Leadership Mindset 2.0 E-Book

R. Michael Anderson

• Herausgeber: WS
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 342

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

Winner of three Book of the Year awards
 * 1st Place – 2023 Goody Business Book Awards –Think Differently Category
 * 1st Place – 2023 NABE Pinnacle Book Awards – Business Category
 * 1st Place – 2023 IPA Press Awards – Leadership Category

A Shortcut To Natural, Effective, and Engaging Leadership That Any Leader Can Use To Improve Their Results Fast

Leadership Mindset 2.0 is the seemingly counterintuitive, yet most effective approach to quickly becoming a top-tier leader.

The kind of leader that is truly confident, strategically effective, and creates highly engaged, skilled, and productive teams in any organization lucky enough to have them.

Better yet, this leadership “system” empowers leaders to do all of this WITHOUT unsustainable, unhealthy, or unethical bully tactics, micromanaging, or 24/7 work schedules.

These are the same tools and techniques that organizations like Uber, Microsoft, Stanford University, and PwC have been hiring Michael to teach their top executives for years.

It's all been simplified everything into an incredibly affordable, focused, and actionable book any aspiring or current leader can pick up and start using in a single sitting.

Here's a snapshot of what's in the book;

 ✔️ The truth about what your team wants and truly needs from you, what they don't, and why what you're doing now is training them to underperform

 ✔️ The huge mistake nearly every leader makes when trying to look authentic and confident, and what the thousands of leaders are doing instead

 ✔️ A critical formula to successfully having difficult conversations with anyone (handy graphic included)

 ✔️ The true definition of "imposter syndrome," why it's massively common and highly driven people, and how you can immediately overcome it - permanently!

 ✔️ How to make yourself "Senior Leader Ready," giving you the natural ability to have strategic conversations and earn the trust of high-level leaders without faking it or feeling out of place

 ✔️ Why everything you know about thinking and acting more strategically is wrong and the ridiculously simple solution you can use immediately

 ✔️ Case studies that prove how this approach works in any leadership role, in any country, in any industry - and with any leader, no matter what your natural disposition

 ✔️ The little-known neuroscience trick that can transform you into a confident, connected, empathetic leader - in literally the speed of thought

 ✔️ Learn the secret hack that top CEOs use to manage their stress and energy and keep themselves at the top of their game

 ✔️ Uncover the number one blind spot that almost every leader has that causes them to self-sabotage, lose confidence and keep themselves stuck - and what you need to overcome it right now

​​​​​​​“This fast-moving, practical book shows you how to unlock your full potential for success, achievement, and unlimited income in a fast-moving world of greater competition. You learn how to get more done, faster than ever before.”

-Brian Tracy
New York Times Best-Selling Author

"Leadership Mindset 2.0 will take you from good to great for your job, team and company! Packed with actionable steps to start implementing today and R. Michael Anderson's profound knowledge as Social Entrepreneur of the Year, this is the book to read for every leader."

-Dr. Marshall Goldsmith
The Thinkers50 #1 Executive Coach and New York Times bestselling author

Pick up your copy of Leadership Mindset 2.0 now.

Leseprobe

Leadership Mindset 2.0

The Psychology and Neuroscience of Reaching your Full Potential

R. Michael Anderson

Copyright © 2023 by R. Michael Anderson. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording or other electronic methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in cases of brief quotations. For permission requests, email [email protected].

