Episode 190 – Meta-Leadership: Integrating Thinking, Emotion, and Behavior

The podcast by project managers for project managers. Constance Dierickx lays out a new paradigm for leadership that offers a way to synthesize thinking, emotion, and behavior. Meta-leadership goes beyond conventional leadership attributes, emphasizing not only the possession of knowledge and skills but also a keen sense of observation and discernment. Table of Contents 02:29 … Meta-Leadership04:42 … Adopting a Meta-Leadership Strategy07:24 … Meta-Leadership Enables Decision-Making10:12 … Factors that Drive our Decisions14:36 … A Tension between Certainty and Uncertainty18:45 … Dealing with Unprofessional Behavior24:35 … Meta-Level Awareness26:16 … Kevin & Kyle27:22 … The Courage to Fail32:23 … Listen, Learn, and be Curious36:55 … Connect with Constance38:42 … Closing CONSTANCE DIERICKX: And I can't stress the importance of showing sincere interest in other people. Don't say it. Don't say, “I'm a people person.” No one believes you. Don't say, “People are our greatest asset.” No one believes you. Public relations, vanilla pudding. Do not spew the typical stuff. Say things that are sincere and memorable and uniquely yours. WENDY GROUNDS: Welcome to Manage This, the podcast by project managers for project managers. I'm Wendy Grounds. In the studio with me is Bill Yates and Danny Brewer. We're so excited you're joining us today. We're talking with Constance Dierickx, and she is the author of a book that we have read called “Meta-Leadership: How to See What Others Don't and Make Great Decisions.” Constance is really fun to talk to and has excellent advice. I think you're going to enjoy this conversation. She earned her PhD in clinical psychology focusing on decision science and crisis intervention. She's an internationally recognized expert in high-stakes decision-making, and she has advised leaders and delivered speeches in more than 20 countries. She's the founder and president of CD Consulting Group. And we're going to be looking at her book “Meta-Leadership.” One of the things that comes out of her book that I thought was really interesting was good leaders become great in part because they recognize that their own thinking, emotions, and habits of behavior can be a source of error. So this is time for a lot of introspection. We're going to be looking at ourselves, looking a little deeper and how are we being meta-leaders? BILL YATES: Even to decision-making. And here's an example of how Constance applies this idea of meta-leadership. Let's say I'm contemplating a significant decision. Here are questions that I should answer. Who am I trying to please? Or who do I not want to disappoint or annoy? What pressures am I experiencing to make one decision or another? Are there opinions that I am minimizing or dismissing because I don't like that person that they're coming from? Am I being closed-minded? Those are some of the questions that we're going to be prompted to consider as we look at this topic and discuss it further with Constance. WENDY GROUNDS: Hi, Constance. Welcome to Manage This. CONSTANCE DIERICKX: Thank you, Wendy. It's delightful to see you and Bill on my screen. Meta-Leadership WENDY GROUNDS: Can you describe for our audience what you mean by meta-leadership? CONSTANCE DIERICKX: Yes, yes. So “meta” is a prefix from the Greek. Someone needs to tell Mark Zuckerberg that it's not a word unto itself, although I doubt he'll listen. “Meta” means above or beyond. And so we think about metacognition, which means thinking about your thinking, which I write about in the book. I have a whole section on thinking. We think about meta-analysis. So researchers will sometimes take a group of studies that have something in common. Maybe they're all studying the effects of a new antidepressant, and they collapse the data and do what's called the “meta-analysis.” And so you get the “meta‑study.” I have worked with boards and CEOs for 25 years.