Effective leaders aren’t the ones you’d expect: A conversation with historian and professor, Martin Gutmann

What can the leaders of the past teach us about leadership in the present?

In this episode of How to Make a Leader, historian and management professor Martin Gutmann challenges our conventional understanding of leadership with a look back at leaders throughout history. In many organizations, we often associate leadership with the loudest voices or the most dramatic actions, but Martin argues that true leadership is often unseen and underestimated. Drawing from his book The Unseen Leader, Martin uses historical examples to demonstrate how the most impactful leaders are often those who move quietly and strategically behind the scenes.

In this episode, Martin pulls insights and lessons from historical figures and contemporary leadership studies, highlighting the need to rethink how we identify and cultivate leadership talent today. 

You’ll learn:

• The most common traits among successful leaders
• How the “action fallacy” misguides leadership selection and development
• Why contextual fluency is a crucial leadership skill to develop
• The importance of psychological safety
• How to identify and support effective leaders within your team

Things to listen for:

(00:00)  Introduction to Martin Gutmann

(01:58) What history teaches us about leadership 

(05:52) The action fallacy and its impact on leadership

(15:02) The common traits among successful leaders 

(20:10) The value of deep familiarity in your field as a leader

(29:22) How to develop powerful leaders in our organization

(31:08) How to identify and support quiet but effective leaders

To learn more about Martin and his work, check out his website or order Martin’s book, The Unseen Leader: How History Can Help us Rethink Leadership.

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What is How To Make a Leader?

Welcome to "How to Make a Leader," a leadership development podcast from Big Think+ where we take the best ideas from the biggest minds in learning and development and distill them into actionable insights. In each episode, host Hannah Beaver sits down with learning and development leaders to discuss how to create world-class leadership development programs, how to nurture frontline leadership skills, and even how to combat burnout.