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: Growth Leadership

Chapter 2: The Leadership Mindset Scorecard

Chapter 3: Learning Like a Leader

Chapter 4: Brain Wiring for Leaders

Chapter 5: Confidence, Resilience and Presence

Phase 1: Release and Reset

Chapter 6: Blindspots, Blocks and Beliefs

Chapter 7: The Origins of Self-Limiting Beliefs

Chapter 8: Common Self-Limiting Beliefs

Chapter 9: Free Yourself With Affirmations

Chapter 10: The Experienced Leader’s Mask

Chapter 11: The Entrepreneurial Curse

Chapter 12: Releasing Judgments

Chapter 13: Forgiving Others

Chapter 14: Self-Forgiveness

Phase 2: Rewire and Reprogram

Chapter 15: The Psychology of Imposter Syndrome

Chapter 16: Overcoming Imposter Syndrome

Chapter 17: Empathy

Chapter 18: Being of Service

Chapter 19: The Owner versus Victim Choice

Chapter 20: The Psychology of Procrastination

Chapter 21: Balancing Your Leadership

Chapter 22: The Two Pyramids of Leadership

Chapter 23: YOU are the Hero

Phase 3: Leading Others

Chapter 24: Unbreakable Commitments

Chapter 25: The 4 Growth Leadership Styles

Chapter 26: Lasting Employee Engagement

Chapter 27: Team-Level Ownership

Chapter 28: Letting People Go

Chapter 29: Difficult Conversations

Phase 4: Strategy and Influence

Chapter 30: Executive Presence

Chapter 31: Becoming Strategic

Chapter 32: Successful Delegating

Chapter 33: Thinking Strategically

Chapter 34: Strategic Decision Making

Chapter 35: Relating Strategically

Chapter 36: Solving Complex Issues

Chapter 37: Diversity and Inclusion

Chapter 38: Leading the Way for Humanity

Now It’s Your Turn

Afterword

About the Author

Introduction

The tension in the office was like a ticking time bomb. At first, I was confused when my business partner walked around my desk to where I was sitting:

“I’m going to wipe that smile off of your face,” he said.

Then cocked his arm back and…hit me.

It was April Fool’s Day, but this was clearly no joke.

You may be wondering what physical assault, Johnny Walker and divorce papers have to do with leadership. They’re an example of what can happen when things go off the rails. They were for me, anyway.

Looking back, there was a lot I could’ve done to prevent the dispute with my business partner. Outwardly, the company was doing extremely well. But inwardly, I was way out of my depth, my mental state was a mess, and I was spiraling out of control.

Like me and the many leaders I’ve worked with—from early-stage scaleups to Fortune 500 companies like Microsoft, Uber and Salesforce—there are times when you face difficult questions that keep you up at night.

How do I handle all this responsibility? Should I even be in this role? Am I letting people down? What if I fail? Would I ever recover?

What people don’t tell you is that, deep down, many leaders have a secret. Their inner voice is silently screaming at them:

You don’t know what you’re doing.Things are out of control. You’re totally winging it and hoping nobody notices.

And that’s scary as hell.

After that explosive April day, I knew I had to make major changes to my life, so I went ahead and earned a Master’s degree in psychology, hired the best coaches I could find, and immersed myself in learning about leadership—as well as life. From that, I honed and implemented the tools you’ll learn here in this book, and used those to turn things around.

One of the three companies I founded, Radiant Technologies, was voted the #1 place to work and landed on the Inc. 5000 list, while I was nominated for Most Admired CEO and won Social Entrepreneur of the Year.

There was another big shift: leading, which before was just one big ball of stress and self-doubt, became natural and fun. My psychology training taught me how to motivate and inspire, and it was fulfilling to see team members grow and thrive. We developed an amazing culture, so much so that word got around and industry superstars started calling us up, asking if they could work for us. One woman, a senior executive, actually camped out in front of our office, just to get a meeting with me to apply for a position. She later became our CTO.

This is the kind of success I want for you—which is why I put all the tools, skills, and habits that worked for me and the other companies I teach, into this book. Together, I call this Leadership Mindset 2.0. It’s also the basis for a new type of leadership I call Growth Leadership, which is focused on growing the leader and their team as people, while creating a high-performance culture.

Avoiding the Leadership Incompetence Trap

Figure 1: The Leadership Incompetence Trap

The diagram shows an unfortunate path far too many leaders find themselves on. Formerly high-performing, confident people get promoted without the proper training, support or mentoring, and find themselves in a place where they know they’re falling short, and even worse, they don’t know how to fix things. When this happens, not only do the leaders suffer, but so do their careers, their teams, and the company as a whole.

This was dubbed the “Peter Principle” by Laurence J. Peter in 1968, when he said “In a Hierarchy Every Employee Tends to Rise to His Level of Incompetence.” However, what I’ve found is that this is misunderstood—it’s not that the employees are being put in a position they’re not good at; it’s that they aren’t put in a position to succeed.

Think about it: the single worst action a company can take is promoting their high-performers without setting them up to succeed. Those previous superstars flounder, lose confidence, start hating their job, and either quit or—worse—stay, and become a drag on the organization.

This also happens with business owners. I run across many people—some of whom you’ll read about in this book—who start a business because they have a good idea, or they are great salespeople or engineers. The business scales up, people are added, and the owner finds themselves in charge of a team that needs leadership, which they never have been trained in. The culture starts deteriorating, growth levels off, and the owner doesn’t know what to do. They normally end up working more and more, in the same way they’ve always worked. That doesn’t make a difference, so they get stressed out and frustrated, and don’t know where to turn.

