June 11, 2025 • 33 mins
How can lessons from sports and psychology transform the way we lead, especially when the pressure is on? Kevin is joined by Sebastien Page to explore how high-performance mindsets from sports apply to leadership. They discuss how goal-induced blindness, where an intense focus on achieving goals can obscure ethical or practical considerations, impacts leaders and organizations. Sebastien shares how strong relationships, not fame or fortune, are the most significant predictors of long-term happiness and fulfillment. The episode also highlights a few of the eighteen principles from the book, including: Don’t Die on Everest – The dangers of goal-induced blindness. Think About Death – Why zooming out to the end of your life can sharpen your focus today.
Listen For
00:00 Introduction: Leadership and Self-Awareness
01:03 Book Promo: Flexible Leadership
01:57 Guest Introduction: Sebastien Page
03:21 Opening Banter and Book Discussion Kickoff
03:54 Sebastien’s Journey from Finance to Leadership Psychology
05:34 Key Insight: Sports Psychology Isn’t About Winning
07:13 Federer’s 54% Win Rate and the Power of Marginal Gains
08:04 Not a Book About Sports but About Resilience
09:19 Why Positive and Personality Psychology Matter
10:05 The Gummy Bear Story: Ethics vs. Goals
13:18 Positive Psychology’s Key Finding: Relationships Matter Most
14:36 Goals, Leadership, and Broader Impact
17:17 Principle 1: Don’t Die on Everest
20:19 How to Recognize and Avoid Goal-Induced Blindness
24:07 Principle 11: Think About Death
26:01 Stephen Covey’s Influence and the Book Title Journey
27:21 Applying These Ideas to Your Team
28:24 Counterintuitive Leadership Lessons
29:59 Fun and Reading: Running and Billionaire Biographies
31:29 Where to Connect with Sebastien
32:13 Kevin’s Final Question: Now What
32:55 Wrap-Up: Climbing Everest or Not
Sébastien's Story: Sébastien Page is the author of The Psychology of Leadership: Timeless principles to improve your management of individuals, teams… and yourself! Head of Global Multi-Asset and Chief Investment Officer at T. Rowe Price. He has more than two decades of leadership experience and has done extensive research on positive, sports, and personality psychology. He currently oversees a team of investment professionals actively managing over $500 billion in Assets Under Management. He has also 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. Sébastien lives in Maryland with his wife and kids.
This Episode is brought to you by...
Flexible Leadership is every leader’s guide to greater success in a world of increasing complexity and chaos.
Book Recommendations
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:08):
Leadership isn't really
about us as the leader,and yet who we are as the leader plays
a huge role in our ultimate successor failure as a leader.
In other words, if we want to bea better leader who serves outcomes
and others effectively,we must work on ourselves too.
And that is what we're talking abouttoday, ourselves as leaders,
(00:32):
and what we can learn from psychologyto help us understand
ourselves betterand then ultimately lead better.
Welcome to another episode
of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast,where we are helping leaders like you
grow personally and professionally to leadmore effectively and make a bigger,
positive difference for their teams,organizations and the world.
(00:52):
If you are listening to this podcast,you could be with us live
in the futureon your favorite social platform.
You can find outwhen those episodes will happen.
And so you can therefore join us byjoining us on our Facebook
or LinkedIn groups, two of the placeswhere we simulcast these live events.
(01:13):
You can just go to remarkablepodcast.com/facebook
or remarkable podcast.com/linkedin
to learn more, get connectedand find out when will be live.
Today's episode is brought to youby my latest book, Flexible Leadership.
Navigate uncertaintyand lead with confidence.
It's timeto realize that styles can get in our way,
(01:34):
and that following our strengthsmight not always be the best approach
in a worldmore complex and uncertain than ever.
Leaders need a new perspectiveand a set of tools
to create great resultsfor their organizations and team members.
That's what flexible leadershipprovide you.
Learn more and orderyour copy now at remarkable
podcast.com/flexible.
(01:57):
And with that, it'stime for me to bring in our guest.
Let me pull him up here and thenI will appropriately introduce him.
And then we'll dive in.
I guess today is Sebastian Page.
He is the head of global Multi-Asset
and the chief investment officerat T Rowe Price.
He has more than two decadesof leadership experience and has done
(02:19):
extensive research on positive sportsand personality psychology.
He currently oversees a team of investmentprofessionals actively managing over
500 billion in assets under management.
He has written two finance books,Beyond Diversification What Every Investor
Needs to Know, and then coauthored FactorInvesting and Asset Asset Allocation.
(02:41):
He's won six annual Research award paperpaper awards.
He has appeared regularly on CNBC, andhe was on Bloomberg TV again this morning.
And in 2022 was nameda top voice in finance by LinkedIn.
He has been quotedextensively in The New York Times,
Wall Street Journal and Barron's.
His latest book, and the reason he's here
(03:03):
is not to talk about beyonddiversification or factor investing.
But his new book,The Psychology of Leadership.
It is the focus of our conversation.
He's joining me today.
I'm sure probably from his office.
But he lives in Marylandwith his wife and children.
Sebastian,so glad to have you with me this morning.
Kevin I'm super excited.
(03:23):
First of all, I love doing podcasts.
And second, you just held the bookand you had all these post-it notes.
That means you're going to havea really good discussion.
Or these are all the things I didn't agreewith.
No, that's not true. Okay.
I'm teasing.
I am totally teasing.
I am excited to have you.
I love the book. And,
(03:45):
you know, there are some folksthat have recommended it
that that apparently, you know, and thatI know as well, which is fantastic.
And, so let's just dive in.
You've written you'reyou're in the finance world.
You've written booksabout the finance world.
And so now this so
the intro says, well, yes, you're in thefinance world, but you're also a leader.
(04:08):
But why?
What what's what leads you here? Like why?
What's your journey to this bookand specifically why this book?
Kevin, I was, struggling
with some job related stress at the time,
and I decided
to look into sports psychology.
(04:29):
I met with a sports psychologistwho lives here in Maryland.
His name is Doctor Daniel Zammit.
He's a fascinating guy.
In additionto being a sports psychologist.
He also has 40 holds 40
national titles in the sport of handball.
I think he was only 38.
And when you wrote a book,I think I read 30.
(04:52):
It keeps winning.
And so this is like it looks like squash,but you're hitting the ball
with your hands.
So this is sports psychologistwho's figured out
the mental gameof high performance in practice.
So we sit down and he tells methe story of his best match ever.
And it's fascinatingbecause it was like ten years ago.
(05:13):
He remembers every point in the match.
He remembers where the ball was, atwhat time he remembers.
He's got like a tear in his eyes.
I was on my kneesand I make an extreme shot.
And then the play by play,
and then it's a complete letdown
because he goes, oh,and then I lost the next two points.
(05:34):
I go, wait, wait, timeout.
You lost the game.
And he goes, absolutely, I lost the game.
But to him,
it had nothing to do with how happy he wasabout
that match in the mindset of a sportspsychologist.
