Lead from the inside out

This week a new book was launched, with a title that immediately triggered us: ‘The Journey of Leadership: How CEOs Learn to Lead from the Inside Out’. It’s written by four senior McKinsey partners; Dana Maor, Hans-Werner Kaas, Kurt Strovink, and Ramesh Srinivasan. When leaders think about learning, they usually think about organizational clarity, business direction and growth. They often forget their own learning, transformation and leadership challenges. One of the things you learn from this book is how to develop creative, actionable ways to reinvigorate yourself and your organization. The book contains examples of how to lead from the inside out from different leaders of several industries. Part 1 is ‘It starts with you’, Part 2 is ‘Moving beyond yourself’. It is all about unleashing the potential of yourself, your team and systems from the inside out. To succeed, today’s leaders must learn to master polarities; humble but decisive, vulnerable but strong, and certain but willing to change.

To us, ‘lead from inside out’ sounds very logical, but in the practice of our consultancy we regularly see people struggle with this. In our approach we connect NextGen Business & Leadership, whereby we guide leaders both professionally and personally through the transformation process. The Engage-Envision-Explore process always starts with involving and empowering people. What are the leadership questions to address? Is there a shared sense of belonging and courage to make decisions in uncertain times? In any strategic dilemma or innovation challenge, a more human-centric leader can connect authentically with themselves and their teams. Being able to go beyond your own sense of self to achieve what is best for the team, the organization, and the world around you is probably the hardest thing to learn. With this inspiring book in mind, the NextGen leadership requires a new upskilling strategy based on humility, selflessness, vulnerability, and versatility.

Did you find a way to unleash the potential of your team? What key things do you want to learn to become the next leader?