Leadership Brand Building | How Strategic Accountability and Stakeholder Relations Accelerate Your Career

Welcome to Women’s Leadership Success, episode #142 on transforming your executive presence and advancing your career through leadership brand building. In this special podcast, executive leadership coach Sabrina Braham reveals the key strategies from her new Leadership Brand Blueprint Accelerator (see below) that help women leaders unlock their next-level career potential.

Why Your Leadership Brand Matters More Than Your Technical Skills

For ambitious women in management, director, VP, C-Suite, or founder roles, there’s a critical gap that often prevents career advancement despite stellar qualifications. According to recent McKinsey research, while women have made significant progress in leadership representation, they still face unique barriers to advancement – with one key factor being the development of a strong leadership brand.

“People can be very, very talented in their jobs, but they get so busy that they forget to pay attention to the things that will actually help their brand, help them deepen relationships, and help them be seen as a leader in their company,” explains Sabrina Braham, who has spent 30 years coaching executives in Fortune 50 and Fortune 1000 companies.

This leadership blind spot explains why technically brilliant women often get passed over for promotions.

The critical differentiator isn’t your expertise – it’s how others perceive your leadership presence.

The Surprising Career Impact of Commitment Tracking

The first cornerstone of an influential leadership brand is commitment accountability – a simple practice that transforms how others perceive your reliability and trustworthiness.

Why Senior Executives Track Their Commitments

In Sabrina’s extensive coaching experience with C-suite leaders, she’s observed a fascinating pattern:

“When I’m coaching a senior Vice President, CEO, CFO, or COO, they’re much more likely to be on time, show up, and do the things they said they would do than people at the lower ranks.”

This insight reveals a critical truth: Tracking and honoring commitments isn’t just good practice – it’s a distinguishing characteristic of those who reach the highest leadership levels.

Real-World Results: How Commitment Tracking Transformed Kathleen’s Career

Consider the case of Kathleen, a talented leader at a Fortune 50 company who had been there since its founding yet hadn’t been promoted to Vice President despite her capabilities.

“She was so intent on the goals she had, she forgot to pay attention to the people and what she needed to do for them,” Sabrina explains. “As she began to pay attention to what her commitments were, how she was keeping them, and her relationships with other people, she began to improve. Over time, that led to her becoming a Vice President.”

Why Your Brain Needs a Commitment System

When you implement a commitment tracking system, you activate what neuroscientists call the reticular activating system – the part of your brain that filters information based on what you consciously value.

“When you start paying attention to the commitments you want to keep, it starts making you more aware of how you can improve, how you can update people, and let them know what’s happening. It basically ups your game,” Sabrina explains.

The 1-10 Scale That Transforms Leadership Effectiveness

A key component of Sabrina’s Leadership Brand Blueprint is the 1-10 rating scale – a deceptively simple tool that creates remarkable clarity for leadership development.

Why the Scale Works When Other Feedback Fails

“What we tend to do in meetings and giving feedback is somewhat nebulous,” Sabrina notes. “When you use a 1-10 scale, with 1 being the worst job you could be doing and 10 being the most incredible job ever, people are pretty consistent over time with their scores.”

This consistency means you can accurately track progress while avoiding vague assessments that don’t lead to improvement.

The 0.5 Improvement Rule

Here’s where Sabrina’s approach becomes truly powerful: “What can you do to raise it a half point?”

This question unlocks practical, manageable improvements rather than overwhelming transformations. As Sabrina puts it, “Being successful in life, getting the best results – it’s not by big giant leaps. It’s by these little tiny movements toward your goal.”

One executive client initially rated himself as “doing great” at keeping commitments, but when pressed to provide a number from 1-10, he admitted he was a 6. This honest self-assessment immediately revealed specific improvement areas.

The Monthly Stakeholder Assessment: Your Career Advancement Secret Weapon

The second pillar of Sabrina’s Leadership Brand Blueprint focuses on strategic relationship management through a monthly stakeholder assessment.