He was playing a much stronger opponent.
(05:54):
And that day he realizedhe belonged in another league.
In the game,he had gone through a step change
in his skills and the win or the loss.
It meant nothing to him.
And so I start thinkingabout this mindset, and we started talking
and he became a consultant for the book,and he helped me with the research
(06:15):
and some ideas.
But just that mindset of sportspsychology.
And by the way, so many linksthat are unexplored between sports
psychology and business leadership,but also with investment and investing.
So there's there's a lot of thatin the psychology of leadership.
And we'll get to some of that.
Oh, by the way, to finish the story.
(06:37):
None of the championships were wonuntil after.
That's right. Right.
That's right. A component of that.
I mean.
Getting look, Kevin,like I talk about this
in the book, Federer went viralmaybe a year ago.
I don't know if you caught this.
He was speaking to studentswho are graduating a commencement,
(06:58):
and he said, okay, we're right here.
Yeah.
Was it one of the post-its?
Oh, I see, it was underlined.
Yeah. So so Federer goes.
I've played 1500 games in my career
and I've won about 80% of them,so that makes sense.
One of the top tennis players of all time.
But then he looks at the studentsand he says,
(07:18):
guessthe percentage of points that I've won.
And the answer is 54%, which is just
the slight edge repeated over time.
Consistently.
But then he went on to say, whatever gameyou play in life, you're going to lose.
So my journey for this book was
I was stressed out about job stress,
(07:41):
and I just wanted to learn to embrace it
and maximize performance around job stressand how to handle it.
So sports psychologybecame super interesting, in that context.
And then I expanded into positivepsychology
as well as personality psychology,which is a lot of fun.
(08:04):
So yeah, we can talk aboutI want to talk a little bit more about
why you ended up with the three,but I want to say something first.
For me, I always I mean, I'm a sports fan.
And so those kinds of stories intrigued me
and I know intrigued manybut don't but turn some people off.
So what I want to say first
(08:25):
is that while there are all sortsof great insights in this book
from the world of sports and sportspsychology, that's not what this book is.
And so if you're listeningand saying, wow,
Kevin, I'll listen next week,
because you won't have a sports guy on.
I would say no,
(08:46):
that this is not a book that leans so farthere as to be the.
Nor will this conversation lean so far.
There has to be a turn off to those of youthat aren't sports fans
and would rather, you know, do anythingthan watch the Super Bowl, for example.
It's not a book about, it'snot a book about.
It's not a book about sports.
All about resilience, mental resilience.
(09:07):
Sports psychology is fascinatingbecause it's not about winning.
It's about losing.
And what you do with the setbacksand the losses that applies to your entire
life, your professional life,your leadership and more.
100%. So.
So why you sort of told us how
sports psychologybecame a part of your thinking,
which led to the book,but why the other two?
(09:28):
Why positive psychologyand personality psychology?
How do they inform the bookand why are they important
in this conversation?
Excuse me?
I start to think about long term goals.
And when you think about long term goals,
the longer termyou think, the longer your time horizon
and the closeryou get to positive psychology questions.
(09:52):
What makes people thrive over time?
What makes leaders and organizations
thrive over the very long run?
But Kevin, for goals,let me tell you another story.
My friendPhil sold his cryptocurrency business
for $1 billion,and he gave all of it to charity.
(10:16):
You remember this from the book itself?
And, that morning,when he decided to give all of it
away,he was eating his cereal in his kitchen.
An angel appeared to him.
So this is where I disclosedthis is a made up story.
Yeah, I'm reading the first part.
I'm like,oh, this is good. And then. Yeah, yeah.
All right. Go ahead.
(10:36):
So the angel goes, look, I'mgoing to give you
one of three gifts.
I can give you infinite power.
I can give you infinite fame,
or I can give you
infinite wisdom, or I actually.
And then he offered absolute wealth.
(10:59):
Like, I can give you justwhatever you want in terms of money
for your entire life.
And so my friend chose wisdom.
And as you would expect,
first time in human historythat someone has absolute wisdom.
Cameras flashing, journalists convene.
What will the personwith absolute wisdom say?
It's the first time in human historythis happens and the story goes, he said.
(11:24):
I should have taken the money. Money?
I should have it. Yeah.
I literally laughed out loud.
When I and you know,this is tongue in cheek, but it's to help
my readers reflect on positive psychologyand long term goals.
I asked a group of studentsI was presenting on stage a couple
weeks ago to about a thousand students,and there were
(11:44):
maybe, Kevin Gen Z, right.
So universitystudents roughly. And I said,
how many of you would
take a gummy, a gummy bear
out of a jar of 100 gummy bears,
knowing that four of them are poison or
(12:06):
and are going to kill you?
And, I said,
if I gave you $1 million, would you do it?
Just for the record, Kevin,you wouldn't do it right?
Yeah, I don't like.
So this is aI also. Know where this is headed.
So it's a. Way to framepositive psychology.
But what wasI was genuinely taken aback on stage
(12:27):
by the number of hands that went up.
I would I would I would picka gummy out of 100, knowing that
for our poison, for $1 million,I got maybe
15% of the audience, maybe 20.
And so to me,that speaks to what I call goal
induced blindness, where you have a goal,it's measurable, right?
(12:48):
You want to be wealthy,you want that amount,
and you sacrifice your well-being.
You take on unreasonable risks,or even you start cheating.
Sacrifice your sense of ethics.
So positive psychology will show
that over time, real
people's happiness, ability to thrive
(13:08):
is driven by one single factor
more than wealth, fame, wisdom.
That's why the angel story, right?
Which one would you pick?
And that is the quality of people'srelationships in their lives.
And that's been studied over 80 years.
It's one of the most fascinating studiesI talk about in the book,
(13:32):
because it's been going onfor several generations.
And the findingsare all about positive psychology.
What makes people thrive over time.
And so it's the qualityof their relationship.
And in the book, I also talkabout other factors of positive psychology
and how they relate to businessand setting goals and managing people.
(13:53):
Those are engagement, meaningwe talk a lot about the why.
It's kind of a buzzwordand, long term accomplishments.
So I discovered that positive psychology
has a ton of applicationsto business and leadership.
100%. So,
(14:14):
that for that for gummy
story, leadsto one of the 18 principles in the book.
And we're going to get to those injust a second.
But as, you mentioned to me before,we went on camera
or I guess beforewe, I hit the like button,
that,
you know, you mentioned that there's,quite a bit in the book
about goals, and it's actuallyone of the things that I had in my notes.
(14:37):
And so
it's a book about leadership.
It's a bookabout the psychology of leadership.
And so
why why is why is things related to goals.
Our relationshipsto goals are thinking about goals
such a huge part of the book.
(14:57):
Why did you make that choice specifically?
Two things Gavin.
The number one job of the leaderis to set the goals.
Because if as a leader,you don't set the goals, who will?
Second?
And this is gonna sound like I'mselling my book, but I truly believe it.
