Author Talks: A transformational approach to leadership

In this edition of Author Talks, McKinsey Global Publishing’s Raju Narisetti speaks with McKinsey senior partners Dana Maor, Kurt Strovink, and Ramesh Srinivasan and senior partner emeritus Hans-Werner Kaas about their new book, The Journey of Leadership: How CEOs Learn to Lead from the Inside Out (Portfolio/Penguin Group, USA, September 2024). Through the lens of CEOs who have mastered invaluable leadership lessons and insights from McKinsey’s Bower Forum and other CEO counseling, the authors explore the tenets of successful human-centric leadership. The book offers a practical approach for leaders to empower others, navigate challenges, and pursue an introspective journey in a complex, ever-changing world. An edited version of the conversation follows, and you can also watch the full video at the end of this page.

Raju Narisetti: McKinsey launched the bestseller CEO Excellence a couple of years ago. How does this book add to the broader discourse on leadership?

Hans-Werner Kaas: We emphasize a critical topic that has been neglected for many years: human-centric leadership. What do we mean by human-centric leadership? The definition is simple. Leaders must show up as human beings and behave as such when they interact with their coworkers, whether they lead executive teams or interact with others internally and with stakeholders. That will indeed lead to much, much deeper engagement, eventually. They can actually unleash the power, commitment, and energy of people much more effectively and easily with human-centric leadership.

Ramesh Srinivasan: The world is changing so much, and the one constant is the rate of change. As we worked with leaders, both in our Bower Forums and the broader leadership work that we do with clients and internally within our firm, we realized that leaders must continue to learn and evolve.

Some of the concepts that we explore in this book include fearless learning. How do you keep learning every day? Hans-Werner uses the term “reinvention,” which I like a lot. As we worked in these different forums and as we interviewed many, many leaders, we came up with very valuable ideas, given all the complexities in the world.

Dana Maor: You’re right that there are a lot of books. When Hans-Werner speaks of human leadership, there are books that speak about humility, confidence, how to inspire. But actually bringing all that information together, including information about the ability to navigate and know when to do, and what and how to manage those tensions, is quite unique. This is what we spend a lot of time on.

The focus on taking time as a leader yourself to actually know yourself, so that you can then lead others, is unique because it feels like a privilege. Many leaders feel privileged if they have time for themselves: “How should I spend time with me, when the rest of the world needs me and that’s what I’m here for?”

Raju Narisetti: This book refers to McKinsey working one-on-one with CEOs through the Bower Forum and also through McKinsey’s CEO practices. How does the Forum work?

Ramesh Srinivasan: Raju, this book is definitely for CEOs and about CEOs, but as Dana keeps reminding us, it’s also for all leaders. One of the things we have tried to do is to bring lessons for all leaders. That’s, in fact, why we called it The Journey of Leadership. It is for people who one day might aspire to be CEOs or might aspire to do other things in life. And the book is really about how to unleash their full potential.

Our work with leaders includes one-on-one interactions in all different settings. I used to lead partner learning for McKinsey, and we spent a lot of one-on-one time with partners in different settings. We used that to mentor colleagues and help them understand their own purpose and author their own journeys.

But in the Bower Forum, we also spend a lot of time with CEOs, helping them think about their own purpose, what gives them meaning, how can they bring that to the world to lead their teams and lead institutions in the world. Over these past few years, we realized all the lessons we’ve learned and wanted to bring some of these stories and lessons into this book.

Raju Narisetti: The book is not just for CEOs. How can nonbusiness leaders—government leaders, nonprofit leaders, university leaders—apply these lessons?

Ramesh Srinivasan: One example I’ll share relates to nonprofit leaders. One of the leaders we profiled in the book is Wendy Kopp, founder of Teach For All. Wendy established Teach For America and then went on to found Teach For All, which has taken the movement to more than 60 countries around the world.

One of the big ideas she discusses is the concept of collaborative leadership: “How can we help leaders reflect on their own purpose and take the idea of Teach For America or Teach For All and tailor it to their context?” Her learning has been that spreading the movement is not about bringing a playbook and taking that to many countries but really about taking an idea and helping leaders think about their own purpose and context, and then translating that.

