John Mattone

I built a tool for your organization to measure its readiness for cultural transformation: (CTRA-40)®- the Cultural Transformation Readiness Assessment-40. It is no longer about the organization you want to create. It is only about the organization you must create. The CTRA-40 covers 40 items across six Cultural Change Readiness Predictors: 1. The Imperative to Transform: Is the need for change recognized? 2. Leadership Commitment: Are leaders aligned on cultural transformation goals? 3. Creating a Compelling Future: How clear is the company's long-term cultural direction? 4. Changing Mindsets & Behaviors: Are employees prepared for change? 5. Pushing "Talent Levers": Are employees equipped to grow within the evolving culture? 6. Measure & Course Correct: Can the organization track progress effectively? Our Five Cultures of Culture Assessment (5CCA)® measures the culture itself. I help leaders decide which one fits, or whether they need both. In Cultural Transformations, I share a sample of how we work: the C-level team takes the CTRA-40 before a 2-day bootcamp, where we debrief the results and set goals. Then comes a 2-to-3-year journey, re-administering at agreed-upon intervals to course-correct. Need an assessment for your organization? johnmattone.com/store/5-cult… Which of the six would you look at first?

“You should tell me when I’m an idiot.” A client said that to Genpact’s CEO, Tiger Tyagarajan. I heard it when I interviewed him for my book, "Cultural Transformations." For years, Genpact’s culture ran on one promise: the say-do ratio. As Tiger put it, "When I promise something, I deliver it." There were no questions asked. He paired that with a culture maniacally focused on clients, and the clients loved it. Then the clients changed what they wanted. They stopped saying “I’m the expert.” They started saying, “You are the expert.” Tiger called it a big cultural change, and his teams were still grappling with it. He did not want to give up the say-do ratio or the client focus. He wanted both, and that took real work. I asked him what he’d tell younger leaders. His answer: "The only way to thrive is to be willing to learn anew every day. Keep a childlike curiosity, meet adversity with humility, and never waste a moment." What stays with me is this. Telling a client they’re wrong is not a skill you can train in a week. It takes courage, humility, and the ethical foundation to say the hard thing while still serving them well. That lives in the inner core. If you’re leading a culture shift like this one, I put the framework into one free resource: the Intelligent Leadership® Playbook for Organizational Readiness. johnmattone.com/il-playbook/… P.S. When did someone last tell you that you were wrong, and how did you respond?

I interviewed 14 CEOs about for my book "Cultural Transformations". I co-authored the book with Nick Vaidya about leadership and organizational culture, and introduced the Five Cultures of Culture framework to measure culture properly in it. Less than 15% of global organizations assess their culture using a tool that actually measures it. They treat an engagement survey and a culture survey as the same thing. In actual, they are not. If you want the framework for measuring where your organization actually stands, see this → johnmattone.com/li/il-playbo… Engagement survey measures how an individual reacts to their job and their environment, while a culture survey pinpoints specific action steps that needs change and is leading indicator of engagement, customer satisfaction, and operating success. Here are three lessons every leader needs to hear: 1. Measure your culture, not just engagement, using an instrument that captures all five predictor cultures. 2. Measure your readiness to transform. A strong culture doesn't mean you're ready. Both have to be measured separately. 3. Invest heavily in leadership development, and strengthen how you identify high-potential talent. Leaders need to be equipped as C-level executives to bring a stronger inner core and outer core to their work. One survey tells you how people feel. The other tells you what's actually driving it, and what to do next. P.S. Has your organization ever run a real culture survey, or just an engagement survey wearing a different name?