(15:19):
We're all leaders in one aspector the other of our lives. It's
not about managing.
It's not just about managing people insidea corporation.
It's about your family.
And different people in the familywill express leadership over time.
It's about your community.It's about your church.
(15:39):
So again, I'm conscious, like I'mmaybe I'm trying to broaden the audience.
I do think anyone can benefitfrom better leadership
in their own lives, even if they don'thave people reporting to them.
And so that's the second thing whyit's so important to think about goals.
Leaders set goals.
If you don't, who will, who will?
And second, we all we're all leadersin some aspects of our lives.
(16:03):
Yeah, I often
I often talk about capital L leadersare those people that have a job title.
Right.
Have a responsibility which is sort of the
the main focus or what we would think ofwhen we think of a book like this.
But but all of us in all sorts of
our parts of our lives are smalll leaders, right?
Even at work, if we're on the teamand not leading the team
(16:25):
and all those sorts of things,because we are leading
when people choose to follow and people,some people are choosing to follow us
on a regular on a regular basis,maybe more than we even realize.
That's so well said, right?
You might not be managing the team,but people take their cue
from how you're behaving,how you're performing and.
What's good or L by the way, everybody.
What for goodor ill or whether you want it or not,
(16:47):
you find yourself being a leader.
Yeah.
And having clarity on goalsis key to effective leadership.
And of the 18 principles, there are some
that are very much about goals.
And one of them,and I've highlighted a couple.
I know there are a couple
that you wanted us to talk about,and I've highlighted a couple others
that I thought would be usefulfor us to talk about.
(17:09):
Hopefully we can get to all of those,not to all 18 everybody, but
but you also, wrotesome of them in ways that are intriguing.
And so you might be a finance guy,but you got a little marketing
blood in you, my friend.
So the first one. That it's a compliment.
I'm. It's meant as one, I promise you.
Principle number one,you say don't die on Everest.
(17:31):
And I put the question mark on there.
Like, seriously,what are you talking about here?
It's an extension of your gummybear story.
So what do you mean?
That we shouldn't die on that?
We ought to be carefulnot to die on Everest.
It's about goal induced blindness.
The number one example in the literature,
in psychology of goalinduced blindness are Everest.
That's my gummy example,where you have a 4% chance of dying
(17:56):
matches the probability that you'll die
if you want to summit Everestbased on historical data.
So it's the prime example in the research
and psychology of goal induced blindness.
But there are plenty of other examples.
I had goal induced blindnessat the beginning of my career
(18:17):
because I wasn't taking care of my health.
I was working nonstop around the globe,I was traveling,
I was jetlagged,I just wasn't taking care of myself.
That's a form of goal induced blindness.
Another one is just losing your wayin terms of ethics and cheating.
That's a prime example,one of the best example examples of goal
(18:41):
induced blindness.
And you know, Kevin,this happens in business like blue chip.
Like really good companies.
Volkswagen somehow decided they should
actually fudge their emission numbers.
WellsFargo started creating dummy accounts
just to show more accounts opened.
(19:02):
That was the goal that they looked at.Right.
And the measurable goalsare particularly potent in that.
So let me stop you right there,because I think everyone who's listening,
if you remember that, either one of those.
But if you remember the Wells Fargo thing,everyone who wasn't
there would say, like, seriously, peopleare actually opening dummy accounts.
And I think that's the pointthat we become blinded by it.
(19:23):
And the thing that struck meand I've certainly read,
a lot about thethe research around Everest and all that.
But the thing that you wrote thatif I read before
I had forgotten, I don't know how I couldhave you talk about people.
You know, there's a death zone.
There's this area in which wheremost of those deaths that occur occur.
(19:44):
And so you're talking about people likeliterally walking over dead people now.
Yeah.
I don't know if they're actuallyvisible or not, but the, the,
the metaphorical power of thatis was incredible to me.
But the point isthat when the goal becomes so,
we are so laser focused on it, whetherit's getting to the top of the mountain
(20:04):
or whether it's having making the number,if you're Wells Fargo, we
we it seems obvious tosomeone who's not there.
But when you're in at that momentof blindness, it is really powerful.
So what do we needto be knowing about that to
overcome that?
Because none of usare probably going to climb Everest.
If you have climbed Everest, let me know.
(20:25):
I want to have you on the show.
But I mean, that'snot what any of us have done. Likely.
So what do we need to take from that?
So, you know, at the end of the chapter,don't die on Everest.
I always have at the end of eachprinciple, a little sort of quirky
conclusion, just to keep my readersgoing in the psychology of leadership.
(20:47):
And at the end of that one,I go, if you ever think about
climbing Everest just because it's thereor some other reason,
here's the most useful adviceyou'll get in this entire book.
Don't.
So my wife was reading my bookand tried to help with editing
and she said, okay, thisthis is this is good.
(21:07):
So the goal in doing blindness,first of all,
you have to realize thatit's a side effect of something
that's important for success,which is measurable goals.
I'm not here, Kevin.
Telling everybody abandonedgoals, abandoned measurable goals.
They're there.
Reasons whyyou might want to abandon goals for sure.
(21:29):
But if you're running a business,you got to measure things.
You want to compete,
you want to have aggressive goalsand you want to go after them.
And that includes for peoplemaking more money, go ahead.
That's not a bad goalin on its on its own.
So I just want to clarify that.
Give that put that caveat in place,because I don't want
the two of us to sound like, okay,just just don't have ambition, right?
(21:52):
Or don't care about money. That's trite.
However, where I go in the bookis there's an optimal point,
and there's a point beyond whichyou become so obsessed with your goal
that you will suffer from goalinduced blindness.
Now, your question was,what do you do about it?
First of all, what are the most underratedskills in leadership?
(22:12):
Is the ability to quit.
Know when to quit.
That's a skill you can build.
Annie Duke as she waskind enough to endorse my book.
She's got a fantastic bookjust about quitting and how it's
one of the most underrated skillsin life in poker, because she was former
professional poker player and in businesswhen to fault
(22:35):
someone, the world
record for, Everest summits is like 30.
And those that do that, that can gorepeatedly,
somewhat safely because a lot of the debtsare actually unpredictable,
no matter how good you are.
But those that maximize safety,they have that skill.
They know exactly when to quit,when to turn back.
(22:57):
It developed, developed that skill.
And one of the best ways to developthat skill
is that whatever happened before
is almost irrelevant.
It's a sunk cost.
It's almost irrelevant to your decision
whether or not to continue,whether it's a project or an endeavors.
I've invested so much in this,and it can be a relationship to.
(23:21):
Yeah, but you're miserable,so look forward, not backward,
and then evaluate your decision.
So those are all skills that I helpreaders develop in the psychology
of leadership,that help mitigate goal induced blindness.
You also want to have measure.
You want to know when it's, creeping in.
(23:41):
Right.
So customer complaints or just you wantto have your radars out to capture it.
So you remove the blinders.
