In this episode of the Proteus Leader Show, host Erika Andersen interviews Scott Mounts, author of The Mentally Strong Leader. Mounts defines mental strength as the ability to regulate emotions, thoughts, and behaviors productively, especially under adversity, and positions it as a leadership super‑power for today’s fast‑changing world. Drawing on research that surveyed thousands of senior executives, he identifies six "mental muscles"—fortitude, confidence, boldness, decisive decision‑making, goal‑focus, and positive messaging—that consistently describe the most effective leaders. The conversation explores the organizational fallout when these muscles are weak, the role of accountability and growth mindset within fortitude and confidence, and introduces a 50‑question self‑assessment that places leaders into four tiers and pinpoints which muscles need development. Mounts explains that the book offers more than 50 habit‑building tools, allowing leaders to design a personalized mental‑strength training program much like a workout routine. Practical takeaways include starting with the assessment, selecting targeted tools, and using small, incremental steps to build each muscle. Listeners are directed to a free 60‑page PDF (scottmounts.com/mentallystronggift) containing the assessment and prompts, and to the book’s website for further resources. The episode closes with a reminder that building mental strength is challenging but manageable through the structured, habit‑based approach presented in the book.
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You're listening to the Proteus Leader Show with Erika Andersen, where you'll get practical tools and insights for leading and managing and staying ready for the future. Erika is the founding partner of Proteus, a firm that focuses uniquely on leader readiness. A nationally known executive coach and bestselling author, you may already know her as one of the most popular leadership bloggers on Forbes.com. Ready for something you can use today? Here's Erika.
Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Proteus Leader Show. My guest today is Scott Mounts, a passionate expert on mental strength, peak performance, change, employee engagement, and leadership, including self-leadership. Scott spent much of his career as a senior executive at Procter& Gamble, so his insights and advice are grounded in practical experience. He's also an award-winning author, and today we'll be focusing on his latest book, The Mentally Strong Leader. So, Scott, I'm thrilled to have you on the show.
Hey, thank you so much. I'm happy to be here. And we both offer soothing backdrops for your viewer. If you're listening, sorry, they're both really nice backdrops we're working from. If you're viewing, you know, you got a choice of soothing things in to listen to us too.
Well, since this is primarily a podcast, they'll just have to keep it in their minds that we have a studio.
That's right. That's right.
So thanks so much for joining us. I just, I'm, I haven't had a chance to read your book yet. I've read the synopsis, but I'm really looking forward to it. I think it's such an important topic, especially now. So let's dive in, right?
Yeah, sounds, sounds good. Where do you want me to start? You want me just to describe the concept of the book?
Well, let's start with the first question. So I love that you've called mental strength the leadership superpower of our times. That's such a great name. So can you tell us why it's so important and help us understand more about what it is, what you mean by that?
Yeah, sure thing, Erika. I think, you know, just to start with a basic definition, you know, I'm talking about my new book, The Mentally Strong Leader. And so that begs the question, what is mental strength? Well, mental strength is the ability to regulate your emotions, your thoughts, and your behaviors productively, even in adversity. And you could argue, especially in the face of adversity. As I like to shorthand it, Erika, it's, it's how we manage internally so we can lead better externally at work and in life. And here's the thing, Erika, I think you probably intuitively already understand that, as do your listeners, that, well, of course, if you want to be successful at work and life, you have to be able to regulate your emotions and thoughts and behaviors versus just flying off the handle and do whatever you want. You already know that. But here's the rub. It's really hard to do. It's really hard to self-regulate your emotions and your thoughts and your behaviors, especially with all that we face in our world today. So, so, you know, in The Mentally Strong Leader, I really focus on, because it's so hard, giving people a railing they can hold on to, this thing called habits. I've been studying habit-building science for a very long time, and the book is about building the habits to become mentally stronger. It's literally how you train your brain for achievement. And it's because of that, you know, because it's the literal science of training your brain for achievement. To your opening question, that's what really makes me believe that mental strength is the leadership superpower of our time. Because boy, do we ever need help in trying to achieve, you know, in the face of all the things we face in today's business world and in the world.