A CEO once told me his real job was to "play guts ball." I asked him what that meant? (If you want to know the mindset behind leaders like this, I put it into one free guide: The 50 Laws of Intelligent Leadership. johnmattone.com/50-laws/?utm…) His name is Irv Rothman. He led HP Financial Services. I interviewed him for my book "Cultural Transformations." He explained: "I play guts ball for the customer, for my son, for the people on my team, for the entire company. Because culture doesn't happen in stasis; it happens when we're willing to move ahead on instinct, regardless of risk, with the intent to succeed." Irv didn't come from pedigree. He grew up in Bayonne, New Jersey, a town he called "gritty, hardscrabble." His father was a WWII veteran. His mother stayed home. He started as a territory salesman in his 20s, then earned his master's at Pepperdine part-time while working a demanding job with a growing family. In his words: "Didn't have a glass of wine with dinner for two years." He built HP Financial Services into a single global operation, run the same way in every market, by pushing decisions down instead of holding them at the top. He told his people the rule book couldn't always tell them what to do next. They had to trust their own judgement when it didn't. That's the same instinct behind "guts ball." Move ahead anyway, regardless of the risk. In three decades of coaching leaders across 55+ countries, I've seen this same willingness to trust their own judgement in many successful leaders who built something that lasted: they moved before certainty ever arrived, and let the culture catch up to them. P.S. What's one decision you'd make today if you trusted your instinct the way Irv trusted his?

I launched my first business at 30: Mattone Enterprises. (For 10 years, I was the sole employee). I did all the work: → 1,500+ speeches → Seminars and workshops around the world In 1995, I wrote my first book, Positive Performance Management. In 1996, I wrote Success Yourself, the first book to apply the Enneagram to leadership. At 39, my dream of owning a coaching business seemed over because: → My book failed miserably. Only 3 or 4 copies sold. → My publisher went bankrupt because of it. So did I. → Mattone Enterprises closed. I had a family to support, so I went back to corporate America. I worked in leadership and consulting roles for the next 15 years. Then in 2010, something extraordinary happened. Steve Jobs “by chance” picked up my book Success Yourself. He took the first version of my MLEI® assessment. And he wanted to meet me. (Later, I coached him in his final year.) I often think of what he said at Stanford: “You can only connect them looking backwards.” If you are rebuilding after a setback, start with the 11 Laws of Change: lnkd.in/e-aqudYU Fast forward. → In September 2011, I launched John Mattone Global (JMG) → Recognized as the World’s #1 Executive Coach (2019 to 2026) → Author of 11 books, including 5 bestsellers → Coached Steve Jobs, Roger Enrico, government officials, and many more → 800+ IL-certified coaches in 55+ countries. → JMG is recognized as one of the top 10 executive coaching firms in the world I’m the creator of Intelligent Leadership®. If you want to understand what it is, the guide is here: lnkd.in/eZ_KmsfV P.S. Which setback in your career only made sense to you looking back?

I don't coach behavior first. Ever. Not once, in 30+ years, across 750+ executives in 55 countries. Here's why that's non-negotiable. → Step 1: I start at the Inner Core: Character, values, self-concept, the things that decide whether a change survives the first real pressure test. → Step 2: I bridge with the 7 Mindset Pillars: These are the thinking habits that carry an inner-core shift out into the room, into decisions, conversations, and how a leader actually shows up when it counts. → Step 3: I align the Outer Core to the business: Execution, influence, and communication, are directly related to mission they're supposed to serve, so the improvement reads as business progress, not as some personal project. Do it in that order, and you get what I call a Leadership and Organizational Masterpiece: leaders operating at their best, authentically, and organizations performing because of it. The MLEI® and the STLI-360® are how I get that diagnosis before I ever propose anything. If you want to see how the full Intelligent Leadership process fits together, I put it all in IL: All You Need To Know: johnmattone.com/li/il-all-yo… P.S. If your last coaching engagement started with behavior instead of character, what do you think happened the first time real pressure hit?

When strong leaders derail, people blame their character. What I see most often is the inner core giving way under pressure. I've coached senior executives, Fortune 500 companies, government officials, and CEOs for over 30 years across 55+ countries. The real reason is inner-core immaturity: how a leader's inner core holds up under stress and change. That is exactly what the MLEI® measures: leadership maturity. 1. A leader's best quality can turn into their biggest problem under enough pressure. The same strength that got them promoted can start working against them. 2. Inner-core maturity shows up in how someone thinks, what they believe, how they see themselves, and how they handle their emotions. 3. Character and maturity are both built from the inside out, over time. That's why I look at the inner core before I decide how hard to push someone. 4. Organizations that don't invest in developing their people are building up derailment risk without even realizing it. Lasting change starts from within. My 11 Laws of Lasting Change gives you a framework for understanding what it takes to create meaningful, lasting growth. (Explore the 11 Laws here: lnkd.in/eGNsVpve) And when this goes unresolved: → The leader derails. → Organizations absorb the loss without knowing the real cause. → Growth that real coaching brings never happens. So ask yourself: which of your strengths gets louder when the pressure is on?

