Timeless Principles To Improve Your Management Of Individuals, Teams And Yourself

I read many books about leadership and this new book is one of my favorites. It’s The Psychology of Leadership by Sebastien Page. It offers a fresh take on leadership through the lens of groundbreaking research in positive, sports, and personality psychology.

“Like exercise strengthens your body, practicing positive, sports, and personality psychology will make you a better leader,” says Page.

The book blends research, fascinating true stories, humor, and self-improvement advice to deliver simple yet powerful principles to master the mental game of leadership.

Page reveals timeless strategies for achieving lasting impact, fostering growth, and promoting well-being. He demonstrates how leaders and individuals can balance measurable goals with practical approaches to maximize performance and fulfillment.

“Effective leadership is not merely about achieving measurable outcomes. It requires aligning goals with intrinsic motivations and psychological insights,” explains Page. “Plus, the psychology of leadership requires you to understand yourself so you can understand others. It’s about empathy, leading by example, and personal resilience. You put on your oxygen mask before helping others.”

The book’s three parts are:

Setting Long-Term Goals
Executing Your Goals
Unleashing the Power of Personality Psychology

Within those three parts, Page discusses 18 core principles including:

Don’t Die on Everest – Beware of the side effects of measurable goals.
Don’t Fake It – When you talk about meaning, mean it!
Think About Death – Always work backwards from your goals. Work backwards through a wide range of scenarios and decisions and solve for the optimal course of action.
Sit On It – Learn strategic patience.
Read The Room – Call on introverts. Giving everyone a chance to share the spotlight makes your meetings more productive and keeps everyone mentally alert.
Learn to Love to Worry – Harness the positive side of neuroticism.
Be Disagreeable, Sometimes – Don’t run your business like a democracy.
Eat Your Vegetables – Unleash the power of good habits.

Some of my favorite takeaways from the book include:

High-performing organizations diligently use goals.
Set goals that balance challenge and capability.
As a leader, you must create an environment where people can disagree because there’s enough trust and mutual respect to maintain positive relationships.
Winning at all costs is for losers.
Rally your team against a worthy competitor. Make internal competitive friendly and enjoyable.
Don’t assume all stress is bad. For optimal performance, you shouldn’t eliminate stress.
When things get tough, people look to you as a leader to remind the organization of a brighter long-term outlook.
When it comes to group decision making, let your team speak first. Don’t bias the discussion by stating your opinion too early.

Whether you’re a seasoned executive, an aspiring leader, or someone passionate about human psychology, The Psychology of Leadership is an invaluable guide that challenges conventional wisdom, encourages self-reflection, and provides practical insights to transform leadership from a transactional process into a deeply human endeavor.

Leaders will develop what feels like mind-reading abilities for interpreting workplace personalities, hidden motivations, and group dynamics. They will learn how to inspire their organization to move mountains, improve their ability to listen, communicate and, when necessary, persuade. Along the way they will dramatically improve their own mindset and resilience.

Sebastien Page

Page shares these additional insights with us:

Question: What inspired you to write The Psychology of Leadership?

Page: I wanted to become a better leader and build resilience. I met a sports psychologist, and the story he told me during our first discussion was the spark that started this project. It put me on a path of discovery.

What I learned has been life-changing and worth sharing with the world. I became a better leader at work, acquired wisdom, and developed resilience in all aspects of my life.

Question: Which of the 18 principles from the book do you think people most often overlook?

Page: Most people overlook the pitfalls of measurable goals. In the psychology literature, Mt. Everest deaths are a common case study.

The spring 2023 Everest season was the deadliest in history. If we include five missing climbers presumed dead, the death toll stands at 17. Yet, there were no massive earthquakes or extreme weather events. Experts and Nepali officials blame many factors, including climber errors, inexperienced guides, crowdedness, and climate change. Most Everest deaths aren’t predictable or preventable.

The reality is that climbing Everest is a deadly idea to begin with. If you’ve reached the summit of Everest, I admire and respect you. At the same time, let me ask you: why?

Question: “Leadership” is at once a broad concept and one that’s often siloed in business to refer to management. How do you define it?

Page: Management refers to the formal relationship between and boss and an employee, or a boss and her team.

Leadership is the ability to inspire others, to help them perform at their highest level. It’s the job of the leader to set goals. Leadership requires humility. It requires making tough decisions. Always remember why your company exists in the first place. It doesn’t exist to boost your ego.

Question: What’s one of the most common pitfalls that people encounter when setting goals?

Page: Goal-induced blindness happens when you’re so obsessed with reaching a goal that you don’t see the negative consequences of your actions. You lose sight of the big picture. Mt. Everest deaths are an example of goal-induced blindness cited in the psychology literature. Climbers obsess over the measurable goal of reaching the summit; they sacrifice safety and sometimes die in the process.

There are many other ways in which the focus on outcomes leads to undesirable side effects. Some people decide to bend the rules. Others sacrifice their work-life balance, even their health.

___

Page is Chief Investment Officer and Head of Global Multi-Asset at T. Rowe Price.

He has written two finance books: Beyond Diversification: What Every Investor Needs to Know, and the co-authored Factor Investing and Asset Allocation, and he has won six annual research-paper awards: two from The Financial Analysts Journal and four from The Journal of Portfolio Management. He appears regularly on CNBC and Bloomberg TV, and in 2022 was named a Top Voice in Finance by LinkedIn. He has been quoted extensively in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Barron’s.

