Leadership development

Toxic Leadership – Does Your Leader Have A Dark Triad?

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‘Guys, I will always have your back’, she said when she became our leader … until she did not.

We all know the stories about how notorious dictators like Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Saddam Hussein, not only ruled their countries with an iron fist, but had an inner circle of followers that were on the one hand attracted to them and craving for their approval, and on the other hand continuously on their toes, out of fear of falling out of favor and being ‘purged’ as a result. A contemporary example of such a dictator is Kim Jong Un.

Nowadays, we would say these dictators had a ‘dark triad’. 

What Is The Dark Triad?

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‘Maximizing the Business Opportunity of Generational Diversity’ – An Interview with Rebecca Robins and Patrick Dunne (‘Five Generations at Work’)

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❗ ‘We live in the most Generationally Diverse Demographic’ (Rebecca Robins).

🚫 Unfortunately, generational differences are often seen as a source of problems – sometimes misunderstood, and exaggerated by social media.

⁉️ However, what would happen if we saw Generational Differences as Opportunities instead of Issues?

📖 This is precisely the topic of the book ‘Five Generations at Work: How We Win Together, For Good’ by Rebecca Robins CMgr CCMI and Patrick Dunne.

🎙️ In the 30th episode of the Leadership 2.0 podcast, I interview Rebecca Robins CMgr CCMI and Patrick Dunne about ‘Maximising the business opportunity of generational diversity’

During our conversation, we discussed the following topics:

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The Strategic Value of Learning & Development – An interview with Nick van Dam

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🚫 Many organizations mistakenly relegate Learning & Development (L&D) to a “nice-to-have” status. It’s seen as something every HR organization needs to have (if only for the optics), but often the prevailing attitude is that, while great L&D is a pleasant surprise, if it falls short, there’s no serious harm done to the organization.

❗This is often reflected in bland L&D offerings, which, more often than not, are so generic, that they fail to address the strategic issues organizations need to address

⁉️ However, what would happen if organizations truly would treat Learning & Development as a strategic instrument?

🎙️ In the 29th episode of the Leadership 2.0 podcast, I interview Nick van Dam about ‘The Strategic Value of Learning & Development’. Nick van Dam is an internationally recognized thought leader, advisor, executive coach, researcher, facilitator, and best-selling (co-) author of more than 29 books on Leadership, Organizational Behavior, and Corporate Learning & Talent Management.

► During our conversation, we discussed the following topics:

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Heroic Leadership – An interview with Chris Lowney

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Many people in the workplace wrestle with combining their ethical and spiritual convictions on the one hand, with what they feel is required of them to progress their careers, or simply to stay in their roles, on the other.

For people who want to address this tension, ‘Heroic Leadership – Best Practices from a 450-Year-Old Company That Changed the World’ by Chris Lowney. ‘ will be a great read!

Chris Lowney, is a one-time Jesuit seminarian, who currently chairs the board of CommonSpirit Health, America’s largest not-for-profit healthcare system with 140 hospitals and more than 150,000 employees. Previously, he served as a Managing Director of J.P. Morgan & Co. in Tokyo, Singapore, London and New York.

In the 28th episode of the Leadership 2.0 podcast, I interview Chris Lowney about Heroic Leadership. During our conversation, we discussed the following topics:

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Book Review: ‘What’s Your Type?’ – The history of the MBTI

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Because I extensively use the MBTI when coaching executives, and because of my general interest in the work of the Swiss Psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961), I was looking forward to read ‘What’s Your Type? – The Strange History of Myers-Briggs and the Birth of Personality Testing’ by Merve Emre.

For those not familiar with the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), the MBTI has been developed by Katherine Briggs (1875-1968) and her daughter Isabel Myers (1897-1980) on the basis of Jung’s Personality (‘Type’) Theory. It enables the categorization of individual personalities in 4 dimensions, resulting in the (well-known) 16 different ‘types’ (e.g., ‘ISTJ’ or ‘ENFP’).

Function PreferencePreference
Energy I – Introversion (ideas) E – Extroversion (people)
Perception S – Sensing (data) N – Intuition (intuition)
Judgment T – Thinking F – Feeling
Attitude towards outside world J – Judging P – Perceiving

Until a decade ago, the MBTI was one of the most popular personality assessment instruments, and, although it is far less popular today than it used to be, it is still extensively (ab)used.