The good news is you can avoid this by learning and integrating the ideas in this book, represented by the dotted line in the diagram. It’s designed to give you a complete roadmap for how to bypass the crashing and burning phase, and become a strategic, influential, highly-effective leader instead.

Together in these pages, we’ll cover how to:

shift your thinking and actions from tactical to strategicearn true respect from your team and peerscommunicate with people to facilitate their growth while empowering them, anddevelop the confidence and resilience every leader needs.

You’ll also learn a lot about psychology and neuroscience, including:

how you and the people around you are wiredhow your brain works, and how other people’s brains work why people make the choices the way they do how to change your own thinkinghow to create more positive value for everyoneways to relate better to your team, peers both in and outside of your company, and everyone else you run across, and finally, as a bonushow to live a happier, better life.

Why Leadership Mindset “2.0”?

You might be wondering, if this is Leadership Mindset 2.0, what was the first version?

Leadership 1.0, the traditional way of leading, is top-down, “command and control” bureaucratic leadership. This just means that whoever’s in charge holds the power and gives orders to whoever’s underneath. The leader or boss shouldn’t be questioned, and creativity, free thinking, and initiative are not encouraged. It’s the way old-school militaries, monarchies, and some businesses work.

Today, research has shown that this kind leadership creates stagnation and dissatisfaction. It squashes innovation, kills profits, and destroys loyalty and trust1. This is the way I was trying to lead until things almost fell apart.

Leadership 2.0 is the opposite. It’s based in the most current research we have today, and creates motivated, fiercely loyal and self-directed people with the passion to go all in. Plus, it can have a powerful impact on the bottom line, as well as on the surrounding community and society in general.

Of course, for any company culture to experience these remarkable benefits, Leadership 2.0 calls for growth from you, the leader who wants to go beyond old-school leadership. You do this by learning to delegate, trusting, and giving your teams what they need. Instead of authoritative control, you’ll discover how to create breakthrough results through communication, vision, and teamwork. As you move into more strategic roles, you will have to keep evolving your skills, confidence, and mindset—that’s how you know you’re on the right track, as each level of leadership requires an updated approach.

Leadership Mindset 2.0 is a departure from decades past and a call to action: leave behind the things that we know no longer work, and make room for what does. To become a leader who jumps in and takes advantage of this new era of leadership, you will need to upskill and bring your best. This will require much more communication, and a different mindset.

1 Heyden, M., Koene, B., Fourne, S., & Werkman, R. (2016). Rethinking ‘Top-Down’ and ‘Bottom-Up’ Roles of Top and Middle Managers in Organizational Change: Implications for Employee Support. Journal of Management Studies 54(7). https://www.researchgate.net/publication/311892283_Rethinking_’Top-Down’_and_’Bottom-Up’_Roles_of_Top_and_Middle_Managers_in_Organizational_Change_Implications_for_Employee_Support

ChapTer 1: Growth Leadership

Leadership Mindset is the key component in what I call Growth Leadership. It’s called “Growth” Leadership because “growing” is the main driver of the entire system.

A leader themselves must grow in order to be successful. Once they commit to this path, they will in turn naturally coach and grow the people on their team, and as a result, their company or department will grow too, whether that be in revenue, profit, or market share. Everything a Growth Leader impacts will grow, and they will gain in influence.

Growing your team is a big part of leadership, since it’s impossible to scale unless you’re developing the next generation of managers to fill the need. That’s what leadership legend Tom Peters meant when he said; “Great leaders do not create followers; they create more leaders.”

People who commit to learning and practicing Growth Leadership will evolve personally as well as professionally, and to do so they must be self-reflective, open, and willing to change.

Figure 2: Growth Leadership 2

Think of Growth Leadership as a graph with two axes (Figure 2: Growth Leadership).

There’s the goal line, which is on the horizontal axis, and then there’s the learning line, which goes up. The goal line is about tangible, material achievements like making more money, having a better car, etc.

The learning line on the vertical axis is about how conscious you are, how much you’re learning as a person, how much you’re growing and maturing, how much compassion and love you show for yourself and for others.

It’s relatively easy to make progress along one of these lines. For example, it’s possible to make a lot of money and never move up the learning line, never growing as a person or developing emotional intelligence. Think of the ruthless jerks who lie and play politics to “win” and get promoted.

