To lead others successfully, look inside first.
Amid the complexity and intensity of the ever-changing world, a human-centered approach to leadership is more important than ever. During a McKinsey Live session, senior partners Dana Maor and Kurt Strovink discussed their newly published book The Journey of Leadership: How CEOs Learn to Lead from the Inside Out, co-written with senior partner Ramesh Srinivasan and senior partner emeritus Hans-Werner Kaas.
To become more effective, leaders must first dig deeply into themselves and take a journey of self-discovery:
- Reflect. Who am I at my core? What motivates me? And what’s no longer working?
- Seek and embrace feedback. Have open conversations emphasizing a high ratio of active listening to talking.
- Learn continuously and intentionally. Developing new skills broadens your reference base and releases creativity.
- Distill your personal purpose. What’s its source? What’s at its core?
- Evolve your personal way of operating. It’s easy to replicate what you’ve always done; it’s hard to change it.
Only then can a leader authentically cultivate and strengthen the personal attributes essential for modern leadership—humility, confidence, selflessness, vulnerability, resilience, and versatility. Leaders with lasting impact use their newfound insights to release their organizations’ full potential, by empowering their people, embedding purpose, instilling empathy, inspiring boldness and inspiration, and encouraging truth telling and fearless learning.
Among the many examples in the book of leaders who used newfound knowledge of themselves to steer their organizations to new heights:
- Former Swiss Life CEO Bruno Pfister decentralized the organization after realizing it was only his own ego stood in the way of making this shift that was in the best interest of all his people and the company’s performance.
- Wendy Kopp, CEO and cofounder of Teach for All, extended her organization’s reach to 60 countries by empowering others to create solutions in new geographies and contexts.
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For more on this topic, see the article “The ‘inside out’ leadership journey: How personal growth creates the path to success.” Watch the author talk about “The transformational approach to leadership,” or listen to the podcast “It’s cool to be kind: The value of empathy at work,” on McKinsey.com.
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