The Mind of the Leader

BOOK REVIEW

Book Title: The Mind of the Leader: How to Lead Yourself, Your People, and Your Organization for Extraordinary Results
Author:  Rasmus Hougaard and Jacqueline Carter
Publisher:  Harvard Business Review
List Price:   $30.00 USD
Format:  Hardback, 238 pages
Publication Date:   2018
ISBN: 9781633693425
Reviewer:  Sheila Renee Jackson
Review Date: September 2019

Introduction

The Mind of the Leader helps us answer the age-old question, “What’s on your mind?” As the authors explain in the introduction, we often see, through their actions, what is, or is not, on a leader’s mind. The authors suggest three foundational, mutually enhancing, qualities of great leadership, which they call MSC leadership. (M)indfulness. (S)elflessness. (C)ompassion.

The Mind of the Leader is a product of more than two years of research by the Potential Project around the qualities necessary for success in twenty-first century leadership and is based upon interviews and assessments of more than 35,000 leaders and 250 executives at Microsoft, Lego, Accenture, and McKinsey. The book includes an accompanying self-titled App available on Android and Apple.

Overview of Book’s Structure

In the introduction the authors explain the three levels of leadership (Yourself, Your people, Your organization) and illustrate this concept graphically (p. 4). This graphic is used throughout with the particular chapter emphasis highlighted. The book’s three parts each detail one level of leadership using the MSC pattern. The book’s formatting consistency enhances its effectiveness; locating answers within each of the three parts is easier because of this pattern.

The capstone statement for this book might be “Leadership is less about what you do and becoming more of what you are.” Leaders who are more approachable, more relatable and more truly human are the ones who succeed. This book is a move away from leadership development’s traditional starting points of strategy, vision, and spreadsheets. Instead, the authors propose an inside-out approach with the book as their supporting outcomes-based research. “You cannot manage other people unless you manage yourself first.” [Peter Drucker]

The Mind of the Leader is organized around three levels of leadership, with awareness as the core of each: self, people and organization.

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About the Reviewer

Sheila Jackson, PMP

North Texas, USA

Sheila Jackson, PMP, MBA, PSM-I has more than sixteen years of project management experience, in multiple industries and settings. Sheila has an MBA from the University of North Texas and a BA in Psychology from Baylor University.

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