479 The Counterintuitive Psychology of Better Leadership with Sébastien Page

What happens when the qualities that helped make you successful begin working against you as a leader? Sébastien Page has spent more than 25 years in investment management and serves as Chief Investment Officer at T. Rowe Price. But his growing interest in leadership took him beyond finance and into psychology, where he spent years exploring research from sports, positive, and performance psychology. That journey became the foundation for his book, The Psychology of Leadership: Timeless Principles to Improve Your Management of Individuals, Teams, and Yourself.

In this episode of Partnering Leadership, Sébastien Page challenges several assumptions that are deeply embedded in high-performance organizations. Measurable goals can focus attention and drive results, but they can also create what he calls “goal-induced blindness,” causing executives and teams to overlook health, relationships, ethics, and even the quality of the processes producing those results. The risk may be particularly acute among high performers, precisely because they are so motivated to achieve.

The conversation also explores one of the most important distinctions in executive decision-making: the difference between a good outcome and a good decision. In uncertain environments, smart decisions can produce disappointing results, while poor decisions can occasionally succeed. Sébastien explains why leaders who want to improve judgment must look beyond the scorecard and examine the process behind both successes and failures.

Sébastien and Mahan also discuss some deceptively simple behaviors that become harder as executives gain authority: saying “I was wrong,” admitting “I don’t know,” and actively asking others for feedback. They explore the psychology of engagement and meaning, why extrinsic rewards alone rarely create sustained motivation, and how leaders can help people connect everyday work to a larger contribution.

The conversation concludes with two increasingly relevant leadership tensions. First, AI can dramatically improve productivity while simultaneously making communication feel less human and authentic. Second, the goal of high performance should not be to eliminate stress altogether. Sébastien explains why the right level of pressure can sharpen performance, why chronic stress remains dangerous, and why leaders need to become better at calibrating the difference.

Actionable Takeaways

• You’ll learn why highly measurable goals can produce unintended consequences and why some of the highest performers may be particularly susceptible to goal-induced blindness.
• Hear how to distinguish decision quality from outcome quality and why evaluating the process behind both wins and losses can improve judgment in uncertain environments.
• You’ll learn why a mastery orientation can strengthen high-performing teams by shifting some attention from simply hitting the number to continually improving how the work gets done.
• Hear why saying “I was wrong” and “I don’t know” can demonstrate confidence rather than weakness, particularly as executives rise to levels where fewer people are willing to challenge them.
• You’ll learn a surprisingly simple way to make feedback less threatening and why proactively asking for it changes the dynamic for both the person giving and receiving it.
• Hear why engagement requires more than compensation and incentives and how relationships, meaning, and intrinsic motivation influence the energy people bring to their work.
• You’ll learn why AI creates an authenticity challenge for leadership, even while making communication and knowledge work faster and more accessible.
• Hear why trying to eliminate stress completely may actually undermine performance and how leaders can think differently about pressure, recovery, and sustained high performance.
• You’ll learn why Sébastien still answers “everything” when asked what he wants to improve as a leader, and what that reveals about maintaining a mastery mindset even after decades of professional success.

Connect with Sébastien Page

Sébastien Page Substack

Sébastien Page LinkedIn

Connect with Mahan Tavakoli:

Mahan Tavakoli Website 

Mahan Tavakoli on LinkedIn 

Partnering Leadership Website