What Metallica, Snoop Dogg, and Japanese Mice Taught Me About Leadership
COMING SOON: The Psychology of Leadership
I wrote a book, and it comes out April 15!
When a friend found out I was writing a book about the psychology of leadership his response was: “You should stay in your lane. Write another finance book.”
I didn’t heed that advice.
What I learned has been life-changing and, humbly, I think it’s worth sharing with the world. You don’t need to manage people to benefit from this book. Leadership, in my definition, is broader than formal people management. Everyone can be a leader, in their family, amongst friends, and in their community.
Now, a few weeks before I started writing this book, I was struggling at work. In hindsight, the issues weren’t out of the ordinary. At the time, however, they were affecting my well-being—creeping into my state of mind and impacting the quality of my sleep. My wife, Anne, noticed I was stressed, so she shared some timeless wisdom with me: “Do something about it!”
And so, I did what I would’ve advised others to do if they found themselves in a similar situation: I asked for advice.
As an avid runner, my mind turned to sports psychologists. I found one nearby: Dr. Daniel M. Zimet. And as I walked into his office, I didn’t know it at the time, but my outlook on resilience was about to change forever.
What followed was a four-year journey investigating new ways to apply psychology to leadership. I plowed through hundreds of books and articles in scientific psychology.
In The Psychology of Leadership, we’ll explore:
Setting Long-Term Goals. You’ll learn how to redefine success, avoid common pitfalls, and set goals that enhance engagement and happiness.
Executing Goals. You’ll learn to master the mental game by embracing stress, separating signals from noise, and practicing strategic patience.
Harnessing Personality Psychology. You’ll learn to leverage personality traits to inspire and lead your team to extraordinary results.
Each principle represents an aha! moment, when I connected my real-world experience with scientific psychology. Some of them are offbeat and counterintuitive, including:
Don’t Die on Everest—Beware of the Side Effects of Measurable Goals
Ignore the Gifted Kids—Don’t Focus So Much on Winning
Think About Death—Always Work Backwards from Your Goals
Learn to Love to Worry—Harness the Positive Side of Neuroticism
Be Disagreeable, Sometimes—Don’t Run Your Business Like a Democracy
In addition to these principles, we’ll cover a lot of ground, touching on a breadth of stories, research, and advice on the broad theme of the psychology of leadership. Along the way, I’ll share my perspective on what Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, the band Metallica, Snoop Dog, Japanese dancing mice, and TV shows like Game of Thrones and Succession have to do with the psychology of leadership. We’ll toggle between self-improvement and leadership, and we’ll ask: What does this principle mean for you as an individual and a leader?
One of the most important lessons Dr. Zimet taught me about the psychology of leadership is that intrinsic motivation is found somewhere deeper than on the surface of measurable goals.
Intrinsic motivation goes beyond the scoreboard. Of course, winning is great. Dr. Zimet loves to win. I love to win. But Dr. Zimet defines success in terms only a sports psychologist could—focusing on mastery over ego, the importance of relationships and community, the meaning of sport as a meritocracy, and engagement and flow.
Leadership is not about merely hitting targets or climbing the corporate ladder—it’s about fostering intrinsic motivation and embracing failure as education. Leadership, like sports psychology, thrives in the space between victory and defeat. The scoreboard matters, certainly, but what matters more is how we process our losses, support our teams through challenges, and maintain perspective when faced with seemingly insurmountable obstacles.
My hope is that by the time you close the pages of this book, you’ll have begun your own psychology of leadership journey. Perhaps, like me, you'll find that the many profound leadership insights come not from staying in your lane, but from venturing into new territories of thought and practice.
I hope you’ll join me on this journey. Pre-order The Psychology of Leadership today.
When he decided to write a book on leadership and self-improvement, Sébastien Page was rejected by over 200 literary agents.
He was asked, “Why would a finance expert write about leadership?” He was told to stay in his lane.
Sébastien has more than two decades of leadership experience. As an author, he believes breakthroughs often happen when experts venture outside their field. That is why, in "The Psychology of Leadership," he went beyond finance and economics to study research in psychology.
He is currently Head of Global Multi-Asset and Chief Investment Officer at T. Rowe Price. He oversees a team of investment professionals actively managing over $500 billion in assets under management.
Sébastien won research paper awards from The Journal of Portfolio Management in 2003, 2010, 2011, and 2022 and the Financial Analysts Journal in 2010 and 2014. In addition to The Psychology of Leadership, he is the author of Beyond Diversification: What Every Investor Needs to Know About Asset Allocation (McGraw Hill, 2020) and the coauthor of Factor Investing and Asset Allocation (CFA Institute Research Foundation, 2016).
Sébastien is also a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Portfolio Management and the Financial Analysts Journal, and the Board of Directors of the Institute for Quantitative Research in Finance (Q Group). He regularly appears in the media, including Bloomberg TV and CNBC, and was recently named amongst the 15 Top Voices in Finance by LinkedIn.