You can also move up the learning line without ever being successful on the goal line. Don’t we all have that one friend who is into spirituality and yoga, yet is always living on someone’s couch or in a spare room, and never has any money?

The real challenge is to move along both axes at the same time; to keep reaching new levels of material success while also growing and evolving yourself.

What’s interesting is the more money, power, and responsibility you have, i.e., the more you move forward on the goal line, the more you seem to get tested on the learning line. Often, people will stop moving on either line for one reason or another. They reach a ceiling and don’t know how to bust through.

Everything I teach is designed for you to progress on BOTH axes—rapidly and consistently—at the same time.

The Growth Leadership Path

I wish I could tell you that transforming your mindset is quick and easy. It isn’t. But what I can show you is a scientifically-developed path—based on the latest in neuroscience and psychology—that’ll get you results relatively fast.

Figure 3: The Four Phases of the Growth Leadership Path

What I’m talking about is the Growth Leadership Path (Figure 3: The Four Phases of the Growth Leadership Path). This path encompasses four distinct phases, all building on each other, in order for you to create lasting, transformational change as a leader and as a person.It’s not all easy. It’s not all comfortable. But the payoff is huge.

As you travel along the Growth Leadership Path, you’ll start to understand that your leadership boils down to your relationship to yourself. The roots of the challenges you face as a leader can be found within you. When your leadership is lacking, you’ll learn how to strengthen it through your relationship to yourself. And when your relationship with yourself levels up, your leadership will too. I call this the Foundational Truth of Leadership:

Your leadership is an extension of the relationship with yourself.

This is a core principle, and you’ll get a short introduction here; you’ll understand much more after getting further into the book. It means that what’s happening in your outer world is a reflection of what’s happening in your inner world. For example, if you find people aren’t trusting you, then on some level, you’re lacking trust in yourself. Or, if your team isn’t inspired, there’s something within you that’s not inspired either.

Often when leaders come to me with issues, they want to tell me about how other people are misbehaving—what they’re doing or not doing. What you’ll learn here is to figure out where the misalignments are within you, and how to clean those up to create true resilience, confidence, and focus. This is how you become a powerful leader from the inside out.

When you can understand and evolve yourself, you have the makings of Leadership Mindset 2.0.

Step-by-Step Transformation

The first step to transformation is commitment. You need to be committed to the path. The reason most teams and businesses fail is simply because the person in the driver’s seat never fully embraces being a leader, and they don’t have the strong relationship with themself that’s needed. Instead, they emulate the people around them (who may be suffering from the same issues), deploy the “fake it ‘til they make it” strategy, and keep trudging forward. This can go on for years. These half-hearted leaders try to stay invisible and avoid screwing up so badly that someone notices. After years and years of acting this way, they may have figured out how to survive, but then one morning they wake up and wonder why everything’s become stagnant.

This is why there are so many stories of failure, and so many poor leaders in this world. Time after time, people focus on external survival rather than take the courageous steps to look inside, admit there’s more to learn, and commit to the growth process. To take that step does take a healthy dose of strength, courage, and vulnerability—one I believe you’re ready for.

Thanks to my corporate and entrepreneurial journey, and then my psychology and neuroscience education, I know exactly how to develop people like you to think like, and be, a great leader. Even if that sounds far away, and you’re doubting if it’s possible for you, I’m here to tell you it is. You have to be strong, you have to be open to change, and you have to have a little trust. If you have those three things, we’ll get there together.

Let’s get started by going through each phase of the Growth Leadership Path.

Phase One: Release and Reset

The first step on the path is one often overlooked. It’s an important one—perhaps the most crucial one—when it comes to changing behavior. Just like you wouldn’t pour into a glass that’s already full, you have to release everything that’s holding you back before you try anything new.

For leaders, this applies in two main areas.

The first thing to release, or shift, is your role and your thought patterns around it. As one of my clients says, “I need to move from being a ‘doer’ to a ‘conductor’.”

People often make it into leadership because they’re good at getting things done, but now we need them to get good at having other people get things done. This is an entirely different mindset and calls for a different set of tools. After all, you’ve been training yourself for years to do, do, do, and it dominates your thinking. That’s why, to make way for your new leadership role, you have to release your old one.

Usually, people who move into leadership are smart, work extremely hard, take responsibility for specific projects and issues, and have become excellent at a tactical job like marketing, sales, production, project management, finance, or something else. Whatever you succeeded at, you likely got very strong positive reinforcement for it, and the appreciation and praise became a motivating factor—even a subtle addiction.

