Got Your SiX with Dr. Traci Eisenberg-Rayburn

Command and control leadership is the instinct to make every call yourself, and it is usually what got you promoted in the first place. Then one day it becomes the reason nothing moves without you. If you are a business owner, a senior manager, or a leader at any level, you know the trap. First sentence: "I am the bottleneck." Second sentence: "But if I don't make the call, it won't get made right...

Leadership style vs leadership traits is the distinction most leaders skip, and it is the reason a strong trait can still produce the wrong result. Your traits never reach your team directly. They travel through your leadership style first, and that style decides how much of what you intended actually lands. If your decisiveness has started to feel like control, or your collaboration has quietly t...

Identity after change is the part nobody schedules for. The role gets restructured, the company sells, the career you gave twenty years to ends on somebody else's timeline, the house goes quiet. Every piece of advice you get after that is about the calendar, update the resume, find the next thing, fill the week. None of it touches the real question, which is who you are once the thing that used to...

Leadership traits are the automatic behaviors you default to when there is no time to decide, not the impressive qualities listed on a job posting. If you have ever watched a confident, articulate leader run a team where nobody knows what is going on, you have already seen the gap between an impression and a trait. Job postings ask for charisma, commanding presence, and strong communication becaus...

Leadership lessons from Gettysburg reveal something most leaders never get told: rank never made a single person a leader on that battlefield. In this episode of Got Your SiX, Dr. Traci Eisenberg-Rayburn walks the actual grounds of Gettysburg with her husband Michael to unpack battle tested leadership, decision making under pressure, and what happens when you're leading through your own smoke, the...

Servant leadership means showing up for your community long before anyone hands you a title, and Joy Hutter, executive director of the Greater Crofton Chamber of Commerce, is proof of it. On this episode of Got Your SiX, Dr. Traci Eisenberg-Rayburn sits down with Joy to unpack what years of unpaid, unnoticed community work actually build: the credibility, trust, and relationships that get you aske...

You are always the one holding everything together. But when the weight becomes too heavy, who is holding you? In this solo episode of Got Your SiX , Dr. Traci asks leaders, business owners, high performers, and habitual problem-solvers a question they may not know how to answer: Who has your six? In military terminology, your “six” is the position directly behind you, the one place you physically...

Would people still follow you if your title disappeared tomorrow? In this episode of Got Your SiX, Detria challenges one of the most persistent myths about leadership: that authority creates influence. Titles may give leaders power on paper, but trust, loyalty, and lasting impact are earned through service. Drawing on more than two decades of leadership across the nonprofit, healthcare, housing, c...

Leadership legacy is rarely built in the room you think it is, and in this solo episode of Got Your SiX, Dr. Traci Eisenberg-Rayburn makes the case for why the most important thing a leader ever does is often something they never get to see. If you have ever wondered whether your guidance actually landed, this episode names the quiet, unmeasured moments that shape people long after you have left t...

Self-awareness in leadership starts with recognizing that every decision a leader makes is filtered through perception long before it reaches communication or action. If you've ever walked away from a conversation certain you were right, only to learn someone else experienced it completely differently, the gap wasn't the facts. It was perception, conditioning, and the story you've been telling you...

Relational leadership means building trust and holding people accountable at the same time, not choosing between the two. If you lead a team, run a business, or manage people day to day, you already know pressure makes conversations shorter and relationships thinner. This episode names the uncomfortable habits that keep trust intact even when deadlines and stress rise. Dr. Traci Eisenberg-Rayburn,...

Mental roadblocks in leadership are rarely about your market, your team, or your competition. Most leaders spend years trying to solve external problems while never examining the internal barriers influencing their decisions: the stories, assumptions, fears, and habits carried into leadership without realizing it. If you've ever felt like you're working harder but not moving forward, this is likel...

What if the greatest startup in history wasn't a tech company, but an entire nation? As America approaches its 250th anniversary, Dr. Traci welcomes Michael for a fascinating conversation that connects the founding of the United States with the realities of building a modern business. Together, they explore how the Founding Fathers faced uncertainty, built without a blueprint, challenged conventio...