I need you to hear this because it will save you years of wasted effort. T = D × V × P > R. T = Transformation that actually occurs D = Demand and desire for change, including dissatisfaction with the current situation V = Vision, clear and compelling, of the future P = Plan and process to get there R = Resistance, which every transformation runs into I use this Math with every CEO I coach through Transformation. It's multiplication, not addition. If any one of D, V, or P is zero, the whole equation is zero. It doesn't matter how strong the other two are. → You can have a burning desire to change and a crystal-clear vision, but no real plan? T = 0. → You can have a brilliant plan and total clarity on where you're going, but no desire to actually change? T = 0. I've watched this happen to boards, to CEOs, to entire executive teams who had two out of three locked and wondered why nothing moved. In 30+ years of coaching 750+ executives, I learned that most people assess first, then design their future around what they find. I do the opposite: design the future in general terms first, then assess the current state against it, define the future more specifically, and only then plan and manage the transition. That one inversion changes everything about how honest the assessment ends up being. I go deeper on this in 11 Laws of Lasting Change, if you want to sit with it longer: johnmattone.com/li/11-laws/?… Resistance always shows up. That's not the problem. Desire, Vision, and Plan must be strong enough to overcome Resistance. If they are, the transformation happens. If even one of them is weak, it doesn't matter how much resistance you're facing; the equation was already zero before resistance ever entered the picture. P.S. Which one of the three- Desire, Vision, or Plan- do you feel is your strongest right now, and which needs the most work?

"If you can’t be, you can’t do." That’s how Russ Klein, then CEO of the American Marketing Association, explained his culture to me when I interviewed him for my book, Cultural Transformations. 𝐁𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐑𝐮𝐬𝐬 𝐊𝐥𝐞𝐢𝐧: The AMA ran on a default culture of careerism and individualism. He described it as rudderless and uninspired. Many people there didn’t want that. They just couldn’t change it, because that kind of change has to start at the top. 𝐀𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐑𝐮𝐬𝐬 𝐊𝐥𝐞𝐢𝐧: He built the “Next AMA” on six values: → Curiosity →Courage →Gratefulness →Joyfulness →Customer-centric →Stakeholder-sensitive He called it a “be-do” culture. It mattered more to be grateful, curious, and courageous than it is to do anything. People still needed the skills to do their work. But you couldn’t be part of the Next AMA unless you first show the values. This is Intelligent Leadership® in practice. The inner core is a leader’s character, values, self-concept, and beliefs. The outer core is the skills and competencies the world sees. Russ built his culture from the inner core out. It’s also Law #19 of my 50 Laws of Intelligent Leadership®: “Results transform when culture transforms; culture transforms when behavior transforms; behavior transforms when mindsets transform.” (Each one comes from my own coaching experience, Get all 50 here → lnkd.in/dxkQ9_CC ) P.S. Which of those six values would be hardest for your leadership team to live every single day?