If you and I would saywe want the radar to coming,
we're not just from ourselvesbecause it's very easy to be self blinded,
but to have whether it's customers,whether it's our the rest of our team,
whatever,
and figure those things out along the wayso that we don't find ourselves so singly
(24:04):
sing clearly focused thatthose other problems start to show up.
I'm looking at the clock,and there's no way
we're going into all the stuffthat I wanted to talk about.
Which does this chart.We should do another one.
Which doesn't surprise me, at all.
I want to I want to talk about, number 11,
which you suggest not only
(24:26):
don't die on Everest,but that, we should think about death.
So let'sbecause this is also goal related.
And so I'd like us to talk about thisone for a second.
What's the principle here?
Why does it matter to us?
Imaginethat you're at the end of your life.
Ask yourself if you reflect back,
(24:48):
what will you be most proud of?
And if you're asked, what will you answer?
You know which factorsdrove your happiness.
And this is what the research shows.
It's a lot more about relationshipswith people around you
than money or fame or anything else.
(25:09):
And so think about deathis kind of morbid,
but it's a philosophical concept of
completely zooming out on your life.
And that is, Kevin,an incredibly positive thing to do
because you gain perspective.
It makes you more resilient to the day
(25:29):
to day ups and downs,to the day to day setbacks.
And that's where I was most of my career.
Overreacting to the day today.
But if you say I have a lifelong mission,it brings meaning into your life.
Stephen Covey has one of theI think it might be the best
selling book on self-improvement
(25:50):
of all time, The Seven Principlesof Highly Successful People.
One of his principles is beginwith the end in mind, and he pushes it
like, just what do you want to reflect onat the end of your life?
And then he walks back and goes,
let that guide your valuesand your day to day decisions.
So it's incredibly powerful,and it's one of those things that has been
(26:13):
in the literature, in philosophyand in psychology for thousands of years.
One thing that said about Stephen Coveyis he wrote about stuff that had that
that had been around forever,
but he wrote it in a wayand gave us a new handle for it,
which made it extremely valuable,which is one of the reasons,
if not the one of the most, read books
(26:35):
purchasedand read books on self-improvement ever.
I'll tell you.
I'll tell you, Kevin,I one of it's very hard.
I don't know about your experience.
It's very hardto find the right title for a book.
Did you did you,I don't know if you share that experience,
but for me, it was like,oh, this one, that one.
And then my agent and andand at some point it was, the end in mind.
(26:58):
Yeah.
That was before I really get wherewe're really trying to go.
Yeah, absolutely.
So, there's 18 principles.
We've really only talked about two.
And that's really all at this pointwe have time to talk about.
But I want to askanother important question.
So when we were talkingwith Sebastian Page,
the author of Psychology of Leadership,and we'll tell you all about how
(27:18):
to get a copy,I mean, you know, how to go to Amazon,
but we'll talk about thata little bit more in a minute.
And that will be in the show notesand all those things.
But one of the things that I want usto talk about, I in the open,
I said this book in many ways is about usas a leader and that leadership.
But yet leadership isn't really about us.
What advice would you have for someoneif they were,
(27:39):
if they were working to applysome of the principles in the book?
How can they use that wisdom
to help their teams?
What advice do you have for usnow, putting our leader hat back on,
and how do we help our teamswith some of these ideas?
There's several
(28:00):
counter-intuitive findingsin the psychology of leadership,
and they all relate to helping your teamperform best.
You're right, Kevin,realize it's not about you.
It's about how you can foster a cultureof high performance
and develop others within the team.
But some of the counterintuitive findingsin the book
(28:21):
are, for example, we all think leadersneed to be fantastic communicators.
Well,the higher you go in your organization,
the more you need to be a listener,not a talker, a listener.
And that's a little bit counterintuitive.
It was for me as I was climbing upthe corporate ladder, are we think
leaders need to be decisiveand make quick decisions all the time.
(28:45):
Well, some of the best leaders I've knownknew which decisions were urgent
and which decisions actually requiredsome level of strategic patience,
which is much harder and counterintuitivefor hard charging leaders.
We think leaders need to be unflappableand not feel stress.
Absolutely not.
Sports psychology will tell you
that optimal performancedoes not occur at zero stress.
(29:08):
In other words, stress increasesperformance up
to a point,after which it hurts performance.
But so leaders have to embrace that
in their organization, with peoplethey work with and for themselves.
And then we all thinkleaders need to build consensus right?
But very often leaders need to bedisagreeable and make a tough decision.
(29:30):
And for extremely agreeableleaders, that can be difficult.
You're really not a leaderif you can't make the tough decision.
That's going to make some people unhappyat some point in time.
Principle 15right there by everybody, by the way.
So listen,I want us to to start to wrap up,
I've got a couple of sort of questionswhich, which might on the surface seem,
(29:52):
different than where we've gone so far.
But I'm curious.
Sebastian, what do you do for fun?
I love to run.
I'm a runner. I talk about it in the book.
I actually have a runner on the on the
in the front of the book,
which relates to sports psychologya little bit.
(30:15):
Running is, Kevin an intrinsic motivation?
Right?
You go outrunning, it's dark and no one cares.
No one's watching you.
You're not impressing anybody at the beachwith skinny arms or a low heart rate.
So to me, it's a great activityfor relaxing.
And by the way, it can be social too.
I run with peoplemore than 50% of the time.
(30:37):
I'm out with other runners.
And what do youwhat are you reading these days?
Sebastian I just finished a book,The Gambling Man by.
It's about my associate, Masayoshi Son.
The CEO of SoftBank.
They almost went bust about four times.
Is a fascinating leader,maybe not a leadership style to emulate
(31:00):
in different ways.
But before that, I read the Nvidia way,
which is about Jensen Huang and Nvidiais a really important company right now.
And that is a more interestingleadership style as well.
So, Gavin, you know, I likeI like to read, about billionaires.
I have a few chapters about billionaires.
Maybe we'll talk about thatsome other time.
(31:21):
But, those are two of them.
And they have fascinating leadershipstyles, and the books are pretty honest,
so I'd recommend them the Nvidia wayand the gambling man to have.
We'll have links to both of thosein the show notes and of course, links
to everything relatedto the psychology of leadership as well.
Sebastian,where do you want to point people?
How can they connect with you?
(31:42):
Where do you wantto let them know about you?
Find me on LinkedIn very easy.
Type my name. You'll find me.
Or go to Psychology of Leadershipdot net dot and Etsy.
Psychology of leadership dot net.
I didn't have that in my notes rightto put it on the screen.
For those of youwatching Psychology of Leadership dot net
or find Sebastian on LinkedIn,you will be glad that you did that.
(32:08):
So before we finish, everyone,I want to ask you the question
that I ask everyat the end of every episode.
It's a simple question
with an important answer,and the answer is one only you can answer.
And that is now what?
What will you do with this?
The information from this conversation,this conversation was perhaps,
entertaining.
(32:29):
It might have been educational.
It might have been inspirational.
None of that will matter unlessyou take action on what you learned.