As Dana said earlier, our hope is that this book and the process that we’ve described, as well as some of the micropractices in the appendix of the book, can help leaders construct their own process for self-reflection, leading themselves and their teams, and ultimately having impact in whatever context that they’re in in the world.

Kurt Strovink: We’re using the CEO role as a touchstone because it has a lot of pressure points, is of huge global significance, and is at the intersection of a lot of contradictions. But it is a metaphor for all leadership, and it applies to leaders, or all organizations, at all levels. This inner journey, in particular of this book, plays out over time in multiple roles in similar ways. It is very broadly applicable to different leaders in different organizations, in nonprofits, as well as in the public sector or for-profit organizations.

Raju Narisetti: Fifteen months ago, most had vaguely heard of generative AI. Now, every CEO has to make some really big bets on it.

Dana Maor: On the flip side, gen AI, and AI in general, also emphasizes the importance of human leadership. There are a lot of fears related to gen AI. There is no question that more and more of what we’ll do will be technologically enabled, whether it is AI or gen AI.

But it is also clear that the more that is happening, those traits that we’ve included in the book will actually become more important. Human leadership will be more important because of those things that are repetitive, that can be programmed, that can be done by technology, even learning.

There’s a new thing that everybody needs to learn. There are a lot of questions out there. But if there’s one thing that I am certain about, it is that it’s going to put even more emphasis on the human aspects of leadership.

Hans-Werner Kaas: Large language models will have a very hard time training and learning every aspect of human behavior, especially because human behavior is a reaction. We talk with each other. We look each other in the eyes. We pick up signals, nonverbal signals. I think that it is hard to reflect all that in large language models. And certainly, there are many opportunities we point at in terms of generative AI in our book as well.

Raju Narisetti: Rather than focus on the usual gender differences, the book seems to be about uniform challenges, though there are not that many women in Fortune 500 companies.

Ramesh Srinivasan: We have some amazing women leaders that we’ve covered in the book: Claire Babineaux of Feeding America, Reeta Roy of Mastercard Foundation. I already mentioned Wendy Kopp of Teach For All.
As we connected with them, we learned from their experiences but also from other leaders—main leaders who we work with and who we covered in the book. We found that the characteristics exhibited—how to be vulnerable but in a more strategic way, have more empathy, set a courageous vision but bring everybody along in the journey together—are actually independent of gender.

Hans-Werner referred to this concept as human-centric leadership. We found examples of both women and men who are able to lead in this way. That’s why we decided we’d rather focus on questions such as: What are some of the characteristics? What are some of the commonalities? What are some of the behaviors? How can people learn and bring out the best version of themselves and unleash their fullest potential? Our learnings have shown that there’s actually a lot of commonality, whether you’re a man or a woman, in the process you follow: what you do and how you do it. Dana, it would be interesting to hear your perspective.

Dana Maor: That’s absolutely right. In fact, some of the barriers that we’re talking about sometimes apply more to men than women. But they are consistent, and we would in some cases run forums that are dedicated to women.

Ramesh Srinivasan: In fact, one of the ideas that people often talk about is the concept of impostor syndrome. Michael Fisher mentions it in this book. Mike is a really inspiring leader. He was a CEO of Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. He was a Bower Forum participant who became a faculty member. He led a hospital despite not being a trained doctor.

He did this during COVID as well. It’s amazing to see how he’s thought about it and how he has worked with others to generate ideas, as well the impact he had on quality and outcomes. The role Michael played at Cincinnati Children’s has been an amazing story given the very inspiring impact that he has had. It’s been fantastic to observe how he has evolved in his journey.

Raju Narisetti: The book goes well beyond anecdotes and insights. Each chapter ends with a workbook to complete.

