PPP 511 | How Great Leaders See Differently, with Cornelia Choe

Summary

In this episode, Andy sits down with Cornelia Choe, leadership advisor and founder of global CEO peer groups, author of The Panoramic Leader: How Great Leaders See Differently, co-authored with Marshall Goldsmith. Cornelia's core idea is that the "mental maps" we form early in life quietly shape how we lead today, and that our decisions are only as good as the world we're actually able to see.

Andy and Cornelia explore why so many new executives fail within their first 18 months, what she calls a visibility problem rather than an execution problem. They dig into practical tools: microtranslations for sharing ideas others can absorb, optimistic fear that lets us move forward without ignoring real risk, and the balcony-and-dance-floor balance of perspective and proximity. Cornelia also shares how getting up close to stakeholders, and even to her own kids, opens up options we couldn't see before.

If you're looking for practical ways to see more clearly and make better decisions in an uncertain world, this episode is for you!

Sound Bites

• "And the truth is, sometimes the problem is not that we lack data, it's that we're not seeing broadly enough."
• "And if you truly believe something, stick with it, keep it on your map, and have the courage to go through with it."
• "But the problem is it's no longer enough to be right in today's world, and having an incomplete picture is just as dangerous as getting it wrong."
• "Optimistic fear is the ability to keep the risks and the danger in mind, yet to still go forward and to use our fear to fuel our momentum going forward."
• "We don't need to have everything solved, but just getting up close can reward us with a lot of options."
• "I mean, in some ways you could argue that our brain's autopilot is not a bug, it's a feature."
• "You don't have to accept everything you hear or everything your stakeholders tell you, but we do need to think about it and, in a thoughtful way, choose to accept it or not."
• "And in a world that's constantly changing, this is going to be an even more crucial skill because your decisions are only as good as the world you see, and the most successful leaders learn to see more in today's world."
• "It's just a good reminder to me that a smart, well-intentioned person can see situations quite differently."
• "Our identity is created by the people around us, the people who share their perspectives with, and the perspectives that we allow to become part of our mental maps."
• "I heard someone once say that we're all driven by just a few lines of code that run in the background, and as a former software developer, I can relate to that."

Chapters

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:48 Start of Interview
• 02:00 How Early Life Experiences Shape Our Maps
• 07:50 Why New Executives Fail in the First 18 Months
• 12:20 Microtranslations
• 16:01 Optimistic Fear vs. Pessimistic Fear
• 21:53 Keeping Curiosity Alive and Getting Off Autopilot
• 25:59 How We React When Our Map Is Challenged
• 29:25 The Balcony and the Dance Floor
• 34:41 How Our Circles Shape and Narrow Our Maps
• 38:33 Panoramic Leadership at Home
• 41:20 End of Interview
• 41:57 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 45:00 Outtakes

Learn More

You can learn more about Cornelia and her work at substack.com/@corneliachoe.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 489 with Marty Dubin. It's a book about blind spots and how they can easily derail us, an excellent complement to this discussion.
• Episode 318 with John Stepper. He's the author of Working Out Loud, and his approach to developing people has a lot of similarities to the leader circles that Cornelia runs.
• Episode 54 with Roger L. Martin. Roger is often in the top 10 of the Thinkers50, and we talk about how you can hold opposing ideas at the same time, very aligned with this book.

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Talent Triangle: Power Skills

Topics: Leadership, Decision-Making, Mental Models, Stakeholder Engagement, Perspective, Curiosity, Self-Awareness, Change, Psychological Safety, Executive Effectiveness, Project Management

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: Brooklyn Nights by Tim Kulig
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Energetic Drive Indie Rock by WinnieTheMoog
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license