Ruthlessly Caring

BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024 - OVERALL WINNER - The Business Book Awards
BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2024 - PEOPLE, CULTURE & MANAGEMENT - The Business Book Awards

A startlingly insightful exploration of contemporary leadership

In Ruthlessly Caring: And other paradoxical mindsets leaders need to be future-fit, leadership strategist Amy Walters Cohen delivers a one-of-a-kind insight into contemporary business leadership. In the book, you’ll explore how the leadership environment is being radically redefined by 12 megatrends and how five paradoxical mindsets are necessary to achieving high performance and effective decision making in this new era of business. From ambitious appreciation to political virtue, humble confidence, and responsible daring, you’ll discover how to develop and expand your leadership identity. Whilst being heavily based in research, this revolutionary approach takes a practical look at the day-to-day realities of leading in business, offering fresh insight into how to tackle tough decisions, change behaviour, and evolve habits to become future-fit and thrive in a modern environment.

The author shows you how to:

• Weave together multiple, seemingly contradictory, mindsets to enhance decision making and day-to-day leadership
• Adapt to the megatrends that are driving much of the change we see throughout the world
• Shake up the thinking, habits, and behaviours that are holding you back from unleashing your full potential as a leader

An indispensable roadmap to leading modern organisations, Ruthlessly Caring is a must-read for c-suite executives, directors, senior managers, and aspiring business leaders who hope to perform well in their role and get the best out of themselves and the people they lead.

Chapter 1 – Megatrends that are reshaping the world

The megatrends shaping the current and future leadership context

A washing machine effect: interactions and tensions

Paradoxes are endemic in the megatrend context

Becoming future-fit: a paradoxical environment calls for a paradoxical leader

Chapter 2 – The five paradoxical mindsets of future-fit leadership

The five mindsets: high-level summary

What exactly is a paradox?

Embracing paradoxes: why bother?

What makes paradoxical thinking so difficult

Paradoxical thinking: preferences and pendulums

Unfreezing your leadership identity: old habits and current assumptions

Chapter 3 – Ruthlessly Caring

What is a ‘ruthlessly caring’ mindset?

Why embracing a ‘ruthlessly caring’ mindset matters amidst the megatrends?

Leading ruthlessly: making tough performance focused decisions

The ruthless leadership continuum: how to stay on track

Leading with care: staying compassionate no matter what

The caring leadership continuum: how to stay on track

Chapter 4 – Ambitiously Appreciative

What is an ‘ambitiously appreciative’ mindset?

Why being ambitiously appreciative matters amidst the megatrends

Leading ambitiously: the relentless drive to achieve

The ambitious leadership continuum: how to stay on track

Leading with appreciation: keeping goals and work in perspective

The appreciative leadership continuum: how to stay on track

Chapter 5 – Politically Virtuous

What is a ‘politically virtuous’ mindset?

Why a politically virtuous mindset matters amidst the megatrends

Leading politically: being savvy in the circumstances

The political leadership continuum: how to stay on track

Leading virtuously: doing ‘the right thing’ at the first opportunity

The virtuous leadership continuum: how to stay on track

Chapter 6 – Confidently Humble

What is a ‘confidently humble’ mindset?

Why confidence and humility matter amidst the megatrends

Leading confidently: trusting yourself and inspiring others to trust you

The confident leadership continuum: how to stay on track

Leading with humility: harnessing the knowledge and skills of those around you

The humble leadership continuum: how to stay on track

Chapter 7 – Responsibly Daring

What is a ‘responsibly daring’ mindset?

Why leading in a responsibly daring way matters amidst the megatrends

Leading responsibly: making a difference and safeguarding the organisation

The responsible leader continuum: how to stay on track

Leading daringly: being willing to take risks and push boundaries

The daring leadership continuum: how to stay on track

Chapter 8 – Developing and expanding your leadership identity

Why identity is important in relation to paradoxical mindsets

What identity refers to

The troublesome myth of ‘true self’

The ability to integrate multiple identities is a predictor of leadership success

Identity isn’t fixed, but continuously created, shaped, and spotlighted

Narratives: how identity is built through the stories we tell

Quick recap

Embracing all 5 mindsets: how to develop and expand your leadership identity

Concluding remarks: the challenge of being adaptably authentic

AMY WALTERS COHEN is a Head of Research within one of the largest professional services networks in the world, and responsible for delivering rigorous, cutting-edge thought leadership insight into pressing business issues. With nearly 10 years’ experience working in applied psychology, she has led an array of research projects and generated fresh insight into topic areas including: the future of leadership, digital transformation, the future of learning, hybrid working, 21st century career development, organisational culture change, and team performance in a disruptive age. Amy is also a visiting lecturer at the University of Bath.

Leading contemporary organisations requires a different set of mindsets and skills from the ones required by past generations of leaders. At least 12 megatrends are radically redefining the leadership environment and sustaining high performance is becoming increasingly difficult to do. It is not enough for leaders to just ‘do what’s always been done’ but do it better and faster. To achieve high performance and effective decision making in this new era of business, a fundamental shift in leadership thinking and behaviour is required.

In Ruthlessly Caring, leadership strategist Amy Walters Cohen delivers a relentlessly insightful and practical exploration of what it means to lead in a 21st-century landscape. In the book, she explains the five paradoxical mindsets senior leaders must embrace to become more adaptable and aligned to the times, exploring how they can elevate their own and their organisation’s performance by becoming: ruthlessly caring, ambitiously appreciative, politically virtuous, confidently humble, and responsibly daring.

The author examines the megatrends that are reshaping the world and creating a complex “washing machine” environment, where the presence of paradoxes is amplified; highlighting how navigating paradoxes, at both an organisational and individual level, is no longer a ‘nice-to-have’ but a necessity. Next, she dedicates a chapter to each paradoxical mindset before outlining how to become more adaptable by continuously developing and expanding your leadership identity.

This book will shake up the thinking, habits, and behaviours that are holding you back from unleashing your full potential as a leader. It is an essential resource for any executive, director, manager, or aspiring senior business leader who hopes to perform well in their role and get the best out of themselves and the people they lead.

A STUNNINGLY EFFECTIVE SET OF NEW MINDSETS FOR CONTEMPORARY LEADERSHIP

Relentless change. Pressing global challenges. Mounting societal expectations. The world today’s leaders are operating in is fundamentally different from that of previous generations. To sustain high performance, it won’t be enough to ‘do what’s always been done’. Fresh thinking is required.

Ruthlessly Caring is a uniquely incisive discussion of how to lead contemporary organisations and successfully navigate this new era of business. You’ll discover how the five mindsets —ruthlessly caring, ambitiously appreciative, politically virtuous, confidently humble, and responsibly daring — can raise your leadership game to the next level.

Whilst based in research, Ruthlessly Caring takes a practical look at the day-to-day realities of leadership, offering fresh insight into how you can tackle tough decisions in the minefields of modern business.

This book won’t make leadership easy, but it will help evolve and expand your thinking.

It is a must-read for any executive, director, manager, or aspiring senior leader who wants to get the best out of themselves and the people they lead, now and in the years to come.