But have you noticed, once you’ve moved into a position where you’re in charge of a team, what you did before to be successful doesn’t necessarily work? It used to be if a project was going off track or your team missed a quarterly target, you would roll up your sleeves and work extra hard to make things a success. It doesn’t work like that now. That’s called micromanaging and playing into your superhero image. Keep doing that and you’ll burn out, and your team won’t grow or take responsibility.

This is also the perfect example of why the first step in growing your leadership is to release your old role, and the behaviors that came with it.

To support you in this, you’ll get a chance to get specific feedback on exactly where you are at as a leader in the Leadership Mindset Scorecard, right after this chapter.

In addition to your ‘doing’ role, there’s a second importantthing to release in phase one of the Growth Leadership Path, and that’s the beliefs and past conditioning that are keeping you stuck. Many of the most successful leaders I work with start out by saying “I know I have blindspots. I want you to help me find them and overcome them.” That’s what we’re going to do here.

The first step in overcoming your blindspots is releasing your outdated beliefs. Beliefs are simply any idea you hold as true. These can be certainties or possibilities, like “I’m not worthy of this success”, “People never respect me”, or “I’m not a natural leader.” We all have beliefs that come from different sources: how we were brought up, what we learned from whoever raised us, what we didn’t learn based on our life experience; even the political or economic climate we live in can create beliefs that become our reality.

What many people don’t realize is that many of our beliefs are subconscious, so we don’t even know we’re impacted by them. Also, beliefs are a choice. We can choose new ones anytime, which we’ll look more at later as well—specifically, the beliefs that limit you as a leader.

Releasing a subconscious self-limiting belief is the single most powerful shift you can make. That’s why the Growth Leadership Path starts here. By getting rid of what’s no longer effective, you clear the path to rewiring and reprogramming yourself.

Phase Two: Rewire and Reprogram

In Phase One of the Growth Leadership Path, we look at your role, your self-limiting beliefs and we clear the crap (that’s the technical term.) With a clean slate, we can shift to rewiring and reprograming your leadership mindset from the ground up.

I don’t throw the word ‘transformation’ around a lot, but after getting punched by my former business partner in the middle of the day, and then devoting the next decade to my professional and personal growth, I can honestly say my leadership transformed. People ask “What is it that you learned? How did you make such a dramatic change?”

That’s easy to answer. I used to be the guy who made a lot of money and wanted to show off how cool he was, but it was all coming from an insecure place. I could be argumentative, opinionated (not in a good way) and frankly wasn’t very likeable. Those were the things that mattered to me; they were my old beliefs, that money and status gave me some kind of worthiness and importance.

I was under a massive amount of pressure, most of it self-created, once again because of the beliefs I held as true. I felt as if I had to control the world while looking and acting a certain way. Only after a lot of pain did I realize I needed to recreate the person I was trying to be. Rewiring and reprogramming created my new life. Essentially, I transformed my relationship with myself—and when I learned to know, like, and trust myself, everything changed.

As we help you rewire and reprogram, we get to have some fun while rebuilding your relationship with yourself. You’ll discover new beliefs and explore innovative thought patterns, and the result will be unshakable confidence and self-esteem rooted in humbleness, compassion, and empathy. This will enable you to overcome any imposter syndrome, self-doubt, or critical self-talk that has caused you issues in your past. It will support you as a powerful, authentic, resilient leader that people respect.

While all of this is designed to address you as a leader, as we move to Phase Three we’ll shift the focus to who you lead.

Phase Three: Leading Others

Based on your new sense of self, we can shift our attention to how you relate to, and lead, others. Here, you’ll learn how to motivate, inspire, and engage people; create an amazing team culture; make difficult decisions; delegate; and even ways to hold people accountable.

Something that often isn’t talked about is the immense amount of pressure leaders find themselves under. It’s so all-encompassing that many people don’t even notice it anymore, but as this pressure gets studied further, we’re discovering it leads to health issues including burnout, sickness, and substance abuse.

When you implement the Growth Leadership System step-by-step, you’ll find that you have much less stress. You’ll understand your role as the leader much better, you’ll empower and manage your team to be more efficient and effective, and, most of all, you’ll have confidence that you can handle whatever life decides to throw at you. The self-sabotage and negative self-talk will go away; your new inner programming and wiring will lead you to bring out the best in others.

