The AB3s of Getting Ready for Leadership

June 10th, 2025

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"Time to get ready for bed." 

For my 5- and 10-year-old sons, this 7:30pm nightly call-to-action sets a 45-minute ritual in motion: screens off, comfy pajamas on, sweet books read, tender words exchanged. You probably have your own adult version—your preferred pillow placement, the precise room temperature, the quiet self-talk or prayer that settles you into high-performance rest. It’s an art you’ve refined over a lifetime, uniquely tailored to your needs, with costly consequences the next day if you diverge from the cadence.

In sports, the Ready Position is a well-understood concept. Little-leaguers and pros alike hit the position between every pitch – knees springy, glove at torso, eyes attentive at home-plate, ready to move in any direction at the crack of the bat. But readiness isn’t just about physical agility. It’s mental, intuitive, instinctive—a state where body and mind are fully engaged.  Tennis players find this calm stasis at the baseline, ready to receive serves; goalies find calm alertness before a penalty kick; even dancers pause in fifth-position pleá before most downbeats. 

So what is a leader's Ready Position?

This is a core question The AB3 Group explores with leaders around the world. From meeting to meeting, they must be ready to spark interest, create calm, promote ideas, soothe anxieties, persuade decisions, evoke action — even tempt skeptics. You have the intelligence, vast experience, and the support of colleagues....but how do you prepare to be spontaneous, present, and agile in the moments that matter most? 

At the highest level, here are the AB3s of Getting Ready for Leadership:

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Prepare for Impact. Your tenure has equipped you with an impressive depth of knowledge across a myriad of topics. But knowing a lot isn’t enough to truly influence thinking or change behaviors. As you ascend in leadership, expertise is assumed. At your level, when you share ideas in a meeting, pitch to a client, or navigate a high-stakes conversation, no one in the room is wondering whether you’re smart. Their concern is relevance. They’ll give you trust if they believe you’re focused on solving their problems.

A ballerina needs to know the steps, but they won't captivate an audience without balance and grace. A footballer’s endurance is meaningless to the score without focus and precision. A comedian’s memorized set will fall flat without timing and agility. An astronaut can master launch protocols and still falter without ingenuity under pressure. And you? Leadership is no different.

In moments that matter most, preparation can't end with perfecting the deck or running another search through a CRM. It’s about aligning your message with what your client, team, board, or partner actually cares about. While you must be confident in the substance of your ideas, the ROI on your preparation is the trust you earn when people sense that you’re genuinely thinking about their priorities, their anxieties, their stakes—and that you have the credibility to stand behind your words. The AB3 Group helps leaders not only articulate sophisticated ideas to solve real-world challenges but also adopt elegant methodologies for building trust and increasing relevance in every interaction.

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Create Experience. Audiences can flip through your deck after the meeting. What they’ll never recreate is the feeling they had the first time they heard you share the ideas. The way you use technology contributes to the experience just as much as how you convey meaning with your expression, movement, and voice. 

Leveraging AB3's unique background as Broadway-caliber performers, with deep roots coaching thought-leaders for TED Talks, preparing executives for global summits, and advising candidates for campaign events, the skills introduced are not abstract theories; they’re tried-and-tested skills to help leaders maximize impact in front of any audience.

People don't need entertainment at work, but if they are not engaged, they're definitely not thinking critically about your point. How you orchestrate the delivery of information, invite multiple voices into a discussion, shift the dynamic tone of a meeting, and re-stimulate an audience's attention will pay huge dividends on your ability to achieve outcomes. 

When it comes to strategically increasing your influence, what matters is how the ideas you share land with listeners. Whether you thought you were clear, approachable, efficient is secondary to THEIR experience. That’s why self-assessment rarely maximizes your readiness for the moments that count. Trusted feedback—from mentors, colleagues, and coaches—is where real growth happens.

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Manage your Mindset for that Moment. Olympic weightlifters strengthen their bodies, commissioned painters prep their pallets, Michelin-star chefs dice the veggies, and you prep the deck. Your intelligence, experience, and research set the baseline for peak performance. Even so, is that enough to show up as your best self when it truly counts?

Athletes prepare to dominate, adopting a warrior-like mindset. In the precious seconds before action begins, their rituals range from quiet visualization and delicate breathing to explosive air-punching and guttural battle cries. These precise “getting ready” moments at the foul line, on the mound, or in the tee box are often just as fascinating as the play-by-plays that follow. They do whatever it takes to find their superhuman flow-state.

But, in leadership, preparing to dominate in only one of the mindsets that will serve you…and only rarely. Leadership often requires charisma, compassion, calm, alongside authority or urgency. 

Actors hold a distinct advantage here. Every time they enter a scene they need to adjust their mindset for a new circumstance, often just as abruptly as a 15-second costume change. In one scenario they fall in love, pages later they are furious, then betrayed, finally redeemed. Although the general public does not get to witness the offstage antics of comedians, musicians, and actors, rest assured that these rituals are as precise and riveting as any elite athlete revving up for a championship match. Ask a successful actor what they do right before the camera rolls, and you’ll get a detailed account of how they tap into their flow-state.

The AB3 Group approaches mindset management as a leadership imperative, not an optional extra. The methodologies draw from sports psychology, the performing arts, cutting-edge research published in this area, and our lived-experience as consultants in the spotlight. How you prepare your mind determines whether you lead—or merely show up.

When it comes to “getting ready,” lacking a strategy across all three dimensions means handing control of your most critical interactions to chance. In our work together, you’ll confront these truths head-on and discover personal pathways to readiness that push beyond your familiar habits. For The AB3 Group, the ultimate metric of success is actionable, sustainable change that drives real results and elevates your leadership to its fullest potential.

Connect with Ari

Inspirations for this blog stem from real experiences with clients, thoughtful discussions with colleagues, and the in-depth research and readings publicly available on communication, leadership, and influence. If you're looking to explore the ideas behind The AB3s of Getting Ready for Leadership more deeply, here’s a list of insightful resources that have primarily informed this work:

• Public Speaking as Listeners Like It! by Richard C. Borden – 1935

• Crucial Conversations by Joseph Grenny, Kerry Patterson, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler, and Emily Gregory - 2002

• Loving What Is by Byron Katie -- 2002

• Leadership Presence by Belle Linda Halbern and Kathy Lubas – 2003

• Mindset by Carol Dweck -- 2006

• As We Speak by Peter Meyers and Shann Nix – 2011

• Care to Dare by George Kohlreiser, Susan Goldsworthy, and Duncan Coombe – 2012

• Connect, Then Lead in Harvard Business Review by Amy J.C. Cuddy, Matthew Kohut, and John Neffinger – 2013

• The Leadership Check-up by Jared Bleck and Tom Hughes – 2020

• Talk by Alison Wood Brooks – 2025

  
  

These offer frameworks, case studies, and expert insights that pair with The AB3 Group's philosophy—and may spark your next level of growth. Let's talk!