Dana Maor: Our hope was that this book would be not only a story or a collection of stories but also a journey that allows you, as an individual, to take yourself through that journey, if you chose to do that. Of course, you can come and participate in a Bower Forum with us, or we can come and conduct a leadership program. But there are enough pauses for reflection to allow you to ask yourself the questions. For example, assuming the chapter “You’re Not the Smartest Person in the Room” resonates with you, you may want to pause and reflect. You may ask, “Well, am I behaving like I am the smartest person in the room? Or where does that take away from my ability to have impact?”

At the end of the chapter, there’s a set of questions that you could ask yourself, pause and reflect on, and get feedback from people who you trust so that you can build your own perspective: “How am I doing along this trait? What could I be doing if this was my priority to move forward?”

You can do that chapter by chapter, or you can take on the full framework. Actually, the third part of the book lays out the map. If you wanted to explore the full journey by yourself, there is a whole map that you can follow that takes you through the same steps in the process.

So again, this is a way to hopefully make this book relevant. The hope is that it resonates not only with people who have been there already and want to share this with others but also with people who are wondering how can they become more effective leaders and grow in that ongoing learning journey of themselves.

Ramesh Srinivasan: The other idea that I recommend to all leaders is to have an advisory board—a forum, a group of people—to whom they can ask the questions that Dana talked about as a way to then get independent input from a set of people in a safe space.

I myself have an advisory group. We meet the first Tuesday of every month, and unless there’s a very critical commitment, I’m always there with this group. We help each other learn about ourselves, grow, and support each other through our own journeys. The book gives enough ideas, questions, stories to help a leader construct a group, an advisory group, and a journey for themselves.

Dana Maor: In fact, in the spirit of diversity, we would encourage a mix of people who know you personally and professionally, and are of different ages. You can learn a lot from much older and much younger people.

Ramesh Srinivasan: I agree with that. My wife Charu is definitely part of my advisory board, but she’s not the chair.

Hans-Werner Kaas: She’s the nonexecutive chair.

Ramesh Srinivasan: Actually, she’s not that either. There’s one voice, one critical voice. This is part of what we tried to do in the forums that we established as well: to have voices that are close enough to leaders but also voices that are slightly distant and not as emotionally attached. That way, you, as a leader, can then continue to be self-aware and continue your own journey. It’s useful to have a group that includes spouses, people with whom you’re close, friends, and voices that are slightly more distant. It gives you an ability to broaden a range of perspectives and then set your own course.

Dana Maor: I would add that, as the leader, once you’ve heard the diverse set of opinions, you need to have that ability to be discerning and to make your own judgment.

Raju Narisetti: Toward the end of the book, you list more than 100 microhabits, some of which you practice.

Dana Maor: Yes. I also have a to-do list. First of all, from a concept perspective, you cannot change everything at the same time and hope that will stick forever. That’s why we shared that list of microhabits because these are little things that we ourselves have learned from others over the course of the years. You can start with that. You start with one microhabit, or then another two, and then over time that does change your behavior.

For me, personally, yoga has become my practice. I found that I was going too fast all the time, not pausing for reflection. Yoga became the place where I slow down, where I always learn I’m never done, depending on what I need in the day. For example, if I need to sharpen my brain, I will usually take inversions or balance poses. Those engage you, much like skiing down a hill.

You become engaged in what you do, and the brain is much more open later on. I mentioned not sleeping less than five hours for more than two nights in a row. There are also little things, like always having 15 minutes between every meeting. Otherwise, I’m always rushing, forgetting, or I’m not taking that moment to write notes or to reflect on the conversations. These are a few of my microhabits.

Raju Narisetti: I know you’re being modest, because your yoga practice is very macro as well. You are an expert.

Dana Maor: I conducted two teachers’ trainings because I keep learning, and I’m in my third right now. It’s a huge pleasure to learn. Actually, looking at what I do through the eyes of how I would teach it is also a great learning practice.

Hans-Werner Kaas: Dana already described the concept of microhabits. Dramatic changes in our conduct, behavior, or reinventions, as we call it, do happen in small increments. Microhabits are a pragmatic way of improving yourself in measurable, small steps. Ramesh is a master in microhabits. I admit I have only read a lot about meditation, but I have never really practiced it.

