Books on how to become an ever more excellent leader

Renowned leadership psychologist and author of more than 15 books in Dutch and English, Markus van Alphen developed the Observational Listening concept in 2014. Observational Listening goes a step further than active listening in understanding what an individual has to say. By observing them, and understanding what emotions are going on inside and using your empathic capabilities, you come to a deeper understanding. If a leader is attentive to the story and the underlying emotions, the other feels heard, seen, acknowledged and psychologically safe, resulting in increased happiness, motivation, and success. For his firm, The Excellent Organization, Markus helps leaders and individuals worldwide increase workplace and personal relationship effectiveness, transform their environments, and succeed. As a restorative practitioner, he also is called in to resolve incidents and initiate the process of conflict resolution, as well as train others to implement the restorative approach. In addition, Markus is a trainer, lecturer, and curriculum developer for undergraduate and postgraduate psychology and counseling students at various colleges and universities across the Netherlands. Markus began his career as an engineer for utilities providers and software companies. After two decades in the field, he realized the impact individual characteristics and interpersonal interactions have on people's work and lives, which led him to pursue psychology. He holds a master’s degree in psychology from the University of Amsterdam and a degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering that he received from the University of Cape Town.