The best part is you’ll learn how to do all of this while helping your team grow as people, which most leaders find the most fulfilling part of the job. If you’re someone who micromanages or tries to control outcomes with your teams right now, you’re in for a treat—you’re going to get to witness people flourish both as colleagues and human beings. As they become empowered and take on more responsibility, you’ll realize your team is starting to lead itself.

Phase Four: Strategy and Influence

The final phase in the Growth Leadership Path is about going beyond tactical success, and becoming a strategic and influential leader.

At this point, you’ve done a lot of releasing, you’ve rewired a good part of your thinking, and you know how to inspire others. You’re well on your way to embodying a new leadership mindset and the final step is to help you “become strategic.”

Becoming strategic isn’t anything I’ve seen taught before, and that’s why it’s so exciting to bring you this phase. It’s not about having a strategy—that’s relatively easy. Many times a strategy is developed once a year, or handed down from corporate. This is about learning how to think, act, and relate strategically, so that you not only make it to the senior leadership team or scale your business, but also fit in once you get there.

You’ll learn how to talk to a CEO, CFO, chairperson, board member, or investor—and, just as importantly, have them see you as a strategic player. You’ll be the person they ask to lead the most crucial initiatives and attend important meetings. You’ll learn how to carry yourself in those situations, not just by participating here and there, but instead by confidently joining in the strategic discussion. You’ll also gain the respect of other people in these meetings by how you engage.

In other words, in this final phase, get ready to experience your full power as a leader. Let’s face it, leadership can be difficult. It often is not intuitive. But above all, it’s a game of mindset, and a game you can win.

What I want most for you and leaders like you is to be able to look back at your career and your life with pride, because you made the decision to live up to your full potential and do the most with what you were given. If you do that following the practical guidance in the pages to come, I have no doubt the world will be a better place. That’s the ripple effect of a highly effective leader utilizing Growth Leadership.

Where you’re headed, you’ll be called upon to blaze new paths. You’ll be asked to help people grow, to delight customers, and to create a real lasting impact in the world. Whether that happens or not comes down to how much courage you have to look inside of yourself and be honest about what you find or don’t find, and your willingness to change. Your experience in the years ahead depends on your commitment to evolving yourself, and the four phases in the Growth Leadership System are designed to support that.

This book will teach you the fundamentals of neuroscience, psychology, and learning, and then walk you through each step of the path. But before we get into all that, here’s a short, interactive assessment for you to run through to get a clear picture of your current leadership effectiveness.

2 This two-line diagram is based on a model I learned when I attended the University of Santa Monica, which I will explain more about later in this book.

Chapter 2: The LeadershipMindset Scorecard

More and more, research in behavior and brain science is showing us that it’s possible to apply scientific and psychological principles to leadership. Take a moment now to fill in the Leadership Mindset Scorecard below. It will help you measure where your mindset is now, giving you data to support your journey through the rest of the book.

You can fill it out the old-fashioned way using a pen, you can download the PDF at RMichaelAnderson.com/ScorecardDownload, or you can fill it in online at RMichaelAnderson.com/LeadershipScorecard. If you do it online, you’ll receive a report with additional information tailored to your results.

As you go through the questions, be as honest as you can, keeping in mind that you have to identify your blindspots to address them. Often, just the act of going through the questions will give you insights into your current effectiveness as a leader. Move quickly through the questions, and when in doubt, go with the first answer that comes to mind.

For each question, give yourself a 1 to 10 rating. For example, if you’re in the middle, you would give yourself a “5”.

Once you’ve answered these questions and tallied up your result, you’ll have a clear idea of the areas to focus on.

Chapter 3: Learning Like a Leader

As you go through the chapters ahead, you may look back at different times in your life with an inner voice that says,

Wow, was I ever ignorant back then. Why didn’t I do things differently and save myself a ton of headaches?” Or, “Wow I’ve had these beliefs for so long, ever since I can remember. I must be really screwed up!

It’s important that you NOT get caught up in the past. Every single person in the world can point to things they could have known before. But this type of self-judgment and negative analysis will only hold you back. Instead, keep in mind that in the past you’ve been successful. And what you’re learning here in this book will make you even more successful and accelerate your career, your leadership, and you as a person.

In fact, think of reading and applying what you learn here as your natural evolution into a strategic, confident, highly effective leader, because the word “evolution” honors what you’ve done already. That’s why this is Growth Leadership—you’re leveling up and that’s exciting.

