Today sees the launch of ‘Egoless: the Final Frontier in Leadership’, a pioneering new book by the Parallax Partnership’s Dr Sarah Morris. In it Sarah sets out the case for a step change in our thinking about what constitutes true leadership and for taking ego out office entirely.

Having spent the past ten years working with leaders and observing the differences between competent and truly transformational leaders who bring about real and lasting improvements in performance, Sarah sees ego as the key factor inhibiting leadership potential today.

Ego keeps us rooted in predominantly negative behaviours that focus almost entirely on self-survival and is hugely detrimental to corporate as well as individual performance. When ego is taken out of the equation you lay the foundations for clarity, cohesion, resilience and trust, all qualities that are often sadly lacking in the modern workplace. When ego is absent from leadership, vision is conveyed more accurately and better understood and teams and individuals are able to attain completely new levels of achievement.

In her book, Sarah sets out a simple four step model for egoless leadership – the Conscious Leadership Model – and shows readers a practical route towards a more fulfilling and sustainable way of leading. Powerful and persuasive argument is supported by practical exercises and case histories.

Sarah is clear that traditional models of leadership are failing and that we must totally rethink our approach. It may well be that leaders think they are communicating vision and building trust, but this simply is not the experience of employees. It may be hard to face, but the fact is the relationship between employer and employee is currently often stretched to breaking point.

Conscious Leadership lays the foundations for repairing this relationship and achieving higher levels of performance than ever before. The moral case for adopting this new way of leading is clear, but there is also a strong economic imperative.

With more than half of business leaders estimating that ego costs them up to 15 per cent of annual revenue, and the majority claiming it has a negative impact on performance on an hourly or daily basis, it is not so much a case of whether we can afford to embrace Conscious Leadership but more a question of whether we can afford not to.

Egoless: the Final Frontier in Leadership is available through the Parallax Partnership at http://www.parallaxuk.com/?page=63, through Amazon or on Kindle.