In this episode of the Proteus Leader Show, host Erika Andersen interviews Dr. Joel Rothaser, a clinical psychologist and leadership development expert, about his book Clear Impact and how leaders can close the "capacity gap" that hampers performance in volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) environments. Rothaser explains that adult cognitive development continues beyond childhood and can be thought of as operating‑system‑like levels of capacity that shape how competencies are expressed. He contrasts "heroic" leadership—where the leader sees themselves as the sole source of answers—with collaborative, capacity‑building approaches. Practical tools he shares include: 1. Performance Collaboration – reframing performance conversations as shared responsibility. 2. Polarity Thinking – using polarity maps to foster both‑and thinking. 3. Pond Thinking – shifting blame from individuals to systemic context. 4. 30‑second Pre‑Interaction Intent + Post‑Interaction Reflection – a habit loop that sets task and people goals, adds a deliberate tweak, and then reviews outcomes to rewire the brain. 5. Incoming Human – a mindset cue that reminds leaders each interaction is an impact opportunity. Rothaser illustrates each model with vivid examples, showing how they raise leaders’ cognitive complexity, increase trust, and develop the capacity of direct reports. The conversation underscores the urgency of moving from heroic to collaborative leadership to thrive in VUCA conditions, and invites listeners to explore the book and Proteus International’s services for deeper development.
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Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Proudest Leader Show. Today, my guest is Dr. Joel Rothaser, a clinical psychologist, board-certified organizational consultant, and master-certified coach with over 40 years of experience in leadership development. Joel is the co-author of Clear Impact: Building Your Leadership Capacity, a book designed to help leaders navigate the challenges of your volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world, often referred to as VUCA. His book draws on decades of expertise in creating practical models for developing leadership skills that enhance cognitive complexity and effectiveness. Joel, it's a pleasure to have you on the show.
Thank you.
Let's dive into your work. So Joel, in Clear Impact, it addresses a concept that you call a capacity gap in leadership. Could you explain what this gap is and why it's so crucial for leaders to address it? Sure.
Well, to do that, I first have to define capacity.
Yes.
And people for years accepted child development, that a 4-year-old's brain is different than an 8-year-old and it's different than a 12-year-old. But then people for a long time thought that once you become an adult, you kind of have an adult brain and now you fill it full of stuff. But those levels continue or not of complexity. And so there have been many levels mapped of adult development. And when you apply those to leadership, each one of those is sequentially more effective for leading in a VUCA environment. And so it matters. And so one of the ways of looking at this is that These are like operating systems on a computer. So I call that capacity. And then there are competencies. You know, we learn skills of different kind, but this is the key concept to make all of my work useful, that we evoke that, that competency based on the operating system we're currently working from. And yet we've always known that in things like when neurolinguistic programming was popular, one person could use that, a physician, to build better rapport and help people follow through on their health regimes. Someone else could use it to sell you a car you didn't need at an inflated price. Same competency expressed from different levels of capacity. And so all of the models that I use come from higher levels of capacity, and they're designed to evoke a higher level of thinking and acting.
So what you're saying is we continue to learn throughout our lifetime, even as adults, Or not. Or not, right. And so it's important to really be intentional about building that capacity and, and those competencies.
Yeah. And so the complexity gap is the difference between a current leader's functioning and actually what's required of their role. And there's been so much data from HBR, Center for Creative Leadership, and others that have said there is a gap and that it's significant.
Okay, very good. So one of the focuses of your book is helping leaders to develop cognitive complexity to tackle gnarly challenges. And you just kind of talked about how that, that gap between the complexity and what's required to address it in someone's capacity might be a difference and a gap. Can you share a practical example of how leaders can cultivate this capacity to manage those complex situations?
Yeah, let me share a couple of the tools that I developed and then also maybe go back and talk about coaching as an example.
Yeah.
So I'll meet with a group of leaders and I'll say, would you say that your manager is co-responsible for how you show up? And they'll go, of course. And then I'll say, okay, so are you co-responsible for how your direct reports show up? And a little more grudgingly they'll go, yeah. And then I'll say, but your performance management isn't based on that. It's like a report card. You're telling them how they're doing. Now, what would happen if instead of that, you started out and said, I realize I'm co-responsible for your performance. Let's talk about how we are doing. So that's the dialogue that suddenly is at a higher level of capacity. I call that performance collaboration. And you can just imagine how much more engaging that'll be. What an interesting dialogue that'll be. It'll take the pressure off, more safety and trust because it's about a we and not a you. So that, that's one example.
