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

Seven Ways To Be A Collaborative Leader

Edward M. Marshall 's book, Transforming The Way We Work -- The Power Of The Collaborative Workplace , remains relevant today, more than a decade after Marshall wrote it. Particularly useful is the book's section that teaches readers how to be a collaborative leader. Marshall says that there are seven different, important roles and responsibilities of collaborative leaders when leading teams , and those leaders should select the appropriate style to meet the team's needs. The seven roles are : The leader as sponsor -- You provide strategic direction, boundaries and coaching for the team. You also monitor progress and ensure integrity in the team's operating processes. The leader as facilitator -- You ensure that meetings, team dynamics, and interpersonal relationships function effectively. You also ensure internal coordination of activities among team members. The leader as coach -- You provide support and guidance and you serve as a sounding board. The lea...

More Leadership Quotes From John C. Maxwell

The real gems in John C. Maxwell's book, Everyone Communicates Few Connect , book are the abundant leadership and communication quotes, such as these: To add value to others, one must first value others. People may hear your words, but they feel your attitude. All good communicators get to the point before their listeners start asking, "What's the point?" The first time you say something, it's heard. The second time, it's recognized, and the third time it's learned. In the end, people are persuaded not by what we say, but by what they understand. People pay attention when something that is said connects with something they greatly desire. Maxwell also says that: Management is about persuading people to do things they do not want to do, while leadership is about inspiring people to do things they never thought they could . The book covers five principles and five practices to help readers so they can connect one-on-one, in a group, or...

Six-pillar Roadmap For How To Move From Merely Surviving To Truly Mattering

In the new book, The Mattering Effect: Creating A Life Of Meaning And Worth , podcaster and author John R. Miles reframes today’s most common struggles and empowers individuals and institutions alike to break bad habits and reclaim a sense of worth and belonging. “Organizations have spent the last decade chasing 'engagement' and 'psychological safety,' yet global productivity is stalling and 60% of employees report they do not feel valued in the places where they spend their days,” shares Miles. He calls this “The Great Erasure”—a condition where high-achievers become highly visible to the organization while becoming invisible to themselves. In addition, Miles argues that many of today’s most common struggles—burnout, anxiety, loneliness, and disengagement—are not personal failures or mindset problems. They are the result of unmattering: the gradual erosion of felt significance within modern systems that reward performance while overlooking presence. Fortu...

Questions You'll Likely Be Asked At Your Next Job Interview

Many Human Resource (HR) managers have moved away from questions like "What's your weakness?" and prefer behavior-based questions , which ask you to: describe how you handled specific situations at your former jobs If you are about to interview for your next leadership position, be prepared for questions like these (from an article in Reader's Digest ): Tell me about a time when your integrity was challenged . What was the situation, and what did you do? Tell me about a time you had to work with someone you did not personally like . If you could come to work with only three tools to get your job done, what would they be ? What personal and professional development have you been engaged in outside the workplace over the past year? Describe your Outlook calendar on a typical day

High-Performing Teams Are Made Of This

According to Ron Ricci and Carl Wiese, authors of the book, The Collaboration Imperative , high-performing teams have the following characteristics: People have solid and deep trust in each other and in the team's purpose--they feel free to express feelings and ideas. Everybody is working toward the same goals. Team members are clear on how to work together and how to accomplish tasks. Everyone understands both team and individual performance goals and knows what is expected. Team members actively diffuse tension and friction in a relaxed and informal atmosphere. The team engages in extensive discussion, and everyone gets a chance to contribute--even the introverts. Disagreement is viewed as a good thing and conflicts are managed. Criticism is constructive and is oriented toward problem solving and removing obstacles. The team makes decisions when there is natural agreement--in the cases where agreement is elusive, a decision is made by the team lead or executiv...

Decide

Many years ago, I worked with a person who could not make decisions. Neither big nor small decisions. That indecisiveness paralyzed our business in many ways. Unfortunately, the book, Decide: Work Smarter, Reduce Your Stress, and Lead by Example , had not been published. Had it, I would have shared it with my co-worker. Decide , published this past February, teaches readers how to make better decisions based on the real results they want to experience. The author, Steve McClatchy, explains how to use the two forms of human motivation -- Gain, or Prevent Pain , to make more effective decisions. For example, he demonstrates how inserting a Gain task in the middle of a Prevent Pain day can give you the energy you need to move forward and make the Prevent Pain tasks take less time through motivation. Deeper into the book, you'll be reminded about not only the problems with procrastination, but also about the benefits of procrastination, and, if you are ...

5 Compelling Benefits Of Having An Ethical Culture

In Andrew Leigh's book, Ethical Leadership , he provides these compelling and important benefits of having an ethical culture in your business/organization: Customers prefer dealing with companies who put ethics at the center of their culture. Most employees would prefer to earn less working for an ethical company than being paid more and working for an unethical company. More than one in three people at work say they've left a job because they've disagreed with the company's ethical standards ( Trevino, L and Nelson, K - 2011 ) If you adopt an early warning system against misconduct it reduces the risk of you facing expensive litigation. An ethical culture helps you make your company a strong affirming place to work in. "The foundations of an ethical culture include values, attitudes, meaning, behaviors, purpose, and management practices," explains Leigh.

Make It Easy For Your Employees To Volunteer

Start planning now for this year's National Volunteer Week, April 15-21 . That's the week when nonprofit organizations throughout the U.S. will celebrate and honor their volunteers. If you are not already volunteering, what a great time to start. Make a commitment to yourself to start volunteering before that week starts! And, if you are a workplace leader who supports a volunteer program at your business, you already know that by encouraging employees to give back to your community you are: building teamwork motivating employees attracting new hires In fact, job seekers much prefer companies that have a strong volunteer program. And, a growing number of businesses are rewarding employees who volunteer by giving them extra vacation time and other incentives. Fortunately, throughout the U.S. there are hundreds of volunteer opportunities where employees can contribute individually, or where leaders can organize teams of employees to volunteer together on a routin...

Coherence: The Secret Science Of Brilliant Leadership

Coherence: The Secret Science of Brilliant Leadership is the new book by author Dr. Alan Watkins . Trained as a medical doctor, Watkins is now an honorary senior lecturer in neuroscience and psychological medicine at Imperial College, London and an affiliate professor of leadership at the European School of Management, London. According to Watkins, coherence is the biological state achieved when elite performers experience maximum efficiency and super effectiveness, where body and mind are one . Coherence provides one of the most unique approaches to showing leaders how to be younger, smarter, healthier and happier -- which gives them the power to make decisions under pressure and achieve sustainable success. Prepare to spend quality time reading Coherence . It's not light reading. Kind of feels like a medical text book in parts. But, it's worth your commitment to it. I particularly found useful Watkin's discussion on culture , where he w...

Good Coach Versus Bad Coach

Former Verizon Wireless CEO, Denny F. Strigl offers these tips for how to be a good coach to an employee. He explains that good coaches help performers by : Keeping them focused. Giving them objective, helpful feedback. Acting as a sounding board for new approaches. Identifying blind spots that may be holding the performer back. Reinforcing key values, principles, and behaviors that improve performance. Recognizing positive behavior and performance. Providing encouragement after setbacks and failures Setting "stretch" goals. Acting as an accountability partner. Strigl believes that some managers fail in their coaching roles because they : View coaching as babysitting. See coaching as only correcting performance. Don't spend enough time with their employees. Are reluctant to criticize. Have social relationships with their employees. Have a "sink-or-swim" philosophy. Believe coaching is not helpful or meaningful. "Coaching may...

Eric Jacobson On Management And Leadership

Search This Blog