The Mind Of The Leader

“By understanding how their own mind works and training it for the most essential qualities, leaders can lead themselves effectively first, in order to better lead their people and tap into their human need for meaning, fulfillment and human connectedness,” explain Rasmus Hougaard and Jacqueline Carter, authors of the book, The Mind Of The Leader.

Their book is based on extensive research, including assessments of more than 35,000 leaders and interviews with 250 C-level executives.

The authors found that three mental qualities are essential to becoming effective leaders. Leaders must be:

Mindful – being present and attentive to their employees’ needs. Being focused versus distracted. Being aware versus being on autopilot.
Selfless – to model cultures based on growth and learning instead of ego. Being selfless versus ego-centered. Being confident versus diffident.
Compassionate – to show their employees they have their backs. Being kind versus indifferent. Being wise versus ignorant.

The Mind Of The Leader takes you on a journey, using real-world inspirational examples of successful companies, that begins with leading yourself and ends with leading your people. Each chapter includes quick and easy exercises, tips and self-reflections that will help you train your mind to achieve different goals ranging from more focus to self-awareness.

“Leadership needs to redefined to meet the needs of the 21^st century workforce,” explain Hougaard and Carter. “The younger generation of workers are increasingly looking for meaning, connectedness and purpose at work. For many, a good paycheck and great benefits aren’t enough if they don’t feel they are making a difference.”

Hougaard’s and Carter’s research shows that leaders who are more human, more relatable, more present, kind and selfless, are better able to attract and retain workers and secure better financial results.

One of the more interesting findings covered in the book is about Ego and Leadership. Hougaard and Carter explain that the downsides of a big ego makes you:

Vulnerable to criticism – ego creates a defensive wall around you that prevents you from learning from your mistakes.
Susceptible to manipulation – because an inflated ego makes you predictable, because it drives your behavior in obvious ways. And, when you’re a victim of your own need to be seen as great, you end up being led into making decisions that may or may not be good for yourself, your employees and your organization.

Plus, it:

Narrows your field of vision – and makes it hard for you to see and accept new opportunities and you fall victim to the limitations of your own success. And, the moment you believe that past successful behavior will lead to present and future success, you’ve stagnated.
Corrupts your behavior and causes you to act against your values.

Hougaard is the Founder and Managing Director of Potential Project, a global provider of leadership and organizational effectiveness solutions based on training the mind. Carter is an International Partner and North American Director for Potential Project.

Thank you to the book’s publisher for sending me a copy of the book.

Comments

10 Quotes From The 5 Levels Of Leadership -- John C. Maxwell

Soon I'll post my full review of John C. Maxwell's latest book, The 5 Levels of Leadership . In the meantime, here are some of my favorites quotes from the book that I believe should become a must-read book by any workplace/organizational leader: Good leadership isn't about advancing yourself. It's about advancing your team. Leaders become great, not because of their power, but because of their ability to empower others. Leadership is action, not position. When people feel liked, cared for, included, valued, and trusted, they begin to work together with their leader and each other. If you have integrity with people, you develop trust. The more trust you develop, the stronger the relationship becomes. In times of difficulty, relationships are a shelter. In times of opportunity, they are a launching pad. Good leaders must embrace both care and candor. People buy into the leader, then the vision. Bringing out the best in a person is often a catal...

How To Play Bigger And Be A Category King In Business

"The most exciting companies create. They give us new ways of living, thinking, or doing business, many times solving a problem we didn't know we had -- or a problem we didn't pay attention to because we never thought there was another way," explain the four authors of the dynamic new book, Play Bigger . They add that, "the most exciting companies sell us different. They introduce the world to a new category of product or service." And, they become category kings . Examples of category kings are Amazon, Salesforce, Uber and IKEA. Play Bigger is all about the strategy that builds category kings. And, to be a category king you need to be good at category design : Category design is the discipline of creating and developing a new market category, and conditioning the market so it will demand your solution and crown your company as its king. Category design is the opposite of "build it and they will come." Key traits of category design...

Mentoring Tips From The Book, One Minute Mentoring

Fortunately, I've benefited from having great mentors throughout my career. And, I've have the honor and good fortune to be a mentor, both formally and informally, for various individuals the past few decades. Mentoring is powerful. Both being a mentor. And, being mentored. That's why I became an instant fan of the book, One Minute Mentoring: How to Find and Work With a Mentor -- and Why You'll Benefit from Being One . Released this in May, the book presents a fictional parable about the power of finding, or being, a mentor. In what is about a one- to two-hour read, you'll gain knowledge and easy-to-use tools for how to find and leverage mentoring relationships . Ken Blanchard You'll also learn why developing effective communication and relationships across generations through mentoring can be a tremendous opportunity for companies and individuals alike. Bestselling author, Ken Blanchard, Ph.D . teamed up with Claire Diaz-Ortiz ...