And you must decidewhat action you will take.
There are at least two of us here
that hope that one of those actionsis to buy a copy of this book.
But beyond that, what ideas did you get
from this conversationthat you want to go take some action on?
(32:49):
It's the answer to that questionthat makes this
30 ish minutes worth your time.
I hope you'll do that.
Hopefully no one's going to goand tried to climb Everest.
Gavin.
And one of those goalsis to just leave Everest alone.
You know, if you did this, if you went 30times, you start doing the probabilities.
The odds of the dying seem to be going up,although you would hope you'd look
(33:10):
maybe learning something along the way.
So listen, everybody, first of all,Sebastian, thanks so much for being here.
It was a pleasure to have you.Thank you. Likewise.
And everybody else,if you enjoyed this, tell somebody else,
make sure you're subscribed whereveryou're watching or listening to this
so you don't miss any episodes,including next week, because we'll be back
next week with another episodeof the Remarkable Leadership Podcast.
(33:32):
We'll see you then.
Leadership isn't really
about us as the leader,and yet who we are as the leader plays
a huge role in our ultimate successor failure as a leader.
In other words, if we want to bea better leader who serves outcomes
and others effectively,we must work on ourselves too.
And that is what we're talking abouttoday, ourselves as leaders,
(00:32):
and what we can learn from psychologyto help us understand
ourselves betterand then ultimately lead better.
Welcome to another episode
of the Remarkable Leadership Podcast,where we are helping leaders like you
grow personally and professionally to leadmore effectively and make a bigger,
positive difference for their teams,organizations and the world.
(00:52):
If you are listening to this podcast,you could be with us live
in the futureon your favorite social platform.
You can find outwhen those episodes will happen.
And so you can therefore join us byjoining us on our Facebook
or LinkedIn groups, two of the placeswhere we simulcast these live events.
(01:13):
You can just go to remarkablepodcast.com/facebook
or remarkable podcast.com/linkedin
to learn more, get connectedand find out when will be live.
Today's episode is brought to youby my latest book, Flexible Leadership.
Navigate uncertaintyand lead with confidence.
It's timeto realize that styles can get in our way,
(01:34):
and that following our strengthsmight not always be the best approach
in a worldmore complex and uncertain than ever.
Leaders need a new perspectiveand a set of tools
to create great resultsfor their organizations and team members.
That's what flexible leadershipprovide you.
Learn more and orderyour copy now at remarkable
podcast.com/flexible.
(01:57):
And with that, it'stime for me to bring in our guest.
Let me pull him up here and thenI will appropriately introduce him.
And then we'll dive in.
I guess today is Sebastian Page.
He is the head of global Multi-Asset
and the chief investment officerat T Rowe Price.
He has more than two decadesof leadership experience and has done
(02:19):
extensive research on positive sportsand personality psychology.
He currently oversees a team of investmentprofessionals actively managing over
500 billion in assets under management.
He has written two finance books,Beyond Diversification What Every Investor
Needs to Know, and then coauthored FactorInvesting and Asset Asset Allocation.
(02:41):
He's won six annual Research award paperpaper awards.
He has appeared regularly on CNBC, andhe was on Bloomberg TV again this morning.
And in 2022 was nameda top voice in finance by LinkedIn.
He has been quotedextensively in The New York Times,
Wall Street Journal and Barron's.
His latest book, and the reason he's here
(03:03):
is not to talk about beyonddiversification or factor investing.
But his new book,The Psychology of Leadership.
It is the focus of our conversation.
He's joining me today.
I'm sure probably from his office.
But he lives in Marylandwith his wife and children.
Sebastian,so glad to have you with me this morning.
Kevin I'm super excited.
(03:23):
First of all, I love doing podcasts.
And second, you just held the bookand you had all these post-it notes.
That means you're going to havea really good discussion.
Or these are all the things I didn't agreewith.
No, that's not true. Okay.
I'm teasing.
I am totally teasing.
I am excited to have you.
I love the book. And,
(03:45):
you know, there are some folksthat have recommended it
that that apparently, you know, and thatI know as well, which is fantastic.
And, so let's just dive in.
You've written you'reyou're in the finance world.
You've written booksabout the finance world.
And so now this so
the intro says, well, yes, you're in thefinance world, but you're also a leader.
(04:08):
But why?
What what's what leads you here? Like why?
What's your journey to this bookand specifically why this book?
Kevin, I was, struggling
with some job related stress at the time,
and I decided
to look into sports psychology.
(04:29):
I met with a sports psychologistwho lives here in Maryland.
His name is Doctor Daniel Zammit.
He's a fascinating guy.
In additionto being a sports psychologist.
He also has 40 holds 40
national titles in the sport of handball.
I think he was only 38.
And when you wrote a book,I think I read 30.
(04:52):
It keeps winning.
And so this is like it looks like squash,but you're hitting the ball
with your hands.
So this is sports psychologistwho's figured out
the mental gameof high performance in practice.
So we sit down and he tells methe story of his best match ever.
And it's fascinatingbecause it was like ten years ago.
(05:13):
He remembers every point in the match.
He remembers where the ball was, atwhat time he remembers.
He's got like a tear in his eyes.
I was on my kneesand I make an extreme shot.
And then the play by play,
and then it's a complete letdown
because he goes, oh,and then I lost the next two points.
(05:34):
I go, wait, wait, timeout.
You lost the game.
And he goes, absolutely, I lost the game.
But to him,
it had nothing to do with how happy he wasabout
that match in the mindset of a sportspsychologist.
He was playing a much stronger opponent.
(05:54):
And that day he realizedhe belonged in another league.
In the game,he had gone through a step change
in his skills and the win or the loss.
It meant nothing to him.
And so I start thinkingabout this mindset, and we started talking
and he became a consultant for the book,and he helped me with the research
(06:15):
and some ideas.
But just that mindset of sportspsychology.
And by the way, so many linksthat are unexplored between sports
psychology and business leadership,but also with investment and investing.
So there's there's a lot of thatin the psychology of leadership.
And we'll get to some of that.
Oh, by the way, to finish the story.
(06:37):
None of the championships were wonuntil after.
That's right. Right.
That's right. A component of that.
I mean.
Getting look, Kevin,like I talk about this
in the book, Federer went viralmaybe a year ago.
I don't know if you caught this.
He was speaking to studentswho are graduating a commencement,
(06:58):
and he said, okay, we're right here.
Yeah.
Was it one of the post-its?
Oh, I see, it was underlined.
Yeah. So so Federer goes.
I've played 1500 games in my career
and I've won about 80% of them,so that makes sense.
One of the top tennis players of all time.
But then he looks at the studentsand he says,
(07:18):
guessthe percentage of points that I've won.
And the answer is 54%, which is just
the slight edge repeated over time.
Consistently.
But then he went on to say, whatever gameyou play in life, you're going to lose.
So my journey for this book was
I was stressed out about job stress,
(07:41):
and I just wanted to learn to embrace it
and maximize performance around job stressand how to handle it.
