at jel@e911.com for information and reproduction permissions. Editing or excerpting forbidden.

What does it mean to be a verbal visionary? A visionary is an optimistic individual who can get others to focus on the future, or some meaningful, useful, positive goals, which they willingly contribute to achieving. A verbal visionary is someone capable of moving leaders through sensibly applied speech power, focus on the future and the ability to interpret their vision in ways that energize, mobilize, and inspire.

A true verbal visionary is also quite strategic. A strategist is one who is able to analyze effectively, forecast pragmatically, focus realistically on issues and problems, interpret events and ideas and their impact candidly, and generate ethically and morally appropriate options for decision-making, action, and progress. All top executives are the key strategists in their organization. Very few managers or senior executives are verbal visionaries.

  • A verbal visionary understands people and what people value. We’re talking about health and safety issues, environmental issues, quality of life issues, work and employment issues, and truly personal values like honesty and integrity.
  • A verbal visionary is a trustworthy person. You trust someone because you feel safe around them. They won’t hurt you or are unlikely to hurt you.
  • A verbal visionary has judgment. A person who is trustworthy; a person with integrity, credibility, and a personal set of values and principles; and, in fact, someone with these habits who is likely to have better judgment than the staff person who just blurts out ideas.

What Does a Verbal Visionary Do?

  1. Be a Counselor: An effective counselor is a pragmatist, a truth seeker and candid truth teller, a storyteller, and an inspiration and motivator to others.
  2. Be a Storyteller: A counselor is also a storyteller, and storytelling is among the most powerful verbal techniques in any culture, especially for leaders. Even very experienced communicators often have trouble telling stories effectively. Successful stories are generally told in plain language. They are fundamentally positive. They are about people, animals, living systems, or some combination of the three. They are relatively brief and have a recognizable beginning, middle, and end. Most importantly, stories have a moral, a lesson, what we call a self-evident truth or reason for being told that is immediately recognizable to the listener. Stories help us learn from our own perspective, our own point of reference.
  3. Be Memorable: Being memorable is a skill you need to learn. Take the time. Invest in the effort. Being memorable is the key to being a verbal visionary. Being memorable is up to you. No one else will remember unless you make them remember. If they fail to remember you, you’re wasting their time. One example of being intentionally memorable is verbally shaping ideas so as to be easily quoted by others. One test of your memorability is being quoted by others. Do people quote you? Talk in memorable language. Reflect your own sense of destiny to the sense of destiny of those you want to help.
  4. Be Inspirational: Quite often helping leaders be inspirational is one of the expectations of the coach and counselor. One becomes an inspiration to others, and a motivator of others, on purpose. You have to work on behaviors, model your skills, and share what you say in ways that are motivational and inspirational. This is a skill that is learned, must be practiced, and requires that you pay attention to what moves other people and what other people want.
  5. Be Thoughtful: A thoughtful person does four critical things routinely: Uses verbal contrast analysis to see the good and bad, bland and colorful, emotional and factual; asks questions that are open-ended, abstract, and complex; is a constructive skeptic with a focus on learning, illustrating, and gaining insight; and states the obvious at every turn for simplification and focus.
  6. Be Ethical: A person who lives by a set of rules and personal command behaviors all of us recognize as predominantly in the interest of others. A verbal visionary is an advocate for honorable action, an individual who is morally assertive (minus the religious fervor) with passion for the right behaviors, ideas, and actions at every turn, especially in the face of ethical dilemmas.
  7. Be a Coach and Mentor: Someone who is committed to helping others more than helping themself by usefully interpreting events and ideas, by illustrating new approaches, by exemplifying the very behaviors, the ideas, and concepts that will best help the individual being helped. A coach can forecast patterns, predict with a great deal of accuracy how organizations and individuals behave; and is the one who prepares everyone for the unintended consequences of their actions. A verbal visionary is also a mentor who starts from the other person’s point of view or reference, always.

    These are also key elements in the definition of a strategist. A strategist is someone who is focused on what is going to happen, what can happen, and what the possibilities are; someone who knows the lessons of the past as opposed to someone who is always looking backward; trying to re-analyze, re-live, re-define, or re-interpret history—the old should’ve, would’ve, could’ve analysis that helps no one, and backs one into yesterday.

Visit Amazon.com to buy the book today!

©2026, James E. Lukaszewski, “Influencing Leaders, The Seven Disciplines of the Trusted Strategic Advisor,” Wiley. Contact the copyright holder at jel@e911.com for information and reproduction permissions. Editing or excerpting forbidden.

This is the season where big companies, who know better, do stupid things generally without regret.

So far, the number one dumbster is BMW putting ads for a new movie on dashboard screens of BMW models manufactured after July 2020. They are going to look pretty stupid when someone’s kids are injured or die in the backseat, distracting the driver to watch some action scene, as the car backs out of the driveway into morning traffic.

Some years ago, General Motors explored the same idea, putting ads on various screens in cars. When the company began looking for sponsors, they were roundly defeated. Someone with a brain apparently mentioned that ads on car dashboards does not seem to be a good idea. Well duh.