Identifying Your Career-Critical Relationships

“Figure out who are the 10 people in your company that most influence your work or what’s happening in your department or section,” Sabrina advises. “Then, how good of a relationship do you have with each one of those people?”

 

“Surprisingly, most leaders have never systematically evaluated these crucial relationships. This blind spot represents both risk and opportunity.”

From Relationship Deficit to Career Ally: A Vice President’s Story

One of Sabrina’s clients, a Vice President, faced a challenging relationship with her new Senior VP. “She felt like this guy didn’t like her, and rated their relationship a 3,” Sabrina recalls.

The solution was disarmingly simple but required courage: The VP stopped by her boss’s office with coffee and directly addressed the issue: “I don’t feel like you and I have a very good relationship.”

His response? “You know, I was thinking the same thing.”

This single conversation transformed their dynamic. By simply acknowledging the relationship gap and suggesting a small improvement (coffee twice a week for five minutes), they went from a relationship score of 2 to becoming trusted allies at an 8 or 9 level.

Breaking Through Relationship Barriers

When you identify a low-scoring relationship with a key stakeholder, Sabrina recommends several approaches:

1. Direct conversation: Schedule a meeting and express your desire to improve the relationship
2. Provide value: Share information or resources that would benefit them
3. Leverage allies: “If you’re not sure how to break through the firewall, figure out who’s connected to them and who has close relationships with them,” Sabrina suggests

Remember that relationship improvements don’t happen in a single interaction – consistency and genuine interest create lasting change.

The Red Flag That Could Save Your Career

Sometimes, the stakeholder assessment reveals a more fundamental issue: you may be in an environment where advancement is unlikely regardless of your efforts.

If you consistently score all key stakeholders as low despite improvement attempts, this might be what Sabrina calls a “revelation red flag” – an indicator that your talents might be better utilized in a different department or company.

Research-Backed Leadership Development Trends

Recent studies from Harvard Business Review highlight that emotional intelligence and relationship management skills are becoming increasingly valued in leadership positions, with 92% of executives reporting that strong interpersonal skills are now equally or more important than technical expertise.

Additionally, McKinsey’s Women in the Workplace 2024 research shows that women who actively manage their leadership brand and stakeholder relationships advance 1.8 times faster than those who focus solely on technical performance.

How to Implement the Leadership Brand Blueprint Framework

Start Small for Big Results

“Just know that you can develop your soft skills. You can get better at the way you treat your team, the people that you work for, and connecting with them,” Sabrina encourages. “Life can be more fun, it can be happier. You can do this.”

Her approach emphasizes gradual, consistent progress:

“Yard by yard, life is hard. Inch by inch, life’s a cinch.”

Focus on These Action Steps:

1. Create your commitment tracking system using the free Blueprint checklist
2. Identify your top 10 stakeholders and rate your relationships honestly
3. Select one relationship to improve by 0.5 points this month
4. Schedule a weekly review to measure your progress
5. Celebrate incremental improvements rather than pursuing perfection

Ready to Transform Your Leadership Brand?

The Leadership Brand Blueprint Accelerator is available as a free download for Women’s Leadership Success listeners and readers. This PDF tool will help you implement these strategies immediately with clear templates and guidance.

Get Your Free Leadership Brand Blueprint

Ready to accelerate your leadership brand development? Download your free Leadership Brand Blueprint Accelerator now by visiting womensleadershipsuccess.com/leadershipbrandblueprint

For deeper support, Sabrina offers one-on-one executive coaching and leadership mastermind groups designed specifically for leaders ready to advance their careers through strategic brand development.

Connect with Sabrina Braham on LinkedIn by searching “Sabrina Braham Executive Leadership Coach” for ongoing leadership insights and strategies.

What leadership brand challenges are you facing? 

Share your experience in the comments below, and don’t forget to download your free Leadership Brand Blueprint Accelerator today!