I identified four megatrends that have a dramatic impact on you as a leader (#4 is most important). When I coach executives today, I see all four pulling at every one of them in emerging and current leaders. 1. 𝐔𝐧𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞: Your organization is more complex than it was five years ago. Markets, talent, competition, and customer expectations keep shifting externally. If you do not adapt fast, you fall behind fast. 2. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐨𝐯𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞. You're expected to sit on task forces, cross-functional teams, innovation off-sites. Being a strong collaborator used to be a nice-to-have on your resume. Today it's a must-have, full stop. 3. 𝐈𝐭'𝐬 𝐚 𝐯𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐥 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝. My clients lead across geography, culture, and function without sitting across a table from their people. Leading virtually is not the same skill as leading face-to-face, and I tell every executive I coach: underneath the technology, it still comes down to your character, your honesty, your integrity. 4. 𝐈𝐭'𝐬 𝐚 𝐕𝐞𝐥𝐜𝐫𝐨 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝. Your people aren't loyal to your company. They're loyal to whoever makes them feel like they matter. This is the one that decides whether you keep your best people. This is 𝐋𝐚𝐰 50 𝐨𝐟 𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩®: "Course-correcting and being agile with respect to constant learning, leading and handling change, and dealing with all types of people is both a mindset and a set of actions that will determine whether you do (or don't) achieve your greatest dreams and aspirations." (You can get all 50 laws here for FREE- lnkd.in/e24m5e9e) In over 30 years coaching executives across 55+ countries, I've noticed this same pattern: these four forces are an invitation to sharpen your inner and outer core, and that's what actually turns them into real opportunities instead of risks. So I'll ask you what I ask every leader I coach: of these four, which one is quietly working against you right now?

Nelson Mandela made his most important leadership decision in a prison cell. He wasn't planning his release. He was working on himself. I've coached leaders for over three decades, including Steve Jobs and PepsiCo CEO Roger Enrico, and Mandela's story is the clearest proof I know that "character drives competence." In 1975, writing to Winnie Mandela, who was then held at Kroonstad Prison, he said the cell was where he learned to know himself. That's the sequence most leaders need to get more work done. They chase outer-core skills, strategic thinking, communication, drive for results (to protect their self-image), but they've done no real work on their inner core. Mandela built it in the right order, and it's why his leadership held for 27 years behind bars: → Forgiveness: he answered 27 years of imprisonment with reconciliation, not revenge. →Courage: he treated fear as something to walk through, not a verdict on his future. →Humility: he walked away from the presidency after a single term, at the height of his influence. →Service: he ran the presidency itself as an act of service. →Perseverance: one vision, held for four decades, never traded for something easier. Mandela's greatest legacy is a pattern: self-awareness before strategy, forgiveness before advantage, service before status. That pattern holds now more than ever. Technology can imitate skills. It cannot imitate character. Who you are still matters more than what you can automate. Building the inner core is where lasting change starts. I put the full path in my 11 Laws That Create Lasting Change: lnkd.in/dck9GDG2 P.S. Of those five (forgiveness, courage, humility, service, perseverance), which is hardest to build inside a boardroom? Curious what you'd add.

Cathy Benko was one of five girls raised by her single mom. (Zero expectations of going to college). I interviewed her for my book "Cultural Transformations." She is the former vice chairman and managing principal at Deloitte LLP What happened in between is... Senior year of high school, a Lions Club scholarship letter showed up in the mail. She left it sitting on the counter, didn't even open the door on it. Her mother picked it up and told her: "You need to put this award to good use." She used it to register for a one-year advanced secretarial school. At 19, she landed a job as an executive secretary in Manhattan, walking past mahogany-lined offices in a three-piece gabardine suit. Within months, something in her said: "Maybe I aimed a bit too low." So she enrolled at Ramapo College. Nights and weekends, while working full-time. Five years later, she had her bachelor's degree. Her company then placed her in a program to learn coding and information systems management. That move took her into an HR/payroll software company. Then she did something audacious. She applied to Harvard Business School, specifically because, at the time, HBS didn't require the GMAT. She had never even taken the SAT. She got in. She graduated. When the offers came, she turned down the top-ranked Big 8 firms. She chose Touche Ross, the firm that later became Deloitte, because of their aggressive talent search and her own instinct. She's been climbing ever since. Vice Chairman. Managing Principal. She also gave me a framework I still use with every CEO I coach: "There are two key components to a transformation: left brain and right brain. Left brain is the capabilities and work practices a company aspires to develop. Right brain is the mindset and behavioral change requirements. Too often, right-brain efforts are insufficiently tended to." Her own words are the ones I still carry into every transformation I coach: "Those who don't create the future, live in a world not of their making." If you're ready to start creating yours, I put together my 11 Laws That Create Lasting Change: lnkd.in/e7WS47Kd P.S. Where in your own life are you living in a world someone else made, instead of the one you were capable of building?

