Escape the Traps

Your team has stopped telling you the truth, and you don't know it yet.

Somewhere in your organization, people have been filtering what they say to you by sanitizing inconvenient news, going quiet when you walk in, and learning to read your tone. They've learned this directly from you, gradually, mostly from how you respond when you are unconsciously reacting or under pressure.

Most leaders never see it happening. They are surprised to discover that the small, ordinary moments-a flicker of impatience, a rushed reply, the tone they carry when they are tired, have accumulated into something they cannot see from the inside. But the team can see it and feel it every day.

That dripping residue, the felt experience people carry after they have been with you, is your leadership imprint. Whether you mean to or not, you are leaving one every moment.

Escape the Traps names the seven patterns that quietly shape that imprint without most leaders ever realizing it. They are patterns of behavior often natural and invisible to you, obvious to everyone else, and surprisingly difficult to escape. This book helps you learn to see them clearly and soon enough so that they stop sabotaging your impact.

Janet Ioli has spent more than two decades inside companies working with and beside senior leaders, and one-on-one with them when they sit alone in their offices. Escape the Traps draws on that real-world work and names the seven patterns that quietly sabotage the best-intentioned leaders everywhere.