So sports psychologybecame super interesting, in that context.
And then I expanded into positivepsychology
as well as personality psychology,which is a lot of fun.
(08:04):
So yeah, we can talk aboutI want to talk a little bit more about
why you ended up with the three,but I want to say something first.
For me, I always I mean, I'm a sports fan.
And so those kinds of stories intrigued me
and I know intrigued manybut don't but turn some people off.
So what I want to say first
(08:25):
is that while there are all sortsof great insights in this book
from the world of sports and sportspsychology, that's not what this book is.
And so if you're listeningand saying, wow,
Kevin, I'll listen next week,
because you won't have a sports guy on.
I would say no,
(08:46):
that this is not a book that leans so farthere as to be the.
Nor will this conversation lean so far.
There has to be a turn off to those of youthat aren't sports fans
and would rather, you know, do anythingthan watch the Super Bowl, for example.
It's not a book about, it'snot a book about.
It's not a book about sports.
All about resilience, mental resilience.
(09:07):
Sports psychology is fascinatingbecause it's not about winning.
It's about losing.
And what you do with the setbacksand the losses that applies to your entire
life, your professional life,your leadership and more.
100%. So.
So why you sort of told us how
sports psychologybecame a part of your thinking,
which led to the book,but why the other two?
(09:28):
Why positive psychologyand personality psychology?
How do they inform the bookand why are they important
in this conversation?
Excuse me?
I start to think about long term goals.
And when you think about long term goals,
the longer termyou think, the longer your time horizon
and the closeryou get to positive psychology questions.
(09:52):
What makes people thrive over time?
What makes leaders and organizations
thrive over the very long run?
But Kevin, for goals,let me tell you another story.
My friendPhil sold his cryptocurrency business
for $1 billion,and he gave all of it to charity.
(10:16):
You remember this from the book itself?
And, that morning,when he decided to give all of it
away,he was eating his cereal in his kitchen.
An angel appeared to him.
So this is where I disclosedthis is a made up story.
Yeah, I'm reading the first part.
I'm like,oh, this is good. And then. Yeah, yeah.
All right. Go ahead.
(10:36):
So the angel goes, look, I'mgoing to give you
one of three gifts.
I can give you infinite power.
I can give you infinite fame,
or I can give you
infinite wisdom, or I actually.
And then he offered absolute wealth.
(10:59):
Like, I can give you justwhatever you want in terms of money
for your entire life.
And so my friend chose wisdom.
And as you would expect,
first time in human historythat someone has absolute wisdom.
Cameras flashing, journalists convene.
What will the personwith absolute wisdom say?
It's the first time in human historythis happens and the story goes, he said.
(11:24):
I should have taken the money. Money?
I should have it. Yeah.
I literally laughed out loud.
When I and you know,this is tongue in cheek, but it's to help
my readers reflect on positive psychologyand long term goals.
I asked a group of studentsI was presenting on stage a couple
weeks ago to about a thousand students,and there were
(11:44):
maybe, Kevin Gen Z, right.
So universitystudents roughly. And I said,
how many of you would
take a gummy, a gummy bear
out of a jar of 100 gummy bears,
knowing that four of them are poison or
(12:06):
and are going to kill you?
And, I said,
if I gave you $1 million, would you do it?
Just for the record, Kevin,you wouldn't do it right?
Yeah, I don't like.
So this is aI also. Know where this is headed.
So it's a. Way to framepositive psychology.
But what wasI was genuinely taken aback on stage
(12:27):
by the number of hands that went up.
I would I would I would picka gummy out of 100, knowing that
for our poison, for $1 million,I got maybe
15% of the audience, maybe 20.
And so to me,that speaks to what I call goal
induced blindness, where you have a goal,it's measurable, right?
(12:48):
You want to be wealthy,you want that amount,
and you sacrifice your well-being.
You take on unreasonable risks,or even you start cheating.
Sacrifice your sense of ethics.
So positive psychology will show
that over time, real
people's happiness, ability to thrive
(13:08):
is driven by one single factor
more than wealth, fame, wisdom.
That's why the angel story, right?
Which one would you pick?
And that is the quality of people'srelationships in their lives.
And that's been studied over 80 years.
It's one of the most fascinating studiesI talk about in the book,
(13:32):
because it's been going onfor several generations.
And the findingsare all about positive psychology.
What makes people thrive over time.
And so it's the qualityof their relationship.
And in the book, I also talkabout other factors of positive psychology
and how they relate to businessand setting goals and managing people.
(13:53):
Those are engagement, meaningwe talk a lot about the why.
It's kind of a buzzwordand, long term accomplishments.
So I discovered that positive psychology
has a ton of applicationsto business and leadership.
100%. So,
(14:14):
that for that for gummy
story, leadsto one of the 18 principles in the book.
And we're going to get to those injust a second.
But as, you mentioned to me before,we went on camera
or I guess beforewe, I hit the like button,
that,
you know, you mentioned that there's,quite a bit in the book
about goals, and it's actuallyone of the things that I had in my notes.
(14:37):
And so
it's a book about leadership.
It's a bookabout the psychology of leadership.
And so
why why is why is things related to goals.
Our relationshipsto goals are thinking about goals
such a huge part of the book.
(14:57):
Why did you make that choice specifically?
Two things Gavin.
The number one job of the leaderis to set the goals.
Because if as a leader,you don't set the goals, who will?
Second?
And this is gonna sound like I'mselling my book, but I truly believe it.
(15:19):
We're all leaders in one aspector the other of our lives. It's
not about managing.
It's not just about managing people insidea corporation.
It's about your family.
And different people in the familywill express leadership over time.
It's about your community.It's about your church.
(15:39):
So again, I'm conscious, like I'mmaybe I'm trying to broaden the audience.
I do think anyone can benefitfrom better leadership
in their own lives, even if they don'thave people reporting to them.
And so that's the second thing whyit's so important to think about goals.
Leaders set goals.
If you don't, who will, who will?
And second, we all we're all leadersin some aspects of our lives.
(16:03):
Yeah, I often
I often talk about capital L leadersare those people that have a job title.
Right.
Have a responsibility which is sort of the
the main focus or what we would think ofwhen we think of a book like this.
But but all of us in all sorts of
our parts of our lives are smalll leaders, right?
Even at work, if we're on the teamand not leading the team
(16:25):
and all those sorts of things,because we are leading
when people choose to follow and people,some people are choosing to follow us
on a regular on a regular basis,maybe more than we even realize.
That's so well said, right?
You might not be managing the team,but people take their cue
from how you're behaving,how you're performing and.
What's good or L by the way, everybody.
What for goodor ill or whether you want it or not,
(16:47):
you find yourself being a leader.
Yeah.
And having clarity on goalsis key to effective leadership.
And of the 18 principles, there are some
that are very much about goals.
And one of them,and I've highlighted a couple.
I know there are a couple
that you wanted us to talk about,and I've highlighted a couple others
that I thought would be usefulfor us to talk about.