Most leaders spend their time solving problems they can see. The best leaders solve the problems that created them. In this solo episode of Got Your SiX, Dr. Traci challenges one of the biggest mistakes leaders make in business, government, and everyday life, treating symptoms instead of uncovering root causes. Drawing from military leadership, Spartan strategy, organizational psychology, and year...

Fatherhood and leadership lessons don't come from a boardroom, they come from dinner tables, sideline bleachers, and hard conversations in the car on the way to school.  If you have ever wondered whether being a dad is actually shaping the way you lead at work, the answer is yes, and this conversation will show you exactly how.  In this Father's Day special, Dr. Traci, host of Got Your Six and dec...

What happens when sacrifice stops being something you do and becomes who you are? In this powerful solo episode of Got Your SiX, Dr. Traci shares an unexpected story involving her granddaughter, a playground misunderstanding, and a word that sparked an important leadership lesson: sacrifice. What began as a routine parent-teacher conference quickly revealed something much deeper about communicatio...

Before you can lead a team, a business, or a family, you have to learn how to lead yourself. In this episode of Got Your SiX, Dr. Traci sits down with entrepreneur, wife, mother, and self leadership coach Jenna Wahl to explore one of the most overlooked leadership skills of all: learning how to reconnect with yourself before burnout, overwhelm, and survival mode take over. Jenna works with career-...

Vulnerability in leadership is the conversation almost no one wants to have out loud. We praise the people who push through, stay strong, and never complain. We hand them the promotion and the pat on the back. And we rarely ask what it is costing them when they finally get home. In this episode of Got Your Six, Dr. Traci sits down with Captain Steve Mills, a retired US Navy chaplain who has spent...

Memorial Day is more than barbecues and long weekends. For veterans, military families, and children raised in homes shaped by war, it carries a weight most people never see. In this deeply personal episode, Dr. Traci opens up about what Memorial Day truly means, sharing stories that go far beyond the battlefield. She reflects on two extraordinary leaders, Desmond Doss and Michael Murphy, whose co...

What does resilience actually look like when life does not slow down for you? In this special Mother's Day episode of Got Your Six, Dr. Traci brings two real women into the conversation for the first time in the show's history. AshLeigh, an IT leader and single mom raising an 11-year-old, and Kristina, an entrepreneur and mother navigating balancing, work, motherhood with her kindergartener and ba...

What if leadership isn’t about titles, authority, or performance, but about what you quietly carry every single day? In this special episode of Got Your Six , Dr. Traci Eisenberg-Rayburn brings together real conversations with women navigating leadership in its most unfiltered form, as mothers, partners, business owners, and the emotional anchors of everyone around them. Because here’s what no one...

What if the reason you feel overwhelmed, inconsistent, or reactive… isn’t because you lack motivation, but because you’ve never been taught how to lead yourself under pressure? In this episode of Got Your Six , Dr. Traci Eisenberg-Rayburn breaks down a distinction that most leaders miss entirely, the difference between mental health and mental fitness. Mental health is your state. Mental fitness i...

What if the reason you feel inconsistent… has nothing to do with motivation, and everything to do with the standards you’re willing to hold? In this solo episode of Got Your Six , Dr. Traci Eisenberg-Rayburn dismantles one of the most common lies in personal growth, that discipline is about intensity, energy, or feeling ready. It’s not. Discipline is consistency. Especially when conditions aren’t...

What if the reason you’re not following through… isn’t a lack of discipline, but a lack of structure in your mindset? In this solo episode of Got Your SiX , Dr. Traci Eisenberg-Rayburn breaks down the difference between motivation and mindset, and why relying on motivation is the fastest way to stay stuck. This isn’t about positive thinking or quick mindset hacks. It’s about what actually happens...

What if confidence isn’t something you’re born with… but something you build through daily habits? In this episode of Got Your SiX , Dr. Traci Eisenberg-Rayburn sits down with DJ Logory, founder of the “Be That Guy” club, to unpack what’s really missing for young men today, and why so many feel stuck, inconsistent, or directionless. From getting fired early in his career to rebuilding his identity...