Libby Wagner | Business Consultant
Libby is a trusted advisor for presidents, CEOs, and executive directors. Do you have a team and culture that meets your mission and vision?
I sat across the table from a CEO who was considering working with me. “Why should I hire you? Why you and not someone else?” It’s a good question.
Other consultants may do the kinds of things I do with organizations: conduct employee interviews and surveys, organize focus groups, visit customers or clients or board members, provide training and development, coach leaders—but I partner with my clients and create the most trusting relationships. I leaned forward and said, “Because I will tell you the truth.”
Being honest with a client might not seem like such a big deal—who would purport to lie to people they are presumably trying to help? But it is a big deal because leaders are often surrounded by people who hold back from telling the truth and sharing their important ideas and insights. I think he knew this because he leaned toward me and said, “Will you tell me if it’s me?”
What if your team or organization can be better, faster, more efficient, more profitable, or happier, and you, as the leader, are an obstacle to that movement?
What if, even with your best intentions, you cannot seem to make things go in the direction you want, you keep running across resistors and saboteurs?
So many times, we think it is them, those others who are supposed to be enthusiastically following along behind us, and well, they’re not.
And if it is you, and you don’t know it, and no one will tell you, how can you respond, address it, fix it or dismiss it?
You cannot.
You may need to have an honest conversation with yourself.
Are my intentions and behaviors congruent?
Do I practice what I preach?
Am I sharing my “Big Vision” for my company or team?
Does everyone know what’s important to me in addition to our financial goals?
How am I inviting truth-telling in my organization?
Can (and do) people come to me with honest feedback and questions?
Being a courageous leader means that you are honest with yourself and allow others to be honest with you. You know how to balance the toughening-up and the asking-for-help when you need it.
As the leader, you are responsible for how things are going; productivity, trust, profits, or customer service. You are the model and the visionary—you are the one who has to be willing both to lead from the front and roll up your sleeves if necessary.
If things are not going the way you want them to go, you must begin with you.
It’s probably you.
— Adapted from: What Will You Do With Your 90,000 Hours: The Boardroom Poet’s Thoughts on Work. Chapter 5; “Dude it’s you!” By Libby Wagner, 2016.
High Praise.
“Libby has a very different approach. She might not make a poet out of you, but she will make an artist out of you to create the messages and communication and general influence you seek. She helps people better understand color and nature and the use of language.
She helps people to realize their potential as communicators, and she does this with artistry that would make Picasso or Beethoven envious because she is like them in her genius!”
“It turns out the very skills she honed as a poet were the ones most relevant in her consulting. The secret to embracing her own narrative from poet to consultant was understanding the value she could bring to her clients.”
Move to the next level of success > Change direction > Transform your business culture > Repair broken teams.
Client Results / Case Studies
What's it like to work with Libby Wagner?
Read four different case studies from Libby's clients and learn about their situations, what intervention strategies Libby Wagner recommended and the results!