And, and what does that do to the dynamic between the two in terms of the, the difference between the report card and a more collaborative approach and, and conversation?
Well, as soon as it's a we, a leader can even start out and say, I've been thinking about how I'm co-responsible for how you've done both strengths and challenges, and here's what I've noticed. And so there's immediately more vulnerability in there. The leader is looking at herself or himself, and then it makes it easier for the direct report to go, yeah, you know, here's what I've noticed in me, but also here's how we interact together. I wonder how we can interact even better. So again, much more collaborative dialogue, much more safety and trust.
Yeah.
Okay, great.
You talk about in your book, the VUCA environment, and you talk about volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity, and in time of rapid change.
Yeah.
Why do you believe it's so important for leaders to develop these essential skills and stay effective and adaptable in such an environment?
Yeah. Well, let me give you a practical example. So a lot of leaders currently Lead from what's called heroic leadership. Heroic leadership is kind of a Captain Kirk model for those who go back to Star Trek 1. I'm captain of my ship. I have all the answers. I'm— I don't say I don't know. I think that the answer to everything is an equation in one unknown. I don't have a whole lot of self-awareness. Now, I'm not saying Captain Kirk didn't, so we'll— Go off from there. So I'm that kind of a leader, and I think that my right to be a leader is because of what I know. And so I don't like to be challenged. Now imagine I go to a coaching course. My coaching is going to look a whole lot like advice giving and telling people what to do. Not because I'm a bad human being, not because I don't care about people, but that's the level I think at. Okay. Now let's take it to a different level. I'm a leader. who focuses at a later stage. I have a lot of interest in my own development and who I am, and I'm fascinated by other people and how they're different from me. And I have a genuine desire in helping them be more of who they are. Because I've explored myself, it's easier for me to help other people explore their self. I also understand that in complexity, there isn't one right answer and that you come to multiple, that you need multiple perspectives to integrate. So now imagine what my coaching is like. It's rich, it's open, it's collaborative. We're exchanging ideas back and forth. So the same skill, coaching, expressed at different levels of capacity. The second conversation is what organizations need, and it's how we can actually develop new leaders.
Yeah, I can see how as a supervisor or a manager or a leader, That, that can create a much richer dialogue between yourself and your employee or a coach and their coachee. How does it build capacity in the person they're talking to? So again, in the case where I'm the leader and I'm talking to one of my direct reports, how does, how does that develop capacity in the direct report themselves at the same time?
It's a great question. Some of it depends on the kind of skills that the leader gets. Like, one of the tools I use a lot are polarity thinking, polarity maps. And so more and more of my leaders use those maps to help other people develop, to build more both-and thinking instead of either-or thinking. We also learn about ourselves through compassionate perspective seeking. And so if a leader is asking their direct report more about what's going on on the inside, not just what's happening, but more the who kinds of questions, Then it also helps that person evolve. And I'll give you another practical one. One of the other tools I developed, this is probably the stickiest one I developed, called pond thinking. And in pond thinking, I show a picture of a pond. It's a beautiful day. There's some koi swimming around there. And I say to leaders, if some of those fish started swimming erratically or turned upside down, would you blame the fish? And people laugh, you know, toxic runoff, nutrients, whatever. And then I say, so, okay, let's say now you went to a fish store and bought the best new fish and put them in the same pond. What would happen? And they smile and go, of course the fish would die off. And then I say, but that isn't how you lead your organization. When somebody isn't succeeding, your first question isn't what in the context is leading to them not succeeding. You point to the person and go, bad employee. So pond thinking is a cognitive habit of looking for root cause of behavior within the organizational context, but not within the person. And so it's contrasted with the bad fish approach. And so in places where we introduce this, people use that for years. You know, oh, you, you know, you're just blaming that employee. Let's take a pond thinking approach. So if a leader is leading from that perspective, And they assume that people want to succeed, assuming the person's in the right role. Then again, the dialogue will be very different. Let's talk about what's going on in the context that's making it harder for you, which again is a much more open and collaborative dialogue.