This is the blueprint I built for you over my decades of experience. At 39, I was bankrupt with my family counting on me, possibly the worst years of my career- but I rebuilt myself in that time. I developed the Intelligent Leadership® Executive Coaching Blueprint, so every client I work with gets a structured path to real results. If you're thinking its some sort of workshop or a one-off session. It's not. It's a 6-12-month blueprint for what actually changes the leader: the Inner Core. Character, values, beliefs, and more. If you've strengthened it, the Outer Core (the competencies everyone judges you on) follows. (Here's the blueprint itself, if you want to see the actual structure: lnkd.in/dFuzzZkk) Four outcomes I look for in every client: → Altruism: leading with service and genuine care for others. → Affiliation: building relationships that carry weight under pressure. → Achievement: driving results that are measurable. → Abundance: creating value and prosperity for every stakeholder. Most leaders chase Achievement first. Those who build a lasting legacy do it in reverse order: Altruism first, and then the results follow. I learned that after bankruptcy, before I ever taught it to anyone else. P.S. Which of these four: Altruism, Affiliation, Achievement, or Abundance, do you lead with, and which one is still following up?

After building MLEI® in 1996, the charismatic leadership trait is one of the rarest gifts I have ever measured in a leader. If you have been called charismatic, persuasive, or magnetic, and you have noticed people lift around you the moment you walk in, you are likely leading with the Entertainer trait. → You are self-assured, confident, and charming with people. → You listen and speak well, and use both to persuade and motivate. → You adapt well to changing conditions and remain optimistic when others lose faith. → Others are inspired by your drive and determination. That is the mature Entertainer. The energy you create in the people around you is real. The wins you generate through them are real. But a derailed entertainer exaggerates small wins because the truth does not feel impressive enough and shapes a social image they cannot live up to. Most Entertainers eventually face the same question... Am I performing because I believe in the work, or because I am afraid of how the truth will look without the performance? - John

I coached a COO who had been told for years that motivating people was not her strength. We will call her Rose Marie. She did everything... → Mirror practice. → Toastmasters. → Speech rehearsals before every meeting. Still no improvement. When she came to me, I told her to stop trying to become a great speaker. (She was never going to be a high-energy platform speaker, and that was never the point.) She had a different gift, an innate talent. An innate ability to take complex problems and distill them into easy-to-understand models, and create step-by-step plans for addressing them. That was what had made her a successful COO. I told her she could leverage this gift to motivate her team. Turned out, people actually responded positively to her ability to simplify complex situations. She developed an organizational transition plan and unveiled it to her team, step by step. The response was immediate. Her team understood exactly where they were going and why. Most leaders run a development strategy backwards. They identify a weakness, work on it for years, and never close the gap. But Rose Marie did the opposite and identified her signature strengths and doubled down on that to become an even more effective COO. This is the fourth dimension of Intelligent Leadership: Leveraging Your Gifts and Addressing Your Gaps. P.S. What signature strength have you been ignoring because you were busy trying to become someone you are not? - John

After transforming 1,000,000 leaders across 55 countries over thirty years, I keep seeing the same pattern... The competencies that built your career are not the ones that will sustain you in top leadership positions. → Decision-making → Strategic thinking → Communication Skills → Drive for results That's just the outer core. That's what your team sees. That's what most leadership material teaches. But that's only half of you. The other half is the inner core. → Character → Values → Beliefs → Self-concept It's the half that drives your leadership. The half I have spent thirty years helping leaders finally see. A lot of leaders are strong on the outside, but inside they're hollow. That's why growth quietly stops and success plateaus. This is what the Wheel of Intelligent Leadership™ maps. Both halves of you, side by side. Its purpose is to make visible which half is doing the work and which half is being neglected. The Outer Core does not grow you into top leadership positions without the Inner Core feeding it. That is the rule. It was true thirty years ago. It is true today. P.S. Which half of yourself have you been developing more, and which one have you been avoiding? - John Comment: If you want to become a great leader, you must change. The 11 Laws of Lasting Change™ is the framework you might need right now to change yourself. bit.ly/4vbBnmj

