The Psychology of Leadership

Raised in a self-employed family, business was almost always a topic of conversation for Rick Tirrell.

“It was like getting an MBA by the time I was 16,” says Tirrell, an author, psychologist, and consultant. “You see how that world works.”

As time passed, he developed his own leadership skills and now believes there has never been a greater need for good leadership.

“And there’ve been greater crises, if you think of World War II or the Cuban Missile Crisis. These were more profound crises than what we have now, but there was distinct leadership,” Tirrell says. “There were clear goals and there was consensus, and I feel like as I go about talking to people in organizations, largely, we don’t have enough of that.”

Organizations, school districts, and businesses could benefit from distinct leadership, clear goals, and consensus, according to Tirrell. Plus, he says there are stages to leadership—becoming a good leader, creating followers and connecting with people, and becoming a leader of leaders.

“What I saw was that few leaders really worked up that ladder the way they perhaps could have,” Tirrell says. “And so I saw this need for leadership. And that’s what led me to write this book.”

Leadership Rites of Passage, his first novel, features Joe Miller, who comes to run his father’s company after the father’s death.

“Now he is the leader of this company, and it has huge debt. And the country goes into a recession, and he’s scared,” Tirrell says. “He has 75 people who need to put food on the table. They need to pay their rent, their mortgage, you know. So he’s scared.”

Miller faces 16 challenges over the course of his career that are accompanied by conversations with his mentor, Sagan Cruise.

“They develop this long-term mentoring relationship,” Tirrell says, “and Sagan is masterful at getting Joe to hesitantly expose his weakness, his challenges, and then Sagan will point to one book in the reference section and say, ‘Joe, you must read this book.’”

Tirrell wrote the book backwards—beginning with the reference section, listing leadership books he would tell his younger self to read. “The biggest challenge for me was that I came to really like these two people,” he says. “I want to see what happens in the next chapter, but there wasn’t a next chapter.”

Writing books wasn’t new to Tirrell, with The Wisdom of Resilience Leaders currently available on Amazon alongside Leadership Rites of Passage.

However, Tirrell, who holds a doctorate in psychology, began his career as a “very traditional psychologist.”

“I never thought I would be doing what I’m doing now,” he says. “They say we have multiple careers, but I didn’t believe back in the day.” Tirrell says he put together a group practice that at one time included 11 psychologists, but the group didn’t have a consensus.

“What we had was a collection of independent practices under one roof,” Tirrell says. “Rather than as an organization saying ‘here’s our core values, here’s our mission and here’s how we’re going to address the world uniformly as we go out’ … so I struggled with this. And then eventually I began doing management consulting and I was flying all over the country and dealing with people in big companies.”

Most psychologists, according to Tirrell, don’t have an interest in business at all.

“So they are, many of them, solo practitioners, and they start here and go inward. And that’s what’s beautiful about them; that’s what’s great about them,” he says.

However, strategic planning and business strategy aren’t too far off from personal strategy, Tirrell says. Businesses need to look for where opportunities are, where they can stand out as unique or different. He founded Navigator Group in 1998 to focus on strategic planning, corporate culture, and leadership development.

“If you work at Walmart, it’s all about efficiencies,” Tirrell says. “That’s their genius. So is the culture. Be here on time, move quickly. They purchase efficiently … But if you go over to Hallmark where they create wonderful cards, there’s a creative piece to their culture and Walmart doesn’t have that. So I began to question if you have a crisp strategy, what kind of culture should you build? And the culture should match the strategy. So there’s a lot of psychology in that, but there’s a lot of business in that.”

Aside from his writing endeavors, Tirrell also holds leadership seminars with a focus on the relationship between business and psychology.

“The reaction to this is very positive because business leaders are eager to receive anything that will help. Anything that will just incrementally give them just the tiniest little advantage,” he says.

Tirrell lives in Overland Park, but his office is in Shawnee.

“We‘ve gotten tremendous support from the leadership development team and from the Shawnee Chamber of Commerce,” says Tirrell, an active member of the chamber. “It’s a real gem, I think, in the community. It’s terrific.”

www.NavigatorGroupInc.com/books

Pinnacle Book Achievement Awards, Best Business Book Fall 2021

Independent Press Award, 2022 Winner in the Category of Leadership

The American Business Awards, Best Business Book Bronze Medal 2022

The Eric Hoffer Book Award, Best Business Book Honorable Mention 2022