Think leadership is all about inspiring communication and setting big visions? That’s only half the story. The real secret to effective leadership lies in science-backed strategies that most people completely miss.

Sébastien Page, Chief Investment Officer at T. Rowe Price, joins the podcast to break down what actually works in leadership versus what just sounds good. Managing over $500 billion in assets and leading investment professionals in one of the most high-pressure industries out there, Sébastien has spent years studying positive psychology, sports psychology, and personality psychology to understand what makes great leaders tick.

In this conversation, Sébastien reveals the biggest lie we tell people about leadership, why your ambitious goals might be causing “goal-induced blindness,” and the one weekly communication habit that transformed his effectiveness as a leader. He also shares the Mount Everest analogy that’ll make you rethink how you approach your goals.

Whether you’re a brand new leader or questioning if leadership is right for you, this episode delivers research-backed strategies from someone who’s lived it at the highest level. You’ll walk away with practical tools you can start using tomorrow – real advice for real challenges.

Key Highlights

• The biggest lie about leadership: It’s more about listening than talking and why holding back your opinion in meetings leads to better decisions
• Goal-induced blindness: How focusing too intensely on measurable goals can make you sacrifice what actually matters (like your health and relationships)
• The Mount Everest lesson: Why 4% of climbers die summiting Everest—and what that teaches us about the dangers of goal obsession
• Money doesn’t buy happiness after a point: Research shows that once you’re above poverty level, extra money won’t help you thrive as much as positive relationships
• Optimize your stress, don’t eliminate it: Understanding the Yerkes-Dodson curve and finding your performance sweet spot
• The sleep, diet, exercise trio: Why you need all three working together—you can’t just pick one or two
• Return on time spent (ROTS): How to audit your time and eliminate low-value activities that keep you busy but not productive
• Deep work matters most: Align your hardest tasks with your highest energy times of the day
• The weekly update email: A simple communication habit that takes less than 30 minutes and transforms how stakeholders perceive your work
• Relationships beat IQ: After controlling for personality and grit, IQ only contributes 1-2% to career success

Links Mentioned

• The Psychology of Leadership by Sébastien Page
• Connect with Sébastien on LinkedIn
• Books mentioned:
  • Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker
  • When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing by Daniel Pink
  • Deep Work by Cal Newport
  • The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor (TED Talk)
• Time tracking tool – https://clockify.me/

Guest Bio

Sébastien Page is Head of Global Multi-Asset and Chief Investment Officer at T. Rowe Price. He has more than two decades of leadership experience and has conducted extensive research on positive, sports, and personality psychology. He currently oversees a team of investment professionals actively managing over $500 billion in assets under management.

Page has written two finance books—Beyond Diversification: What Every Investor Needs to Know and the co-authored Factor Investing and Asset Allocation. He has also won six annual research-paper awards: two from The Financial Analysts Journal and four from The Journal of Portfolio Management.

He appears regularly on CNBC and Bloomberg TV and was named a Top Voice in Finance by LinkedIn in 2022. He has been quoted extensively in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Barron’s.

Page lives in Maryland with his wife and children.