(17:09):
Hopefully we can get to all of those,not to all 18 everybody, but
but you also, wrotesome of them in ways that are intriguing.
And so you might be a finance guy,but you got a little marketing
blood in you, my friend.
So the first one. That it's a compliment.
I'm. It's meant as one, I promise you.
Principle number one,you say don't die on Everest.
(17:31):
And I put the question mark on there.
Like, seriously,what are you talking about here?
It's an extension of your gummybear story.
So what do you mean?
That we shouldn't die on that?
We ought to be carefulnot to die on Everest.
It's about goal induced blindness.
The number one example in the literature,
in psychology of goalinduced blindness are Everest.
That's my gummy example,where you have a 4% chance of dying
(17:56):
matches the probability that you'll die
if you want to summit Everestbased on historical data.
So it's the prime example in the research
and psychology of goal induced blindness.
But there are plenty of other examples.
I had goal induced blindnessat the beginning of my career
(18:17):
because I wasn't taking care of my health.
I was working nonstop around the globe,I was traveling,
I was jetlagged,I just wasn't taking care of myself.
That's a form of goal induced blindness.
Another one is just losing your wayin terms of ethics and cheating.
That's a prime example,one of the best example examples of goal
(18:41):
induced blindness.
And you know, Kevin,this happens in business like blue chip.
Like really good companies.
Volkswagen somehow decided they should
actually fudge their emission numbers.
WellsFargo started creating dummy accounts
just to show more accounts opened.
(19:02):
That was the goal that they looked at.Right.
And the measurable goalsare particularly potent in that.
So let me stop you right there,because I think everyone who's listening,
if you remember that, either one of those.
But if you remember the Wells Fargo thing,everyone who wasn't
there would say, like, seriously, peopleare actually opening dummy accounts.
And I think that's the pointthat we become blinded by it.
(19:23):
And the thing that struck meand I've certainly read,
a lot about thethe research around Everest and all that.
But the thing that you wrote thatif I read before
I had forgotten, I don't know how I couldhave you talk about people.
You know, there's a death zone.
There's this area in which wheremost of those deaths that occur occur.
(19:44):
And so you're talking about people likeliterally walking over dead people now.
Yeah.
I don't know if they're actuallyvisible or not, but the, the,
the metaphorical power of thatis was incredible to me.
But the point isthat when the goal becomes so,
we are so laser focused on it, whetherit's getting to the top of the mountain
(20:04):
or whether it's having making the number,if you're Wells Fargo, we
we it seems obvious tosomeone who's not there.
But when you're in at that momentof blindness, it is really powerful.
So what do we needto be knowing about that to
overcome that?
Because none of usare probably going to climb Everest.
If you have climbed Everest, let me know.
(20:25):
I want to have you on the show.
But I mean, that'snot what any of us have done. Likely.
So what do we need to take from that?
So, you know, at the end of the chapter,don't die on Everest.
I always have at the end of eachprinciple, a little sort of quirky
conclusion, just to keep my readersgoing in the psychology of leadership.
(20:47):
And at the end of that one,I go, if you ever think about
climbing Everest just because it's thereor some other reason,
here's the most useful adviceyou'll get in this entire book.
Don't.
So my wife was reading my bookand tried to help with editing
and she said, okay, thisthis is this is good.
(21:07):
So the goal in doing blindness,first of all,
you have to realize thatit's a side effect of something
that's important for success,which is measurable goals.
I'm not here, Kevin.
Telling everybody abandonedgoals, abandoned measurable goals.
They're there.
Reasons whyyou might want to abandon goals for sure.
(21:29):
But if you're running a business,you got to measure things.
You want to compete,
you want to have aggressive goalsand you want to go after them.
And that includes for peoplemaking more money, go ahead.
That's not a bad goalin on its on its own.
So I just want to clarify that.
Give that put that caveat in place,because I don't want
the two of us to sound like, okay,just just don't have ambition, right?
(21:52):
Or don't care about money. That's trite.
However, where I go in the bookis there's an optimal point,
and there's a point beyond whichyou become so obsessed with your goal
that you will suffer from goalinduced blindness.
Now, your question was,what do you do about it?
First of all, what are the most underratedskills in leadership?
(22:12):
Is the ability to quit.
Know when to quit.
That's a skill you can build.
Annie Duke as she waskind enough to endorse my book.
She's got a fantastic bookjust about quitting and how it's
one of the most underrated skillsin life in poker, because she was former
professional poker player and in businesswhen to fault
(22:35):
someone, the world
record for, Everest summits is like 30.
And those that do that, that can gorepeatedly,
somewhat safely because a lot of the debtsare actually unpredictable,
no matter how good you are.
But those that maximize safety,they have that skill.
They know exactly when to quit,when to turn back.
(22:57):
It developed, developed that skill.
And one of the best ways to developthat skill
is that whatever happened before
is almost irrelevant.
It's a sunk cost.
It's almost irrelevant to your decision
whether or not to continue,whether it's a project or an endeavors.
I've invested so much in this,and it can be a relationship to.
(23:21):
Yeah, but you're miserable,so look forward, not backward,
and then evaluate your decision.
So those are all skills that I helpreaders develop in the psychology
of leadership,that help mitigate goal induced blindness.
You also want to have measure.
You want to know when it's, creeping in.
(23:41):
Right.
So customer complaints or just you wantto have your radars out to capture it.
So you remove the blinders.
If you and I would saywe want the radar to coming,
we're not just from ourselvesbecause it's very easy to be self blinded,
but to have whether it's customers,whether it's our the rest of our team,
whatever,
and figure those things out along the wayso that we don't find ourselves so singly
(24:04):
sing clearly focused thatthose other problems start to show up.
I'm looking at the clock,and there's no way
we're going into all the stuffthat I wanted to talk about.
Which does this chart.We should do another one.
Which doesn't surprise me, at all.
I want to I want to talk about, number 11,
which you suggest not only
(24:26):
don't die on Everest,but that, we should think about death.
So let'sbecause this is also goal related.
And so I'd like us to talk about thisone for a second.
What's the principle here?
Why does it matter to us?
Imaginethat you're at the end of your life.
Ask yourself if you reflect back,
(24:48):
what will you be most proud of?
And if you're asked, what will you answer?
You know which factorsdrove your happiness.
And this is what the research shows.
It's a lot more about relationshipswith people around you
than money or fame or anything else.
(25:09):
And so think about deathis kind of morbid,
but it's a philosophical concept of
completely zooming out on your life.
And that is, Kevin,an incredibly positive thing to do
because you gain perspective.
It makes you more resilient to the day
(25:29):
to day ups and downs,to the day to day setbacks.
And that's where I was most of my career.
Overreacting to the day today.
But if you say I have a lifelong mission,it brings meaning into your life.
Stephen Covey has one of theI think it might be the best
selling book on self-improvement
(25:50):
of all time, The Seven Principlesof Highly Successful People.