10 Disciplines To Help You Stay Sharp And Energetic

The new book, Shine , is a transformative guide that illustrates how looking inward is the key to unlocking true entrepreneurial freedom. Certainly, Shine is a book for entrepreneurs, however, it is bound to benefit any business leader. “Entrepreneurs often have a burning need to succeed. But that same relentless brilliance that propels you in your career can take a toll on your teams, personal relationships, and even your health,” explain author Gino Wickman and coauthor Rob Dube . “Our book will help you strike a crucial balance between those inner and outer worlds while taking your success to new heights.” In Shine , Gino shares 10 disciplines to help you stay sharp and energetic without burning out. The 10 Disciplines teach you how they can lay a foundation that creates space in your busy life for you to consistently and optimally perform and achieve your inner peace. “I have helped tens of thousands of entrepreneurs achieve significant business succ...

How to Be a Leader – 9 Principles from Dale Carnegie

Today, I welcome thought-leader Nathan Magnuson as guest blogger... Nathan writes : This is it, your first day in a formal leadership role. You’ve worked hard as an individual contributor at one or possibly several organizations. Now management has finally seen fit to promote you into a position as one of their own: a supervisor. You don’t care if your new team is only one person or ten, you’re just excited that now – finally – you will be in charge! Unfortunately the euphoria is short-lived. Almost immediately, you are not only overwhelmed with the responsibilities of a team, but you quickly find that your team members are not as experienced or adroit as you. Some aren’t even as committed. You find yourself having to repeat yourself, send their work back for corrections, and staying late to fill the gap. If something doesn’t change soon, you might just run yourself into the ground. How did something that looked so easy ...

70 Simple Rules For Sensational Service

Flavio Martins ' book, Win The Customer , teaches you 70 simple rules for sensational service . "These can be used as a top-down resource in organizations looking to develop or enhance a service culture," explains Martins. "They can also be used as a resource for individuals who want to transform the way service is handled from the ground up, even when lacking the full commitment and support from organization-wide training and change efforts." To deliver sensational customer service, you need to have the right culture . Martin says that the right culture: Inspires -- Culture isn't a mission statement; it's a statement of action. Fosters -- When united in a common goal, people contribute to an environment where everybody willingly comes to work each day and pours their best efforts into doing what they believe will make the greatest difference. Transforms -- When working toward a higher purpose, the right culture has a real, positive effect...

How To Design A Purposeful Organization

"The challenge for the organizational architect is to systematically create the blueprint for an organization that consciously connects everything to purpose ," explains author Clive Wilson , in his book, Designing the Purposeful Organization . "The product of doing this are measurable results and, importantly, a felt sense of success." Wilson's book is packed with case studies and activities that help you put to practice in your organization the learnings from the book. Clive Wilson One of the activities that I found most interesting and revealing is Wilson's " Where Did They All Go and Why? " Think of the household names of just a decade or so ago that are no longer with us, write their names on a sheet of paper, then make brief notes on what happened to them and why. Then, ask yourself, to what extent was it to do with their purpose (e.g. a lack of purpose, an unclear purpose, an uninspiring purpose or purpose being so...

How To Manage Hybrid Meetings

Hybrid meetings are becoming the new norm. Making hybrid meetings work well requires planning, preparation and know-how – skillsets that are different from managing traditional face-to-face meetings. Fortunately, the new book, Suddenly Hybrid: Managing The Modern Meeting , supplies leaders a practical guidebook that clearly outlines what works and what does not work when planning and managing hybrid meetings. “We encourage you to not read the book passively but rather to actively engage with it by using its tools to assess yourself and your organization,” share the authors Karin M. Reed and Joseph A. Allen, PHD . Those tools include checklists and chapter takeaways . Hybrid meetings, the new norm for many companies, are much more complex in terms of how people are connected versus the traditional face-to-face meeting. Hybrid meetings are where some people are in the same room, and some are linked in remotely. Some are face-to-face while others are connected via ...

Six Leadership Actions To Leverage Employees' Differences To Strengthen Teams

The new book, All The Difference: Six Leadership Actions To Bridge Perspectives, Strengthen Teams, and Create Value , teaches how leaders can turn their team's individual differences into deeper trust, greater creativity, and winning results. “The greatest risk of unmanaged difference isn’t conflict: it lies in the ideas, insights, and opportunities that may never surface,” explain the book’s authors, Susan MacKenty Brady , Stuart D. Kliman , and Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Leslie C. Smith . They suggest that you look around your team to fully see people with different communication styles, perspectives, cultural norms, and capabilities. These differences are expressed in all kinds of ways, such as casual gestures in a meeting, a colleague's opinion on a current event, or an intense work style. Often, those differences can lead to friction, even conflict. You may try to manage around them. But, for you and your organization to fully leverage the strengths of your team’s diffe...

How To Lead In An Era When Everything Is Being Displaced

Today, leaders are caught in a cascade of contradictions. The technology that promises unprecedented capability also delivers unprecedented doubt. Artificial Intelligence (AI) makes everything faster, cheaper, and more capable. It also makes the most fundamental question of leadership unavoidable: what are humans actually for? You did not choose this moment. But you are responsible for who you and your organization become in it. In Re-Placed: Answering The Call Of Leadership In The Age Of AI , leadership strategist and CEO Kari Zeller offers something rare in the AI conversation: a leadership book that starts with the human, not the technology. “The arrival of artificial intelligence doesn't have to displace us,” explains Zeller. “But it will, unless we learn to re-place ourselves first—to consciously reposition who we are, how we lead, and where we create value in a world where intelligence is no longer ours alone.” “Being re...

Eric Jacobson On Management And Leadership

Search This Blog