ABSTRACT

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.

chapter |6 pages

Introduction

part 1|68 pages

Theory – the human evolutionary basis of leadership

chapter 1|10 pages

Crushed by a million tons of flipcharts

chapter 2|6 pages

Our flawed and magnificent brain

chapter 3|11 pages

Evolution

chapter 4|6 pages

Leadership and pre-cogs

chapter 5|10 pages

Leadership and intra-cogs

chapter 6|8 pages

Leadership and post-cogs

part 2|88 pages

From theory to action

chapter 9|25 pages

Primeval shadow hijacks heartfelt voice

chapter 10|17 pages

Tribal shadow undermines command voice

chapter 11|19 pages

Shadow gossip incapacitates prosocial voice

chapter 12|20 pages

Daemon invalidates futurizing voice

chapter 13|5 pages

Bringing it all together

part 3|13 pages

Traps and pitfalls

chapter 14|5 pages

Differential disfunction

chapter 15|6 pages

Differential dark side

part 4|35 pages

The ultimate case studies

chapter 16|11 pages

The leadership study of religion

chapter 17|22 pages

The differential voice of Martin Luther King