Dummy number two happens every day at CNN, fifty-two weeks a year. This network promotes more useless information and bogus products than most other networks combined. The worst one is for an over-the-counter product that supposedly saves your knees and shoulders. The ads feature a woman jumping out of airplanes and expertly playing tennis, and she is so enthusiastic about a nothing product. The ads state warnings to remind people that the drug is not a drug. It’s a combination of chemical compounds, a true homeopath. Something invented by someone in their basement or garage, which they’ve been able to turn into something big. And the ads acknowledge that the FDA hasn’t looked at these compounds. They also state that this product is not meant to be prescribed or cure anything. For some of these pharmaceuticals, companies actually do some human trials. In this case, for this product, the ads only state that all of the chemicals in this product have been tested or explored, whatever that means. Plus, the commercials are long and totally boring. I hope never to see Marie Osmond’s face again.

Look for more. The stupid season is just getting underway.

©2026, James E. Lukaszewski. Contact the copyright holder at jel@e911.com for information and reproduction permissions. Editing or excerpting is forbidden.

The questions people ask me most frequently are:

  1. How did you get to where you are?
  2. How do I move from being known as the person who gets things done around here to the person who advises leaders, important people, and important groups on what to do next?
  3. How do I go around my boss who takes all the credit for what I accomplish?

My answer is . . .  Build your own visibility.

Step 1: Follow Lukaszewski’ visibility success strategies. Remember that You’re On Your Own (YOYO), at least at the start.

First of all, observe Lukaszewski’s anti-griping rule, Stop Whining Around about this, or anything, 50% of those who hear you can’t, don’t, and won’t care; 25% of those who hear you have problems worse than yours; The remaining 25% are likely glad you have the problems you have. Quit your bellyaching.

Step 2: Join and become visible in professional organizations and associations

  • American Society of Association Executives
  • Business associations
  • International Association of Business Communicators
  • Local Chamber of Commerce
  • Public Relations Society of America
  • National Speakers Association
  • Rotary

Join and participate in organizations and associations where you have special knowledge. Check out and, if you can, join the associations your bosses participate in and find ways to be recognized, to be visible.

All of these organizations are seeking content for their members. Writing things for association publications might get you invitations to speak before these audiences, if you care to.

  • Talk, teach, and write about important subjects in your professional area, in your community, and current important topics already being talked about.
  • Always talk about ways your audiences can achieve the golden aspirations they have, from their perspective.

Step 3: Get busy building your own visibility. It’s your destiny and you’re responsible for managing it. You’ll be surprised how many will help you work on it if you make yourself relevant to their lives.

  1. Be the table: act like it, believe it, live it, be it. Study Influencing Leaders.
  2. Begin and stick with the truth about you, your success, and everything else.
  3. Be earnest but unstoppable.
  4. Forecast what you are ready to do.
  5. Give more than you get.
  6. Help others get what they want from their perspective, they will help you get what you want.
  7. Start raising and answering tough questions. Work, talk, teach, publish.
  8. Learn how to answer four kinds of questions:
    • Killer questions, the reputation busters, and some begging for answers.
    • Questions you’d love to respond to if only someone would ask you. (Provide the questions to interviewers, editorialists, and others.)
    • Questions out there that need answering, but one needs to step up.
    • Questions from platforms you could offer good answers for.
  9. Publicly recognize others you respect and recommend. You will be honored and remembered in return.
  10. Find audiences for your thinking, business groups, trade associations, service clubs, and military groups through their Public Affairs offices.
  11. Preach, teach, and advocate to others how to be successful and solve problems like you can. Share everything you know how to do.
  12. Get really good at presentations in person and on Zoom, build your visibility on LinkedIn.
    • Do senior-level seminars for other management teams, leaders, and other organizations in your industry.
    • Get on podcasts and do webinars. Let management know about it. Send them the scripts.
  13. Write and publish helpful and predictive articles in trade association publications and business journals, local and national business magazines, and available websites and platforms seeking helpful leadership information.
  14. Speak up. Stand up.
  15. Be persistent. Keep suggesting. Keep proposing. Ask for help. Remember the Andy Anderson Success axiom, “No’s Are Just Short Stops on the Way to Yes!”
  16. Remember the YOYO rule for getting ahead in your world . . .You’re On Your Own. Make your own way, every day.
  17. What you want to start, stand for, and to do was and will always be up to you to accomplish.
  18. Remember the be-attitudes of success in a YOYO world: Be positive, be helpful, be useful, be hopeful, be honest.
  19. Assess your own progress at the end of every day: What did you learn, what was most useful, what was most helpful, what was most unusual?
  20. The bottom line: Have a great life getting more attention from a wide variety of people, your immediate boss and your boss’ boss included.

Start Now!
Good luck
Let me know how I can help.
203-948-7029
jel@e911.com

©2026, James E. Lukaszewski. Contact the copyright holder at jel@e911.com for information and reproduction permissions. Editing or excerpting is forbidden.