For this reason, I was very curious to read the book. Unfortunately, I found it a mixed bag.

What I do not like about this book

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‘Employment is Dead’ – An interview with Deborah Perry Piscione

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Earlier this week, one of the most important business books on the Future of Work was published by Harvard Business Review Press: ‘Employment Is Dead: How Disruptive Technologies Are Revolutionizing the Way We Work’ by Deborah Perry Piscione and Josh Drean.

The central theme of this book is that traditional employment models are becoming outdated due to the evolving needs and expectations of the modern workforce, in combination with, and enabled by, disruptive technologies.

This will lead to the end of the traditional employment model, as well as the traditional form of companies, as we know them today.

Monday, just hours before the book was released, I had the chance to interview Deborah Perry Piscione for my Leadership 2.0 Podcast.

► In our conversation, we touched on the following topics:

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The Company Culture of On – An interview with Alessandra Del Pino

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There are some companies I deeply admire, and On, the Swiss sports and apparel brand is definitely one of them! Not only do they make amazing products and have an extremely powerful brand, they also have a unique company culture.

For this reason, I was thrilled to sit down with Alessandra Del Pino, Head of Engagement & Talent Growth at On, to discuss the company culture of On, or, as Alessandra describes it, their ‘secret sauce’.

During our conversation, we covered the following topics:

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‘What is Humanistic Management?’ – An Interview with Professor Michael Pirson

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‘Everyone who wins nowadays is challenging the Shareholder Value Maximization doctrine’

This is just one of the powerful and thought-provoking statements Professor Michael Pirson (Fordham University – Gabelli School of Business) made when I interviewed him about ‘Humanistic Management’.

In the last decades, the shortcomings of the neo-liberal economic order in our society have become clearer than ever (e.g. the credit crunch, climate change, and wars). An increasing number of people want to move away from a system that commoditizes human beings, and the natural environment in which they live.

They seek, amongst others, dignity, a sense of purpose, and attention to well-being, instead of material prosperity only.

Humanistic Management is a relatively young academic movement that seeks to create a more balanced relationship between those things that can be exchanged on markets and those that are not but make life worthwhile.

Michael Pirson is an active member of this movement, and in this episode of the Leadership 2.0 podcast, I discuss with him

1️⃣ What Humanistic Management is
2️⃣ How Michael discovered Humanistic Management
3️⃣ What we as mankind can learn from the Covid 19 Pandemic
4️⃣ Measuring Wealth versus Wellbeing
5️⃣ Will Shareholder Value (Economistic Management) not always prevail?
6️⃣ Is Humanistic Management industry agnostic?
7️⃣ Resources on Humanistic Management
8️⃣ Final Thoughts

👇 You can watch or listen to this podcast episode on


➡️ YouTube
➡️ Apple Podcasts
➡️ Spotify

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‘The Leader as Healer’ (Business Book of the year 2023) – An interview with Nicolas Janni

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‘A transformational read that every leader of today needs’.

These were the words Head Judge, Jacq Burns used when she announced that ‘Leader As Healer’, written by Nicholas Janni was selected as the overall winner for the 2023 Business Book Awards.

In his book, Nicolas Janni argues that we need a new leadership model to address the challenges our society faces.

Our current leadership model is one where we see great leaders as warriors ‘on the battlefield of relentless competition’, who drive action, pursue instrumental (shareholder value related) goals, and maintain transactional relationships.

Instead, Nicholas Janni pleads for leaders who are empathetic, intuitive, present, skilled in mindfulness and deep listening, and who can inspire colleagues to engage and collaborate.

In this episode of the Leadership 2.0 podcast, I discuss with Nicholas:

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How NOT to select participants for a Leadership Development program

Dirk Verburg1 Comment

I recently heard an HR leader proudly explain her rigorous selection process for a basic leadership program aimed at newly appointed people leaders. She first pre-selected potential participants based on their performance ratings, then personally interviewed all the top performers. Those who passed were sent by her for a final interview with a senior business leader, and only the successful candidates were allowed to attend the training.

While I appreciated her personal involvement and the engagement of the business leader in the selection process, I do not think this is the right approach.

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