Olivia: Jackson, I'll give you five seconds. Describe the absolute worst, most soul-crushing meeting you've ever been forced to attend. Jackson: Easy. It was a ninety-minute meeting to plan the agenda for another meeting. We decided nothing. I think a part of my soul is still trapped in that conference room, forever staring at a whiteboard with one bullet point on it. Olivia: That feeling is precisely what we're dissecting today, through the lens of a fascinating book: What You Don’t Know About Leadership, but Probably Should by Jeffrey A. Kottler. Jackson: Kottler… the name sounds familiar, but I can't place it. Is he one of those big-shot CEOs who retired and wrote a tell-all? Olivia: That's what you'd expect, right? But here’s the twist: Kottler isn’t a CEO or a management guru. He’s a Professor Emeritus of Counseling, a therapist who has worked everywhere from refugee camps to disaster relief zones. Jackson: Wait, a therapist wrote a leadership book? Okay, now I'm interested. That’s a completely different angle. It’s not about spreadsheets and market share; it’s about what’s going on inside our heads. Olivia: Exactly. He’s looking at leadership not as a position of power, but as a series of complex human interactions. And it all starts with that soul-crushing meeting you just described.

Jackson: I'm so glad we're starting there. Because honestly, it feels like broken meetings are the one universal human experience. Why are they so consistently terrible? You get a bunch of smart, capable people in a room, and their collective IQ seems to drop by fifty points. Olivia: Kottler argues it’s because we fundamentally misunderstand what leadership in a group setting is for. We think the leader is supposed to have the agenda and drive the outcome. But the book kicks off with a story that perfectly illustrates why that’s a flawed assumption. It’s my favorite anecdote in the whole book, and it’s about a group of psychologists. Jackson: Oh, this should be good. If anyone should know how to run a good meeting, it’s a room full of psychologists, right? They’re experts in human behavior and group dynamics. Olivia: You would think! So, Kottler describes being in a weekly staff meeting with his fellow psychologists. It’s a ninety-minute meeting. He starts observing the dynamics and decides to keep a little tally. In that ninety-minute meeting, one woman, who was not the designated leader, spoke sixty-one times. Jackson: Sixty-one times? In ninety minutes? That’s more than once every two minutes. There was no room for anyone else to even breathe. Olivia: Barely. The designated leader spoke only a handful of times, mostly to try and steer the conversation back, but he was completely ineffective. Meanwhile, Kottler is watching his other colleagues. These are brilliant minds, people who write papers on this exact stuff. And what are they doing? Doodling. Checking their phones under the table. Staring out the window with a vacant look in their eyes. Jackson: That is painfully familiar. It’s the universal posture of meeting-room despair. But these were psychologists! Why didn't one of them speak up and say, "Hey, maybe we should address the fact that our group dynamic is a complete train wreck?" Olivia: That is the million-dollar question. Kottler himself tries to jump in a few times, but he gets interrupted or talked over. No one intervenes. The meeting ends, everyone shuffles out, and the same pattern repeats the following week. His point is profound: knowing the principles of leadership and group dynamics is completely different from having the courage and social awareness to apply them in the moment. Jackson: So it’s a performance issue, not a knowledge issue. They all had the knowledge, but they couldn't perform. That connects to some of the data in the book, right? About how much time is wasted. Olivia: It connects perfectly. The book cites data that top executives can spend half their time in meetings, and that two-thirds of those meetings are considered a colossal waste of time. It’s because we fall into these dysfunctional patterns. The book identifies what high-functioning teams actually do: they exhibit social sensitivity—the ability to read non-verbal cues—and they have roughly equal participation. Everyone gets a voice. Jackson: And in that psychologists' meeting, they had neither. The leader wasn't sensitive to the group's boredom, and the participation was completely skewed. So the leadership illusion is thinking that having the title or the expertise is enough. The reality is that it's about actively managing the human dynamics in the room. Olivia: Precisely. It’s about creating the conditions for the group to be intelligent together, which is a much harder and more subtle skill.