One of his principles is beginwith the end in mind, and he pushes it
like, just what do you want to reflect onat the end of your life?
And then he walks back and goes,
let that guide your valuesand your day to day decisions.
So it's incredibly powerful,and it's one of those things that has been
(26:13):
in the literature, in philosophyand in psychology for thousands of years.
One thing that said about Stephen Coveyis he wrote about stuff that had that
that had been around forever,
but he wrote it in a wayand gave us a new handle for it,
which made it extremely valuable,which is one of the reasons,
if not the one of the most, read books
(26:35):
purchasedand read books on self-improvement ever.
I'll tell you.
I'll tell you, Kevin,I one of it's very hard.
I don't know about your experience.
It's very hardto find the right title for a book.
Did you did you,I don't know if you share that experience,
but for me, it was like,oh, this one, that one.
And then my agent and andand at some point it was, the end in mind.
(26:58):
Yeah.
That was before I really get wherewe're really trying to go.
Yeah, absolutely.
So, there's 18 principles.
We've really only talked about two.
And that's really all at this pointwe have time to talk about.
But I want to askanother important question.
So when we were talkingwith Sebastian Page,
the author of Psychology of Leadership,and we'll tell you all about how
(27:18):
to get a copy,I mean, you know, how to go to Amazon,
but we'll talk about thata little bit more in a minute.
And that will be in the show notesand all those things.
But one of the things that I want usto talk about, I in the open,
I said this book in many ways is about usas a leader and that leadership.
But yet leadership isn't really about us.
What advice would you have for someoneif they were,
(27:39):
if they were working to applysome of the principles in the book?
How can they use that wisdom
to help their teams?
What advice do you have for usnow, putting our leader hat back on,
and how do we help our teamswith some of these ideas?
There's several
(28:00):
counter-intuitive findingsin the psychology of leadership,
and they all relate to helping your teamperform best.
You're right, Kevin,realize it's not about you.
It's about how you can foster a cultureof high performance
and develop others within the team.
But some of the counterintuitive findingsin the book
(28:21):
are, for example, we all think leadersneed to be fantastic communicators.
Well,the higher you go in your organization,
the more you need to be a listener,not a talker, a listener.
And that's a little bit counterintuitive.
It was for me as I was climbing upthe corporate ladder, are we think
leaders need to be decisiveand make quick decisions all the time.
(28:45):
Well, some of the best leaders I've knownknew which decisions were urgent
and which decisions actually requiredsome level of strategic patience,
which is much harder and counterintuitivefor hard charging leaders.
We think leaders need to be unflappableand not feel stress.
Absolutely not.
Sports psychology will tell you
that optimal performancedoes not occur at zero stress.
(29:08):
In other words, stress increasesperformance up
to a point,after which it hurts performance.
But so leaders have to embrace that
in their organization, with peoplethey work with and for themselves.
And then we all thinkleaders need to build consensus right?
But very often leaders need to bedisagreeable and make a tough decision.
(29:30):
And for extremely agreeableleaders, that can be difficult.
You're really not a leaderif you can't make the tough decision.
That's going to make some people unhappyat some point in time.
Principle 15right there by everybody, by the way.
So listen,I want us to to start to wrap up,
I've got a couple of sort of questionswhich, which might on the surface seem,
(29:52):
different than where we've gone so far.
But I'm curious.
Sebastian, what do you do for fun?
I love to run.
I'm a runner. I talk about it in the book.
I actually have a runner on the on the
in the front of the book,
which relates to sports psychologya little bit.
(30:15):
Running is, Kevin an intrinsic motivation?
Right?
You go outrunning, it's dark and no one cares.
No one's watching you.
You're not impressing anybody at the beachwith skinny arms or a low heart rate.
So to me, it's a great activityfor relaxing.
And by the way, it can be social too.
I run with peoplemore than 50% of the time.
(30:37):
I'm out with other runners.
And what do youwhat are you reading these days?
Sebastian I just finished a book,The Gambling Man by.
It's about my associate, Masayoshi Son.
The CEO of SoftBank.
They almost went bust about four times.
Is a fascinating leader,maybe not a leadership style to emulate
(31:00):
in different ways.
But before that, I read the Nvidia way,
which is about Jensen Huang and Nvidiais a really important company right now.
And that is a more interestingleadership style as well.
So, Gavin, you know, I likeI like to read, about billionaires.
I have a few chapters about billionaires.
Maybe we'll talk about thatsome other time.
(31:21):
But, those are two of them.
And they have fascinating leadershipstyles, and the books are pretty honest,
so I'd recommend them the Nvidia wayand the gambling man to have.
We'll have links to both of thosein the show notes and of course, links
to everything relatedto the psychology of leadership as well.
Sebastian,where do you want to point people?
How can they connect with you?
(31:42):
Where do you wantto let them know about you?
Find me on LinkedIn very easy.
Type my name. You'll find me.
Or go to Psychology of Leadershipdot net dot and Etsy.
Psychology of leadership dot net.
I didn't have that in my notes rightto put it on the screen.
For those of youwatching Psychology of Leadership dot net
or find Sebastian on LinkedIn,you will be glad that you did that.
(32:08):
So before we finish, everyone,I want to ask you the question
that I ask everyat the end of every episode.
It's a simple question
with an important answer,and the answer is one only you can answer.
And that is now what?
What will you do with this?
The information from this conversation,this conversation was perhaps,
entertaining.
(32:29):
It might have been educational.
It might have been inspirational.
None of that will matter unlessyou take action on what you learned.
And you must decidewhat action you will take.
There are at least two of us here
that hope that one of those actionsis to buy a copy of this book.
But beyond that, what ideas did you get
from this conversationthat you want to go take some action on?
(32:49):
It's the answer to that questionthat makes this
30 ish minutes worth your time.
I hope you'll do that.
Hopefully no one's going to goand tried to climb Everest.
Gavin.
And one of those goalsis to just leave Everest alone.
You know, if you did this, if you went 30times, you start doing the probabilities.
The odds of the dying seem to be going up,although you would hope you'd look
(33:10):
maybe learning something along the way.
So listen, everybody, first of all,Sebastian, thanks so much for being here.
It was a pleasure to have you.Thank you. Likewise.
And everybody else,if you enjoyed this, tell somebody else,
make sure you're subscribed whereveryou're watching or listening to this
so you don't miss any episodes,including next week, because we'll be back
next week with another episodeof the Remarkable Leadership Podcast.
(33:32):
We'll see you then.
Popular Podcasts
Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club
Welcome to Bookmarked by Reese’s Book Club — the podcast where great stories, bold women, and irresistible conversations collide! Hosted by award-winning journalist Danielle Robay, each week new episodes balance thoughtful literary insight with the fervor of buzzy book trends, pop culture and more. Bookmarked brings together celebrities, tastemakers, influencers and authors from Reese's Book Club and beyond to share stories that transcend the page. Pull up a chair. You’re not just listening — you’re part of the conversation.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com