Jonas Rickle

I was uncomfortable asserting myself, so I did what felt natural: I tried to meet everyone's expectations. Or, more accurately, what I imagined their expectations to be. I worked hard. I had some good results. I had some mediocre ones. I started a business, but it failed.

None of it made much sense to me at the time.

Years later, I took a job leading a leadership development company, and that's where I first encountered the science of non-conscious motivation. The research into the patterns that shape how we think, feel, and act as leaders without being aware of it.

I was fascinated.


I invested deeply in understanding the science, and then in understanding my own patterns. And when I did, something shifted. My earlier successes and failures — the things that had seemed random or unlucky or just hard — became remarkably predictable.

In hindsight, there were things I could have done so differently. It would have saved me a great deal of struggle, and I would have been far more effective at the thing I cared about most: engaging others in a shared effort toward something we could genuinely be proud of.

That clarity is what I've spent the last twenty years helping other leaders find.

Meaningful is when you accomplish things that really matter. When you succeed together with others, and when doing that feels worth the effort, even when the effort is hard.

The leaders I work with are typically experienced and capable. They are C-suite teams in listed companies, leaders across multinationals, medium-sized businesses, and startups. I'm Swedish, but my work has taken me to companies all over the world, and one of the most striking things I've seen is how universal these patterns are.

The same mind filter dynamics show up in Stockholm and Tokyo, in tech companies and manufacturing, in boardrooms and on the factory floor.

What I want to help with is something specific.

Most leaders already have strong skills and sound values. What often gets in their way are their non-conscious impulses.

I want to make work more meaningful to leaders, and I mean that in a very specific way.

Meaningful is when you accomplish things that really matter. When you succeed together with others, and when doing that feels worth the effort, even when the effort is hard. That's what leadership can feel like.

And in a world where fewer people want to lead and many who do find it draining, helping more leaders get there feels like genuinely important work.