In fact, in one of the sessions of the Bower Forum, we occasionally have a colleague of ours, Manish Chopra, who has written a book about meditation. Sometimes, on Saturday mornings before we started our [Bower] sessions, he invited us to do a basic 30-minute exercise. It starts with breathing, letting the world outside yourself go. So what I at least try to do twice or three times a week—not enough, I know—is practice for 15 minutes. My other microhabit is my reaction to something, either a situation which arose that surprised me or I got upset about—a friend, worker, or my kids.

I usually try to hold back my emotions first and not engage in any emotional response. I try that for at least 24 hours and sleep on it. In German, it’s called the “Prussian night” because the Prussians were known for their military skills. One of the well-known Prussian generals actually coached his generals and his entire team. He said they should practice the Prussian night by not reacting today, if the situation does not require urgency, but to sleep on it. He encouraged them to reflect on their options. That’s my other small microhabit.

Ramesh Srinivasan: There’s a lot of research that shows that adults learn by taking incremental steps, as Hans-Werner said. If you can take a micropractice and stay with it for six, eight weeks, there’s a 90 percent chance that it turns into a habit and helps you improve as a professional. So that’s what has led me to conceive of the microhabits concept. I have two that I can talk about. One is my daily practice of intention setting for the day: “What do I want to be?” versus just “What do I want to do this day?” I like to do that over a cup of coffee, while listening to Indian music.

Raju Narisetti: Classical, though, not Bollywood?

Ramesh Srinivasan: Mostly classical, exactly. I do that with my wife in the morning. This morning, we talked about what will happen today and spent some time talking about intentions for the day.

As leaders, we should all continue learning some skill at any given point in time. My other microhabit is asking, “What skill are you learning?” Currently, I’m spending a fair amount of time learning Indian classical music. I started this journey four or five years ago, and I’m slowly becoming comfortable sharing my clips. Over the past year, my wife has joined me in this journey. We’ve been learning together, singing together, and holding small recitals that help us connect with people.

One of the main reasons I explored music was that it’s a great way of expressing emotion. Hans-Werner was mentioned expressing emotion earlier. I still find it hard to express emotions with words, and the education system often doesn’t teach us how to express emotions. Music is a much easier way to express sadness and disappointment, or even joy, anger, and energy—all of that. So that’s been a wonderful journey.

Raju Narisetti: Let’s fast forward to one year after the book launch, to September 10, 2025. What would success look like in terms of the impact of The Journey of Leadership?

Hans-Werner Kaas: It is not the obvious answer, in terms of becoming a bestseller. Would we like that? Of course, we still would like to have a bestselling book, but let’s leave the bestseller notion aside. At a minimum, we could help leaders begin the journey.

It is not a finite journey because, as the book title, Journey of Leadership, and the final chapter suggest, the journey continues; it never ends. We hope that we can reach as many leaders of different walks of life, backgrounds, parts of the world, across various industries—government, philanthropic, and social sectors. We try to reach many leaders to start their journey and continue on their journey.

Dana Maor: Hans-Werner said it well. The world needs amazing leaders, and unfortunately, there are not enough of those. It would be a major victory to find that more leaders are touched by this book who are now conscious of the importance of investing in themselves so that they can then lead others.

For every CEO, every leader with whom I worked, the last thing they would do is take that time to learn something new, to meditate, to reflect on the people who they need to listen to and make time for that.
And [that helps them] have the backbone to make decisions.

We want to reach as many leaders as we can. If in the next year they all want to dive deeper into each and every one of these concepts, because they’re each a journey in and of themselves, that would be very, very rewarding.

Ramesh Srinivasan: Just building on both of those thoughts, we definitely want to spread the messages of human-centric leadership to many leaders around the world. We want these leaders to start their own journey of leading themselves, others, and institutions. Through that experience, hopefully, we can help these leaders shape organizations—whether it’s in the social sector or the private sector—that can then be a testament to what great leadership looks like. That would make all of us feel proud and satisfied.

Watch the full interview

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