Yes, I couldn't agree with you more. And I, and I feel like especially now there's so much input. I, I read an article recently where relative to 50 years ago, we get over 100 times more input just information on a daily basis 50 years ago. And, and it's not, you know, a lot of it is disheartening or upsetting or so just exactly what you're saying, to be able to regulate your emotional and psychological response to all that input is so critical, I think.
Yeah, I think so. And it, and it really, it boils it down and shows up in a certain number of ways. And I'll tell you what I'm talking about. So You know, the Mentally Strong Leader is very heavily, you know, very heavily research-based. And, you know, one piece of research I wanted to highlight for your listeners, we interviewed and researched, we did this multiple times, 3,000 executives at a time where we asked, thinking of the highest achieving organizations you've ever been a part of that overcame the most obstacles, what were the attributes of the key leader in that organization at that time? And Erika, every time we've done this study, we see that usually between 90 to 91%, right around in that area, of respondents describe mentally strong leaders, even though they don't know that's what they're describing.
Yeah.
But what they describe about that leader are really 6 things, what equates to the 6 mental muscles, if you will, that constitute mental strength. We heard over and over again leaders that were— that had incredible fortitude, confidence, boldness, decision-making skills. They were decisive and made high-quality decisions.
Yeah.
They were goal-focused. And they were skilled at messaging, meaning staying positive-minded, not getting pulled down into negativity and staying engaged when you engage with the organization to send the right message. So we saw these 6 mental muscles that equate to mental strength constantly being mentioned over and over and over again, which reinforced again to us that We were really onto something here, that mental strength may be that thing that helps you make that link to what is it about the best leaders I've ever worked with? Our research believes and shows that it's mental strength.
Wow, that's great. I love those 6 things. So, let's talk about the opposite. Let's talk about the dark side. So, what are some of the individual and organizational problems that arise when leaders Aren't mentally strong.
Yeah. And if you think about it, we see this a lot. And first thing, it's important to say that I don't want listeners thinking like, oh my gosh, this either is me or isn't me. I either am mentally strong or I'm not because the opposite of mentally strong is not mentally weak. We all have a baseline of mental strength to work from. And in the book, I lay out over 50+ proven tools to help you figure out which mental muscles you need to build. But to the point of your question, you know, what happens in organizations when you don't have these mental muscle skills? Well, what we see is the organization doesn't accomplish much of anything. We see low achieving, the opposite of high potential organizations. We see cultural problems in the organizations. We see organizations that are not productive at all. They're not efficient in their operations. And it makes sense. If you thought about an organization, Erika, that was weak in the 6 core muscles, if they, the organization didn't have resilience, Yeah. if they weren't a decisive organization, if there was a stream of low self-confidence running through the organization, if they weren't bold and didn't take risks, if they weren't positive-minded and goal-focused, you could imagine the chaos that breaks out. And that's what we saw in our research. We saw just as the highest-performing organizations had mentally strong leaders. The lowest ones had ones that had the most to be developed across those 6 mental muscles.
That makes complete sense. As I'm listening to you, this is so fascinating. I want to ask about something that I didn't ask you beforehand. So I hope this is okay. The one thing I'm thinking about that I haven't heard, but it may be buried in one of the things, is that in my experience of coaching leaders for a lot of years, that one of the things I equate to mental strength is kind of flexibility in terms of willingness to, you know, take responsibility for mistakes and, and, and change when things aren't going well? How does that show up?
Yeah, that's— so you're kind of— it's, uh, in multiple ways you're talking about like kind of a sense of accountability, right? Yes, kind of a growth mindset, a willingness to understand that you're going to make mistakes. It, it actually shows up quite a bit In 2 areas, in both the fortitude and the confidence muscles, because we see leaders that are highly self-confident are willing to admit their mistakes. They're willing to take accountability. And we see the opposite when leaders aren't self-confident. They want to be as far removed from any accountability as they can because they don't want to show up as being responsible for something that didn't go right because that'll further take their confidence down. tank their confidence. So you're absolutely right. Yeah.
