Field of expertise · Insights
Leadership psychology
The psychology behind your leadership. What lies beneath your behavior, and how it plays out in the people, the groups and the ecosystem around you.
A field developed by Dirk Jan Versluis, registered psychologist (NIP) and founder of Triunify.
“Under pressure, the old pattern almost always wins. Lasting change in leadership therefore starts one layer deeper than behavior.”
The model
The leader and three circles
At the center is the leader: your history, your patterns, your drivers. Around you lie three circles. People: your co-founder, your right hand, your clients. Groups: your team, your board, your supervisory board. And ecosystems: the organization as a whole, with its culture and undercurrent, and the world around it.
What happens at the center plays out in all three circles. That is why leadership psychology looks not only at what you do, but at what drives it.
Insights
Themes in leadership psychology
Behind almost every leadership question sits a deep pattern: a way of protecting yourself that once worked, and still runs your decisions. Sometimes that pattern grew out of trauma. Sometimes out of sensitivity, loyalty or a role you took on early. These articles follow those patterns from the leader, into the company, and back.
The leader’s deep patterns
Where drive comes from, and why it can turn against you.
Trauma-informed leadership
Leading people who carry wounds, without becoming their therapist.
Highly sensitive leaders
Feeling more than you can carry, and using it as a compass.
Spiritual psychology for leaders
When the soul enters your work, and how to stay grounded.
The leader and the company
What happens when your patterns meet growth, partners and succession.
Company lifecycle stages
Growth comes in trimesters, and each asks a different leader.
The company as a living system
Organizations carry patterns too. The ECA Leadership Framework makes them visible.
Instruments
How we work
Two methods we developed ourselves. Two others we apply as certified professionals.
Own method
ECA Leadership Framework
Seeing and sensing your company as a living system: where it flows, where it is stuck.
Own method
Deep Pattern Assessment
Maps the patterns that drive your personal and professional functioning.
Method
Brainspotting
Working with what lies beneath words, including trauma and old pain.
Method
Stakeholder Centered Coaching
Measurable behavioral change, with the people around you as the yardstick.
Talks and keynotes
Dirk Jan speaks about leadership psychology
For business networks, leadership teams and conferences. Recognisable, well-founded and down to earth.
- What made you big now keeps you small
- Your company is a patient too
- Leadership and trauma
In depth
Leadership psychology, explained
What is leadership psychology?
Leadership psychology is the psychology of those who lead. Leadership development, leadership coaching, executive coaching and CEO mentoring are, if you look closely, largely about the same thing: the underlying psychology of the leader, and how he or she deals with people, with groups and with ecosystems.
Those are three circles around one person:
- People. The one-to-one relationships: with your co-founder, your right hand, your directors, your clients. Trust, feedback, loyalty and conflict.
- Groups. Your team, your board, your leadership team. Groups have their own dynamics, and the leader sits right in the middle of them, whether they like it or not.
- Ecosystems. The organization as a whole, with its culture and undercurrent, and the world around it: stakeholders, market and society. A company has a body and a psyche of its own too.
At the center stands the leader: their history, patterns and drives. What happens there plays out in all three circles.
Why behavior alone is not enough
Many leadership programs focus on behavior and skills: delegating, giving feedback, presenting, running meetings. That is valuable. But under pressure, the old pattern almost always wins. The leader who knows he should delegate pulls it back to himself anyway. The director who knows she should face the conflict postpones it once again.
That is not a lack of knowledge or willpower. These are patterns that were once necessary and now stand in the way. Lasting change in leadership therefore starts one layer deeper than behavior: with what drives the behavior. Read more about leadership and trauma.
Coaching, executive coaching, mentoring: what is what?
- Leadership development is the broad term: everything that helps a leader grow, from education to experience.
- Leadership coaching is personal guidance focused on how you function as a leader.
- Executive coaching is coaching for senior executives: CEOs, CFOs, managing directors.
- Mentoring is guidance by someone who has walked the path before and shares their experience.
The form differs, but the core is the same. A good guide looks not only at what you do, but also at who you are while you do it.
A field in the making
Like the entrepreneur psychologist, the leadership psychologist does not formally exist. There are recognized specializations, such as work and organizational psychology and clinical psychology, but no official category of “leadership psychologist”. And yet it is a field in its own right: the place where the psychology of the person and the practice of leadership meet. At Triunify we give that field its own language and its own methods.
Leadership psychology and entrepreneur psychology
The two are close, but not the same.
Entrepreneur psychology is about the owner: someone for whom the company is also personal. Their income, identity and often their life’s work are tied to it.
Leadership psychology is about the role of leader: also when you are employed, lead a leadership team or run an organization that is not yours.
Many of our clients are both. That is why Triunify works from an integral psychology of leadership and entrepreneurship: the person, the leader, the entrepreneur and the company in one coherent picture.
What leaders come in with
Loneliness at the top. No one tells you the honest truth anymore. Read lonely at the top.
Conflict with a partner or within the board. Read conflict with your co-founder or business partner.
Behavior that does not change for good. Insight is there, but under pressure the old pattern returns.
A leadership team or organization that is stuck. Problems that keep returning, growth that stalls, energy that leaks away. Read about the ECA Leadership Framework.
Frequently asked questions
What is leadership psychology?
The psychology of those who lead: how a leader’s personality, history and patterns play out in their relationships, their team and their organization.
How is it different from executive coaching?
Executive coaching is a form of guidance. Leadership psychology is the field underneath it. Good executive coaching is often precisely about the psychology of the leader.
Is leadership psychologist a protected title?
No. There is no official category of leadership psychologist. Check the training and professional registration of the person you work with, for example with a national psychology association.
How is it different from entrepreneur psychology?
Entrepreneur psychology is about the owner, for whom the company is also personal. Leadership psychology is about the role of leader, also in employment. Many leaders are both.
Want to see what lies beneath your leadership?
In a free 45-minute strategy session, online, we look at what is going on and whether we are a good fit. Confidential, under the professional code of the NIP.