The trait that built your career is the same one that can quietly cost you the people who built it with you. After thirty years and 10,000+ leadership profiles, this is one of the most powerful traits I have ever measured. I call it: Driver. See if I'm describing you: → Are you the one who decides when everyone else hesitates? → Do you start moving on a problem before anyone tells you to? → Do you inspire others to act, not just to comply? → Do you align your interests with the people you lead? If that sounds like you, you lead with the Driver, one of the 9 traits I developed into the MLEI® (Mattone Leadership Enneagram Inventory) in 1996. On your mature side, you use your will to make things better. You inspire others to adopt them. You persist until the work is done. That is real leadership. The world needs more of it. On the derailing side, you start comparing yourself to everyone in the room. You execute aggressively when influence would be more effective. You take charge before anyone asks you to. The Driver's growth is not in pushing harder. It is in knowing when to pull back. P.S. What did someone close to you say recently that you cannot stop thinking about? - John

After thirty years of profiling leaders at the highest level, I've observed a gap in leaders... And it's not what most leaders think it is. The leadership gap. It is not a strategy. It is not a vision. It is not execution. It is the gap between intelligence and the ability to lead people through it. At 39, I went bankrupt. I returned to corporate work for the next 15 years before I could come back to coaching. I have spent the decades since inside the world's biggest companies, struck by the sheer intelligence and cognitive capacities of the leaders around me, and found the same gap in most of them. A high IQ may open the door to leadership. It is emotional intelligence, integrity, and resilience that walk you through it and bring others along. → Intelligence shows you the problem. → Emotional intelligence helps you solve it through people. → Character keeps you anchored when the room shifts. Today's leadership failures begin not in the brain, but in the heart, character, and behavior of the leader. The future belongs to those who can align intellect, emotion, and integrity. Leadership begins and ends with character. I have put the entire Intelligent Leadership® framework together in one place. P.S. Which one - intellect, emotion, or integrity, has been carrying the most weight in your leadership lately? - John Comment: I have spent thirty years building this framework. It is the one I wish someone had handed me when I started my career. Full piece: [bit.ly/4xQd27B

In thirty years and 10,000+ leadership profiles, I have mapped the nine outer-core competencies that define how you show up as a leader. People see and experience your outer core before they ever understand your inner core. It is what shapes the way they respond to your leadership every day. → Critical Thinking → Decision Making → Strategic Thinking → Emotional Leadership → Communication Skills → Talent Leadership → Team Leadership → Change Leadership → Drive for Results These nine are how you break through your self-imposed limitations and achieve all you are capable of achieving as a leader and as a person. While your inner core fuels authenticity, your outer core enables performance. Both halves matter. P.S. Which of the nine are the strong expression of your leadership right now? And which of these are you avoiding? - John

This CEO built a health program after he got diagnosed with cancer. This is the story of Nabil, the CEO of Al Mansoori Specialized Engineering (operating in 24 countries across the Middle East in the oil and gas sector). At 52, he was diagnosed with cancer. Instead of stepping back, he built a comprehensive health program for his entire company. For prevention, not just treatment. What happened next mattered far beyond his own company. That health program caught the attention of Shell. Then Exxon. Then BP. All three adopted the same systems Nabil built. One man's response to cancer influenced health systems across an entire industry. For people he would never meet and impact he would never personally witness. Nabil was the least “victimized” person I've ever met, and his non-victimized stance had a big impact on his success as an entrepreneur and CEO. When I asked him what he considered to be the key to his success. His answer was simple: “Maintaining an optimistic attitude in the face of adversity.” That's legacy. Leaders respond in two ways to adversity: The Entitlement Mindset looks inward. "Why is this happening to me? What do I deserve? Self-first, Victim-oriented. The Duty Mindset looks outward. "What can I build that outlasts my pain?" Transforms crisis into a proper system that others lean on. My question is... What is the thing in your life right now that you have been treating as something happening to you, instead of something you could build something with? - John