Yeah, I love that, Scott, because you're pointing out the difference that we've seen a lot, which is that there's a kind of false confidence, which is bravado, and it's very rigid and kind of inflexible, and it's the opposite of accountability. But real confidence means I have enough trust in myself to acknowledge that, oh, this wasn't the right way to do this. We have to find a different way, and I take responsibility for it. Oh, that's great.
Yeah, that's right. And there's even a tool in the book to help your listeners drive more accountability in their organization based on questions that they can ask. And so, yeah, it's definitely a part of mental strength, even if it isn't called out as a quote unquote lead muscle, because our data just didn't support that it deserved that.
Right. Yeah. I love that it's in there. And it makes me feel like I can't wait until our listeners get into your book because it sounds like each of the 6 has a lot of Richness in it.
Yes, yes.
You started going in this direction, so let's keep going in this direction. I always promise practical takeaways. Well, so if you were with one of our listeners, our leaders today, and said, okay, right now what can I do to build my mental strength, to become stronger mentally?
Yes, the most important thing to start with is you have to build a mental strength training program that's right and unique for you. So in The Mentally Strong Leader, It took me multiple years to develop this and then confirm it with data science, but we've now done it. We have in chapter 2 of Mentally Strong Leader, readers can take a mental strength self-assessment.
Oh, great.
50 questions that only— that have been proven with data 9 ways from Sunday, that it only takes about 15 minutes of kind of quiet inflection and reflection time to answer. And what it produces is your overall mental strength score. So, you can understand how mentally strong are you right now. And it puts you in one of 4 tiers depending on where your level of mental strength is. It also gives you a score, Erika, to understand what mental muscles are most important for you to work on. We don't all need to work on every mental muscle all the time.
Right.
When you go to the gym, you don't go saying, I'm going to spend 15 hours here working on every muscle in my body. You have different days for different muscles. So, so you could develop your own tailored mental strength training program. So to your question, the very first place to start is to understand what are your specific mental strength training needs. Then the Mentally Strong Leader can guide you accordingly. And we have over 50+ tools in the book to help you build the habits to become mentally stronger, depending on the muscle that you want to strengthen.
Oh, that's great. So once you've taken the assessment, you can look at that toolkit and pick the ones that are specifically going to be the most helpful for you.
Yes.
Oh, that's great. Oh my gosh, this is so helpful. Is there any last thing you want to tell our listeners before we wrap up?
Yeah, I think just to remember that Because building your mental strength is so difficult, you don't have to feel daunted by that, right? In The Mentally Strong Leader, there's a lot of habit-building science built into it, including sections where for, you know, every tool, what's the first small step you take to get more confident? What do you do in moments of weakness when your confidence breaks down, for example? And with over 50+ tools, there's no expectation that you use all of them. It's just set up to be a menu So you can pick from the tools that are best for you in your mental strength training program and regimen that you want to set up.
Oh, that sounds so practical. This is just— I love practicality. This sounds like providing really needed insight into an important topic, plus practical and what do we do about it kind of stuff, which is fantastic. So thank you so much.
Yeah, that's right. And to help, I always have a gift ready for listeners. If they go to, if they want to find the book, they can find it at scottmounts.com. But, but also, if you want to try this assessment, you know, you could, and you want to try it for free and then decide if you want to buy the book, cool. You can go to scottmounts.com/mentallystronggift and you can download a 60-page PDF for free, which includes the mental strength self-assessment plus questions, Erika, that prompts that'll help you to get the most out of the book, The Mentally Strong Leader. So that's scottmounts.com/mentallystronggift.
Oh, that's fantastic. That's really helpful. I was going to refer people to your website. You've already done it. So that's great. That's where you can find out more about Scott and his work and buy the book and get this great free assessment. So thanks again.
Yeah, thanks for having me here. And thanks for what you're doing. The world needs it.
Oh, thank you so much. And to find out more about how Proteus supports leaders and their organizations to succeed, you can just go to our website, which is proteus-international.com. So thank you all for listening. And until next time, here's to creating the life you truly want.
We hope you're feeling better equipped to create the career, the business, and the life you want. For more insights and tools for leadership and management, join us at theproteusleader.com. Have an excellent day, and thanks for listening.
