Guest: Ramesh Srinivasan, a senior partner at McKinsey & Company and co-author of The Journey of Leadership: How CEOs Learn to Lead from the Inside Out.

In a Nutshell: How well do you know yourself?

The absolute best business leaders work hard to understand their emotions, motivations, and limitations so that they can identify their inner purpose and align it with the outcomes they want their teams to achieve.

The problem is, most leaders have over-indexed on the hard-nosed left-brain skills. Sure, that drives profit but at what cost?

Technological advances continue to minimize the value of a person’s “technical knowledge.” The real skill for a leader is to master the polarities of leadership and package them in a human-centric way that inspires your team to deliver meaningful impact for all stakeholders.

On today’s show, Ramesh Srinivasan discusses how leaders can transform themselves and their organizations by developing self-awareness, fostering authentic leadership, and evolving through personal growth.

.Ramesh Srinivasan and I discuss:

  • Keeping pace with the rate of global change.
  • Integrating right-brain and left-brain thinking.
  • Overcoming CEO isolation.
  • Managing fear in an organization.
  • Leveraging AI to support your leadership.
  • “Micro practices” that can enhance a CEO’s inside out journey.
  • Three CEO “super powers” Ramesh wants more CEOs to master.

. Quotes: 

Ramesh Srinivasan on leading with purpose:

“ The world is changing rapidly, and the rate of change has gone up dramatically. Geopolitics, climate change, technology disruptions, all of this has made a leader’s job quite difficult today. And in this era, in this level of change, what we’ve seen is that leaders need to ask themselves, what is their purpose? What gives them meaning? What gives them energy? And they need to lead from that sense of purpose and who they are and use that to inspire their teams, inspire their organizations.”

Ramesh Srinivasan on telling the tough truths:

“As a leader, I realized that leadership is not a popularity contest. There are times when I have to give a tough message, even as an advisor. Sometimes I have to be able to tell a leader, a CEO, what they might be doing wrong or show them a blind spot. And in that process, they may not like me for a period of time and so I’ve come to realize that it’s okay if everybody doesn’t like me and I need to stay true to my own purpose. Who am I? What am I trying to do? What is my own purpose of helping leaders fulfill their potential? And in that process, if a few people don’t like me or don’t like me for a period of time, that’s completely okay.”

Ramesh Srinivasan on CEO renewal:

“Every morning after I wake up I listen to Indian classical music. I think about my to-be list for the day. How do I want to show up? That then goes with my to-do list. How do I want to show up with curiosity to connect with people and use that to then lead into my day? Within McKinsey, we use this concept of renewal. We feel every leader has to keep renewing themselves and ask what is the next chapter and what do they want to either modify or add to what they’re doing?”

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