Evolve: how exceptional leaders leverage the inner voice of human evolution

"Leaders work hard to develop strong leadership capabilities in today's modern organizations, for the benefit of their teams and for their own careers. But, sometimes conventional leadership theory fails to explain why our efforts fail to make an impact, and arguably are becoming less and less successful. Why would this be? The answer lies in our evolutionary history. Leadership is integral to our success and evolution as a species, as larger better functioning groups out-survived fragmented groups that did not benefit from strong leadership. Leader-follower relationships are, therefore, deeply ingrained in our brains, our instincts and our behaviour. But, our modern world, with its technology, connectedness and complexity, has evolved much faster than our brains - and our leader-follower behaviour has not caught up. Evolve charts the fascinating development of our evolutionary history to provide a profound understanding of human behaviour around leadership. It also establishes a framework for the modes of leadership that shape the world today. Through case studies and real-world examples, you will gain powerful insights into the nature of leadership now. More importantly, these insights inform the actions you can take in your own life to enable you to become a more aware, mindful, impactful, and successful leader." --

Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- Preface -- Introduction -- Part one: Theory -- the human evolutionary basis of leadership -- 1 Crushed by a million tons of flipcharts -- Heartfelt voice -- Command voice -- Prosocial voice -- Futurizing voice -- Takeaways -- 2 Our flawed and magnificent brain -- Layers -- Takeaways -- 3 Evolution -- From London Zoo to Africa -- Down the Eurostar tracks and back -- Takeaways -- 4 Leadership and pre-cogs -- Takeaways -- 5 Leadership and intra-cogs -- Takeaways -- 6 Leadership and post-cogs -- The storytelling leader -- Takeaways -- 7 A primate, a gossip, and a dreamer walk into a bar -- Down the pub -- Takeaways -- 8 The pre-cog within (and the intra-cog, and the post-cog) -- Inner voice -- Takeaways -- Part two: From theory to action -- 9 Primeval shadow hijacks heartfelt voice -- Primeval shadow -- Hijacking the heartfelt voice -- Turning down the volume on the primeval shadow -- Takeaways -- Leadership development actions -- 10 Tribal shadow undermines command voice -- Tribal shadow -- Command voice -- lead your tribe -- The pre-cog choice -- Command voice and gender -- Takeaways -- Leadership developme…