The Three Levels of Learning

Recently on a yoga retreat, I met a senior leader at the BBC. She was a powerful, experienced executive, in charge of a big team at one of the largest, most prestigious companies in the UK, and a tier 1 global brand. When I told her about this book, which I was writing at the time, she replied:

“I love things like that because I know I have blindspots. I may know a lot of the things, but I forget some, or there’s areas I need to bump up. Please do let me know when it’s out. I’m sure it will also help me coach others on my team.”

The fact that she was so focused on learning and improving herself, without ego, brought home how the best leaders take any situation and see how they can use it for their advancement.

Whenever you’re exposed to a concept, whether it’s new or something you know already, you can take one of three approaches.

Level 1: Focus on Others

Let’s say you learn how the brain is wired, which we cover in a chapter coming up soon. In Level 1 learning, you take in the content and it occurs to you,

Hey, Bob in Sales could really use this! He’s uptight and gets angry easily. Understanding some neuroscience would be a huge benefit to him.

This surface level learning is something that people do to appease their ego. Even though they have the opportunity to grow, they’re focused on someone else instead of themselves.

Level 2: Reflect on the Past

In this second level of learning, you’re going deeper. You connect to how you’re already using this information, or where you’ve used it in the past.

I remember that conflict management article I read last year. It seemed to work pretty well when I had to fire that Ops guy.

While this level of learning is aimed at you instead of others, it is still justifying something you’ve done already (or are already doing.) Growth is limited at best.

Level 3: Committed to Growth

Level 3 Learning is where the gold is. It’s when you take a good, hard look at yourself and find out where you aren’t applying something as deeply as you could. Then, you make a plan to change that. Leaders understand that level 3 learning is actually easier when you learn something brand new. However, how often are you exposed to something you’ve heard before, and think oh yes, I know that, and then forget all about it?

Where real courage and character come in is when you hear a concept again, and think, where can I do this better? How else can I apply and integrate this?

It takes work to be a high-performing leader, and it also takes the resilience to continually reflect on your state and actions to see how you can improve. The reason this takes resilience is by doing so you have to admit you still have something to learn, and your ego doesn’t like that. Speaking of ego, let’s learn more about that now.

Exploration

To support you to integrate what you’re learning in your everyday life, you’ll find some self-reflective prompts throughout the book. Take some time to engage with them to get the highest return on your reading investment.

What is your mindset right now as you read this book? Are you looking to validate what you already know, or are you ready to honestly reflect on your life and see how you can evolve and grow?

Think about the last time someone gave you feedback. Were you defensive? Or did you search everywhere in your life for where you could apply the feedback at a deeper level?

One more note about learning: I have a free community which has additional trainings, downloadable tools, and more. You can join through Facebook: RMichaelAnderson.com/FBGroup and LinkedIn: RMichaelAnderson.com/LIGroup.)

Two Parts of a Leader’s Consciousness

There are two parts to any human’s consciousness. The first part is your natural state—what we call the authentic self. When we’re in our natural state, we’re connected. We’re at peace. Things are aligned and feel good.

The second part of your consciousness is your ego, which is designed for one simple thing: to protect you. When your mind or body perceives a threat, it moves you out of your natural state—the authentic self—and has the ego take over. The ego addresses the perceived threat by creating comfort, control, and security in whatever way it can, using whatever’s available. The ego isn’t necessarily bad, it’s just overused. In fact, the ego’s defenses have served humans well for 20,000 years, especially when we needed constant protection. Until just a few generations ago, we were often fending off or hunting wild animals, or at war, fighting neighboring nations to survive.

The Stress Response System

Figure 4: Your Stress Response System

What happens in your brain in the presence of a threat (Figure 4) is that your stress response system kicks in. This begins with the hypothalamus–pituitary–adrenal axis (knows as the HPA axis.) When the almond-sized brain structure called the amygdala senses there’s danger, it tells the hypothalamus, which wakes up the pituitary gland. The pituitary gland then releases hormones, which travel to the adrenal glands on top of the kidneys, which in turn release cortisol. This process is what tells the rest of the body to be on guard.

All this happens in a split second—less time than it took you to read that paragraph—and that’s what happens when you shift into your protective ego state.

Luckily, the hunt for food now consists of getting Deliveroo or opening the fridge, and the chances of dying from an arrow or spear are next to nil. The issue is that we’ve been wired for the ego to protect us in a certain way for the last, say, 19,800 years, and we haven’t rewired ourselves to adapt to modern society. Our brain doesn’t recognize—until we teach it to—that there’s no longer a need to protect ourselves the way it used to.