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

Comments

A Guide For How To Dream Big And Win In Business

In Dream Big and Win , author Liz Elting shares the lessons she learned ― both the successes and failures ― while building a billion-dollar company from scratch. She explains why you need not only passion and purpose to win big, but also: a willingness to take decisive action grit sweat equity determination positive attitude Elting’s fascinating story began with her entirely self-funded business launch that started in a dorm room. By possessing a disciplined set of principles and focusing on carefully developing her leadership skills throughout the process, she was able to achieve her goal of becoming #1 in the translation market that was already dominated by established competitors. Today, Elting is the Founder and CEO of The Elizabeth Elting Foundation, which creates scholarship opportunities for entrepreneurial young women, funds exciting women-led startups and social businesses, and supports women-led organizations that foster women’s success through educational prog...

Mission Statements Are Not Always About Money

From the book, Light A Fire Under Your Business : A clear and concise mission statement defines, in the simplest terms, your organization's core reason for being, and it had better not be all about money. Money is definitely important to most of society, and it is a motivator. But many people aspire to be part of something more meaningful than just a paycheck. They want a paycheck that is also connected to a culture that offers greater intrinsic values.

How To Be An Impact Player In The Workplace

Within the workplace there are Contributors and Impact Players – each representing a distinct way of working – the first leads to a job well done while the other carves a path to true leadership and generates immense value. More specifically, Liz Wiseman , author of the new book, Impact Players , explains that: While others do their job, Impact Players figure out the real job to be done. While others wait for direction, Impact Players step up and lead. While others escalate problems, Impact Players move things across the finish line. While others attempt to minimize change, Impact Players are learning and adapting to change. While others add to the load, Impact Players make heavy demands feel lighter. “ Impact Players is written for aspiring leaders, striving professionals who want to be more successful at work, increase their influence, and multiply their impact,” explains Wiseman. “It is also a book for today’s leaders, those managers who want t...

Nelson Mandela Leadership Quotes

Here are my favorite Nelson Mandela leadership quotes: "Lead from the back--and let others believe they are in front." "The greatest glory in living lies not in never failing, but in rising every time we fall." "It always seems impossible until it's done." "I like friends who have independent minds because they tend to make you see problems from all angles." "I've learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear." "Do not judge me by my successes, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again."

Full Engagement By Brian Tracy

Best-selling author Brian Tracy's book, Full Engagement , provides practical advice for how to inspire your employees to perform at their absolute best. He explains that above nearly every measure, employees' most powerful single motivator is the "desire to be happy." So, Tracy teaches you how to make your employees happy by: Organizing their work from the first step in the hiring process through the final step in their departure from your company so they are happy with you, their work, their coworkers, as well as in their interactions with your customers, suppliers and vendors. Full Engagement includes these chapters and topics: The Psychology of Motivation Ignite the Flame of Personal Performance Make People Feel Important Drive Out Fear Create That Winning Feeling Select The Right People Internal Versus External Motivation At a minimum, Tracy suggests that managers do the following when managing their employees : Smile Ask questions Listen ...

Thanks HCI For Naming This Blog In Your Best Blogs - Talent 2011

A big thanks to Human Capital Institute (HCI) for including my blog on management and leadership in its list of the Best Blogs - Talent 2011. HCI is a global association for talent management and new economy leadership, and a clearinghouse for best practices and new ideas. Its network of expert practitioners, Fortune 1000 and Global 2000 corporations, government agencies, global consultants and business schools contribute a stream of constantly-evolving information, the best of which is organized, analyzed and shared with members through HCI communities, research, education and events.

Job Descriptions Should All Fit Together Logically And Strategically

Whether you have one or many employees, be sure each has a current and accurate job description . A job description is a written document that should include the: employee's duties employee's responsibilities outcomes needed from that position. It should also include the required qualifications and reporting relationship. If your employee has a poorly written job description, or one that is out-of-date, it will lead to confusion and misunderstandings. Once you have a job description for each employee, you'll be able to ensure the descriptions all fit together logically and leave no holes in the duties that need to be assigned. Check your job descriptions at least yearly to be sure they reflect the employee's proper title and current duties. Very often employees get new job titles or are assigned new tasks mid-year, and those don't get reflected in their job descriptions. Don't let that happen. Finally, if you don't have access to a Human ...

Three Quick Tips For How Best To Explain Change

When you communicate change to your team, explain the logical and the rational reasons for the change: 1. Explain how the change will make employees feel before, during and after the implementation. 2. Explain the tactical plan and goals . 3. Answer questions from your team.

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...

Seven Ways To Stay Motivated

To learn how to stay motivated, read High-Profit Prospecting , by Mark Hunter . It's a powerful read that includes counter intuitive advice and cutting-edge best practices for sales prospecting in today's business world. Today, I share one of my favorite sections of the book where Hunter describes his seven things motivated people do to stay motivated : Motivated people ignore voices in their lives . These might be people in the office and friends who have bad attitudes. They're out there, and if you're not careful, they'll control you, too. Motivated people associate with highly motivated people . Just as there are negative people in the world, there are also positive people. Your job is to make sure you spend as much time with the positive people as possible. Motivated people simply look for the positive in things . Positive people count it an honor to live each day, learn from others, and impact positively those they meet. Positive people take great satisfaction...

Eric Jacobson On Management And Leadership

Search This Blog