Jackson: Okay, so if the leader's job isn't to be the smartest person with all the answers, what is it? To just be a good meeting moderator? That feels a bit small. Olivia: It’s a piece of it, but Kottler scales that idea way up. The leader’s primary job isn't just to manage a meeting; it's to be the architect of the entire group's culture. The environment itself. He uses some incredibly powerful, contrasting stories to show what this means in practice. Jackson: I’m guessing we’re not talking about free snacks and a ping-pong table. Olivia: Definitely not. We're talking about the invisible rules of how people treat each other. The book tells the story of Greg Smith, a former vice president at Goldman Sachs. He wrote a very public resignation letter in The New York Times. He said that when he started, the culture was the "secret sauce." It was about teamwork, integrity, and putting clients first. Jackson: Sounds like the standard corporate mission statement. Olivia: It was, but he said it used to be real. Then, over the years, he watched it decay. He wrote, and this is a direct quote, "I am sad to say that I look around today and see virtually no trace of the culture that made me love working for this firm." He described it as toxic and destructive, a place where people talked about ripping off their clients. The secret sauce was gone. Jackson: Wow. So the leader, or leaders, failed to protect the culture. They let it curdle. What’s the alternative? Olivia: The book gives us the perfect counterpoint: Yvon Chouinard, the founder of the outdoor gear company Patagonia. His autobiography is literally titled, "Let My People Go Surfing." Jackson: That’s a slightly different vibe than "let's rip off our clients." Olivia: Just slightly. Chouinard built the entire company around a set of values. If the surf was up, employees were encouraged to go. He pioneered using recycled materials, donated profits to environmental causes, and created a culture of trust and shared passion. The result wasn't just a successful business; it was a tribe of fiercely loyal employees and customers who believed in the mission. Jackson: That’s a culture of commitment, not just a culture of compliance. The Goldman Sachs story sounds like people were just there for the paycheck, and maybe to dominate others. At Patagonia, it sounds like they were part of something bigger than themselves. Olivia: And that is the essence of being a Culture Architect. The leader, through their actions, policies, and what they tolerate, sets the tone for everything. They can create a world that is toxic and extractive, or one that is supportive and generative. The book makes it clear that culture isn't a byproduct of success; it’s the very engine of it.

Olivia: And to build a culture like Patagonia's, you need a very different kind of leader. You need someone who operates from a completely different playbook than the traditional, top-down commander. Jackson: You need someone who is probably not speaking sixty-one times in a meeting. Olivia: Exactly. You need someone who is more focused on listening than talking. The book introduces us to a leader named Michael Skelly, an executive in the renewable energy sector. He was involved in massive, complex infrastructure projects, dealing with everyone from governors to landowners. Jackson: That sounds like a job where you’d need to project absolute confidence and expertise. You have to look like you have all the answers. Olivia: That’s the conventional wisdom, but Skelly discovered the opposite was true. He found that his most powerful and persuasive tool was to be honest about what he didn't know. He’d walk into a room of experts and say, "Help me understand this." He realized that so many smart people are terrified of looking vulnerable, so they never ask the basic questions. Jackson: That is so true. There’s this fear of being the one person in the room who doesn’t get it, so everyone just nods along. Olivia: Skelly leaned into that. He has this amazing quote in the book: "A lot of leaders, they think they have to show people how smart they are all the time... They think that gives them some kind of power." But he found that admitting ignorance built trust. It made him more relatable and allowed for genuine collaboration. It wasn't about him being the hero; it was about getting to the best solution together. Jackson: That is such a refreshing take. It flips the script on leadership. The power isn't in knowing everything; it's in creating a space safe enough for ignorance to be admitted and for real learning to happen. Olivia: And that authenticity has to extend beyond the boardroom. It can't just be a tactic you use at work. This leads to another great little story in the book about a leadership expert named Gordon Tredgold. He’s writing articles and blogs about being a great manager. One day, his wife comes to him, holding one of his articles. Jackson: Uh oh. I have a feeling this isn't going to be a glowing performance review. Olivia: Not at all. She asks him, "Why don't you do any of this at home? You write about active listening, but you don't listen to me. You write about giving positive feedback, but you never acknowledge what I do for our family." And then she delivers the killer line: "Leadership is an all-time thing." Jackson: Oof. That is a gut punch. But she’s absolutely right. You can't be a collaborative, empathetic leader from nine to five and then a disconnected tyrant at home. The hypocrisy will eventually rot you from the inside out. Olivia: It’s the ultimate test of authenticity. The humble leader's playbook isn't a set of strategies; it's a way of being. It's about self-awareness, a willingness to be wrong, and a consistent application of your values across all parts of your life.

Olivia: When you pull all these threads together, a really clear picture of modern leadership emerges from Kottler's work. It’s a total reframing of what it means to be in charge. Jackson: It really is. We started with the Leadership Illusion—the idea that it's about being the expert with the loudest voice. The story of the psychologists in that broken meeting just shatters that idea completely. Olivia: Then we moved to the leader's true role: the Culture Architect. It’s not about micromanaging tasks; it’s about shaping the environment. The contrast between the toxic culture at Goldman Sachs and the value-driven world of Patagonia makes that so incredibly clear. One burns people out, the other inspires loyalty. Jackson: And the tool to build that great culture is The Humble Leader's Playbook. It’s the counter-intuitive power of admitting you don't know, like Michael Skelly did. It’s the consistency of being a leader in all parts of your life, not just at the office, like Gordon Tredgold learned the hard way. Olivia: The central idea is that leadership has evolved. It’s moved away from a model of individual, heroic authority and towards a model of collective facilitation. The best leader isn't the one with all the answers. The best leader is the one who creates a culture of trust and curiosity where the best answers can emerge from the group. Jackson: It’s a shift from being the "sage on the stage" to the "guide on the side." And that feels so much more achievable and, frankly, more human. So here’s the challenge for all of us: Where is one place in your life today—at work, at home, with friends—where you can lead not by having the answer, but by asking a better question or just by listening? Olivia: A perfect thought to end on. It brings leadership right back to our daily lives, which is exactly what Kottler’s book is all about. Jackson: This is Aibrary, signing off.