Instead of physical danger, today you’re exposed to constant low-level stress that can provoke the shift into your ego. Think about how it’s trying to protect you when you attend a critical board meeting. Or, when you’re afraid someone is vying for your job. Or even when someone clearly isn’t performing in their role, but you’re resisting having that difficult conversation.

In each case, your ego thinks it’s being called into service as your protector, even though it’s interfering at the exact wrong time, causing you to behave in an unhelpful way. After all, what do you think imposter syndrome is? It’s your ego thinking it needs to protect you from a situation it’s not comfortable with. (More on imposter syndrome later…)

How else are ego and your authentic self—the two parts of a leader’s consciousness—relevant to your leadership? Simply put, all poor leadership behaviors and habits are ego-driven. When leaders micromanage and try to control everything, that’s all ego-based behavior rooted in an instinct to protect. The same applies when managers blame people, don’t take responsibility, or hide things.

Whenever we get stressed, whenever we get angry, even when somebody comes to us with harsh energy, we react in the same way neurologically—as if we’re being physically attacked. You might start feeling hot, tense, even tight or tingly in your neck, chest, or somewhere else. These are the physical symptoms that come up when the ego kicks in and gets defensive. Your brain and your body are ready for battle, even if it’s only one within an office.

Figure 5: The Ego & the Authentic Self

As you can see from Figure 5, our egos and authentic selves are opposite each other. You can never be in the ego and the authentic self at the same time. You can be MORE in your ego, or MORE in your authentic self, but never both in a given moment. We need to get you out of the ego into your authentic self, because that’s the state that powerful leaders operate from.

Think about the traits of great leadership. Things like trust, teamwork, empowering others, or sharing the credit...see how those come from people who are in their authentic self, and don’t feel the need to protect themselves?

By shifting into your authentic self, into a place of peace and calm, you’ll have much more self-esteem, you’ll be more likable, people will trust you more, and you’ll connect with people much more easily345. That all comes as a result of trusting ourselves and empowering others. Working from your authentic self will turn you into a long-term successful leader—and help you a heck of a lot on the personal front as well.

It’s also the state you need to be in to be creative and think strategically. Many people tell me they get inspired ideas in the shower. There’s a reason for that. Showers are typically protected spaces where the ego can relax and lower its guard. The door’s locked. Nobody can bother you. It’s warm. The ego lets go of its hold on you, then you relax into your authentic self and your best ideas come through. You’re going to learn how to cultivate and make this relaxed, open state more natural for you, so you can experience it through the day, not just in the shower.

As you’re introduced to these concepts, think of them as the foundation of a building. Everything you learn here will support what you learn later. Many people get huge insights from learning and applying these foundations as they apply in almost every situation. For example, when I sent a note to the BBC executive I mentioned earlier, to get her permission to include the anecdote in the book, she replied, “Sure, I even still have a post-it note in front of my zoom screen that says ‘authentic self not ego self,’ so your teachings have impact!”

Exploration

When do you shift into your ego? Is it around a certain person, or certain type of people? Is it in a certain place or context (e.g. meetings, in front of a large group, when you meet new people)?

What are the physical signs that you’re in your ego? Do things speed up? Do you feel tightness anywhere (e.g. chest, neck, head)?

How do your thoughts, behaviors, and actions change when you’re in your ego?

Becoming aware of when you’re in your ego in real time is often enough to shift you right back into a neutral state of mind, if not all the way into your authentic self.

The ARC Process

The next way to learn like a leader involves a three-step process called ARC, which stands for Awareness, Response, and Compassion.

ARC: Awareness

Einstein once said, “If I had an hour to figure out the most important question in the universe, I would spend the first 55 minutes making sure I understood the question.” That’s what awareness means. It’s about slowing down and getting to the heart of the real issue.

Early on in my leadership, I was always go-go-go, running at a thousand miles per hour. I would tell you that I COULDN’T slow down because I had too much to do. But sprinting like that all the time doesn’t work. You end up fixing symptoms, you aren’t strategic, and are always trying to play catch-up. My ADHD would make me reactionary—things would come up and I would jump on them. This created a lot of extra work and caused issues in relationships with employees, customers, and partners.

In the Awareness stage of the ARC process, you slow down and ask yourself,