Yeah, I think back to your example, your first example in terms of the coach who operates from a place of knowledge and thinking that their job is to impart that knowledge. how limiting that potentially can be in an environment where there's so many variables and, you know, organizations are complex systems. I can see how that second approach in asking the question and collaborating with the person to really try to understand the environment a little bit better can lead to not only better choices, but also to your point, kind of greater awareness of the context in which they're operating. We were talking before we started recording about a little exercise you shared with me via video. Can you describe that for the listeners? And I thought it was really helpful for me to take that on board.
Sure. And I'm glad you're finding it useful too. I use this before pretty much every one of my coaching sessions too. So, at this point, if you told me, okay, Joel, you got 10,000 leaders, you got 5 minutes, Give 'em your best shot. This is my current best shot. I might come up with something better later, but so far this is the best I got. 30 seconds before every interaction you have, ask yourself 2 questions. The first is, what's my task? What's my goal for this interaction? I want there to be 2 parts to that, task and people. The task goal, I want an update on a project. The people goal is very specific. What do you want the experience to be of that other person at the end of this interaction, whether it's 2 minutes, 3 minutes, or an hour? And I'll talk in a minute about why that's so important. And then what's one thing I can do differently that I wouldn't do automatically to make that more likely? You know, I'm gonna ask more curious questions. I'm actually gonna pay attention. I'm gonna put my phone down, whatever it might be. So then you have the interaction, being mindful hopefully of whatever that one thing was you were gonna do differently. And then the crucial thing is at the end of it, don't grab your phone and see what messages you missed. Take 30 more seconds and go, what did I do? What did I intend to do? What did I notice? What did I learn? Because this is how our brains change. Our brains change through many, many short cycles of action and reflection. Our brains don't change by reading a book, taking a course. Every leader I've worked with who has done this one approach has said it's powerfully transformed my leadership. And part of that is that when we ask what we want the experience to be of the other person, it builds perspective-taking that's compassionate, which awakens a part of our brain that actually cares about you. And also reflection is like, how often do I say, if you wanna build capacity, you have to increase having a reflective disposition, stepping back and Reflecting, because our brains go on autopilot. And so this is a really simple practice that gets people to do that cycle. And I'll just, one quick, I coached senior military leaders, levels, and this one general, I gave them the term incoming human and loved that. You know, that every time the phone rings, every time you're about to have a call, incoming human. I'm about to have an impact. I'm about to leave a wake, positive or negative. I want it to be positive.
Yeah. And, and, you know, the thing that I took from it the most was that last step to take just a few seconds to really reflect and check. 'Cause that's where for me, it kind of cements and preps me for the next time I have that interaction. How well do you find that people are able to match up the experience they intend to have With the behaviors that then they choose to convey that experience and foster that experience with the people they're talking to.
How often are they able to do what they intended to do?
Exactly.
Some of the time. Change is hard. I say that a lot. And change is always uncomfortable. We don't want to be uncomfortable. So we first have to have something we care about enough to be willing to be uncomfortable. Yeah. But the reality is I want people to always, the other thing is I always want people to set an intention at the beginning of their day and reflect at the end of the day how'd they do. But I want that reflection to be 80% positive. Where did it go well? So not to have the inner critic doing the reflection, but the compassionate inner observer. Because we're all, you know, we're all struggling and we're all doing the best we can, but we want to keep doing better. And so it's good to focus on the times when I did it and what did I notice?
Yeah.
Of course, we're not going to bat a thousand.
Yeah, that's great. Well, Joel, thank you so much for sharing your expertise and the practical models and examples that you shared with us. From my point of view, it's really inspiring to hear about your work in building leadership capacity to meet the demands of today's complex world. And I'm going to take this conversation and reflect on it myself. Listeners, if you're interested in learning more about Joel's work, Or his book, Clear Impact, you can visit clear-impact.com. And to see how Proteus supports leaders in cultivating skills for impactful adaptive leadership, visit us at proteus-international.com. Thank you for tuning in, 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. To find out more about how we support our clients in leadership, learning, and change, visit us at proteus-international.com. Have an excellent day, and thanks for listening.
