LEADERSHIP STRATEGY FOR AMBITIOUS PROFESSIONALS
Most people are taught how to do the work.
Very few are taught how senior leaders actually evaluate judgment, trust, influence and readiness for bigger scope.
Leaders With Style teaches you the second skillset.
EXPLORE THE SECOND SKILLSET →
ANNE ODELL
Founder, Leaders With Style
THE SECOND SKILLSET
Early in your career, being great at the work can take you far.
But as your scope increases, the criteria change.
You are no longer evaluated only on what you execute. You are evaluated on how you think, how you communicate, how you influence and whether senior leaders trust your judgment when the answer isn’t obvious.
That’s the Second Skillset.
02
COMMUNICATION
Turning complexity into the information people actually need to make a decision.
03
INFLUENCE
Building alignment before authority becomes necessary.
04
PERCEPTION
Understanding how your decisions, communication and leadership are interpreted by the people determining your scope.
LEARN THE SECOND SKILLSET →
WHY LEADERS WITH STYLE EXISTS
I started my career managing people before I really understood what leadership was.
I was young, often the only woman in the room, and trying to figure out why being good at the work wasn’t always enough.
Over the next decade, I built my career inside a Fortune 10 company and promoted four times in five years.
And somewhere along the way, I realized there was an entirely different skillset nobody had taught me.
How decisions actually get made.
How senior leaders evaluate talent.
How perception shapes opportunity.
How to communicate when the stakes get higher.
How to build trust before you need it.
I learned those lessons from inside the rooms where those decisions were being made.
Leaders With Style exists because you shouldn’t have to spend ten years figuring them out by accident.
YEARS BUILDING MY CAREER INSIDE A FORTUNE 10
PROMOTIONS IN FIVE YEARS
YEARS IN SENIOR LEADERSHIP
PEOPLE LED
THE PROBLEM ISN’T YOUR PERFORMANCE
You deliver.
You take on more.
You’re the person people trust to get things done.
And for a while, that is exactly what moves your career forward.
Then the rules start to change.
The feedback gets less concrete. The expectations get harder to define. And suddenly doing excellent work isn’t translating into the next level the way it used to.
The problem isn’t that you need to work harder.
You need to understand what senior leaders are actually evaluating.
That’s the second skillset nobody teaches you.
THE TWO PHASES OF CAREER SUCCESS
Early in your career, performance does most of the talking.
You execute. You solve problems. You build expertise. You become someone people can rely on.
That is Phase One.
But eventually, doing more of the same stops creating the same career return.
PHASE ONE
Do excellent work.
Build expertise.
Deliver results.
Create evidence.
This gets you into the conversation.
PHASE TWO
Understand who actually influences the decision.
Communicate your work so its significance is understood quickly.
Build confidence in your judgment.
Manage the perception created by how you operate.
This determines what happens in the conversation.
This is where judgment, communication, influence and perception start to matter as much as execution.
This is the Second Skillset.
EXPLORE THE SECOND SKILLSET →
IDEAS FOR OPERATING AT THE NEXT LEVEL
The decisions, conversations and unwritten rules that start to matter as your scope gets bigger.
JUDGMENT
MANAGING UP
COMMUNICATION
INFLUENCE
PERCEPTION
CAREER STRATEGY
WORK WITH ANNE
My work is for ambitious professionals who are already good at what they do.
You may be leading a team, managing significant scope, or already operating at a level you once worked toward.
But the questions have changed.
How do I become more strategic?
How do I communicate with senior leaders?
How do I build confidence in my judgment?
How do I position my work for bigger scope?
How do I understand what is actually keeping me from the next level?
This is the work we do together.
PRIVATE COACHING
Private coaching is for professionals navigating bigger scope, senior-level promotions, leadership challenges and the decisions that shape what comes next.
We work directly on how you think, communicate, lead and position yourself so you can operate at the level you’re trying to reach.
STRATEGIC SESSIONS
Focused 1:1 sessions for a specific leadership, career or communication challenge.
Bring the situation. We’ll diagnose what is actually happening, pressure-test your approach and leave with a clear path forward.