PepTalk Presents: Martin Gutmann Webinar

Key points: What if the biggest barrier to high performance isn't your team's talent—but how they work together?

Leading with Humility: The Underrated Superpower

In this PepTalk Presents session, Martin Gutmann breaks down what makes teams excel over the long term. He argues that success comes from pairing strong drive with genuine humility. Using examples from Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls, Google’s research, and leaders like Jacinda Ardern and Dwight Eisenhower, he shows how high standards only work when matched with trust and psychological safety.

Martin explains that every team must overcome three core hurdles: clarity, capacity, and communication. He highlights the often overlooked “Cartwright leaders” who build cohesion, and he offers practical steps for strengthening remote and hybrid teams.

These insights are built for leaders who want top performance without losing connection or morale.

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Speaker Martin Gutmann: Leadership Strategy

Dr Martin Gutmann, author of The Unseen Leader and lecturer at ETH Zurich, combines academic rigour with real-world application. His TED Talk has reached over 2 million viewers, and his work has been featured in Forbes and The New York Times. Martin challenges conventional thinking: sustained excellence is less about assembling the most talented individuals and more about creating the conditions where they can thrive together.

Martin advocates humility: acknowledging limits, showing openness to learning, and owning failures. Examples cited include Jacinda Ardern's pandemic leadership and Dwight D. Eisenhower's pre-D-Day readiness to accept responsibility. Humility, he argues, strengthens authority and builds trust—especially useful when rolling out new policies or navigating restructures.

Recognising Your "Cartwright Leaders"

Not every high-performing team member will be a superstar. Martin urges leaders to identify and elevate "Cartwright leaders"—steady, trust-building people whose influence holds teams together. Recognising these contributors is effective for ERG activations, culture days, and staff conferences.

Making Human Connection Work in Virtual Teams

Remote and hybrid work reduce casual connection opportunities. Martin recommends prioritising brief rapport and feedback moments beyond task management—start virtual meetings with personal check-ins to build resilience and belonging.

Effective Leadership Development Matters

High-performing teams are the product of intentional leadership that balances ambition with empathy, standards with support, and individual brilliance with collective trust.

 
• Reduce turnover and boost retention by creating psychologically safe environments where people feel valued
• Accelerate innovation through cultures that reward learning from failure as well as success
• Improve team performance by removing structural hurdles that quietly drain productivit
  Strengthen organisational resilience during uncertainty, transitions, or growth

Whether for leadership offsites, HR leadership summits, all-hands meetings, or in-house manager training, expert speakers and evidence-based development translate research into action.

The Three Hurdles Every Team Must Clear

These fundamentals are a practical starting point for people-team away days or employee engagement weeks and immediately surface what's blocking performance.

• Clarity of goals. Does everyone understand what success looks like and why it matters
• Capacity to deliver. Do people have the time, resources, and skills to actually do the work?
• Communication that flows. Can information move freely across the team without bottlenecks or silos?

Why Psychological Safety Outperforms Raw Talent

Drawing on Google's Project Aristotle, Martin highlights that team success depends less on who is on the team and more on how they interact. psychological safety—the belief you can speak up, ask questions, admit mistakes, and take risks without fear—is the strongest predictor of team performance. Leaders must cultivate environments that balance high standards with genuine support.

Bringing Martin's Insights to Your Organisation

Martin Gutmann’s evidence-based frameworks are designed to move leaders from theory to practice. To book Martin for a keynote, workshop, offsite, or training session, get in touch with PepTalk. Email us at hello@getapeptalk.com or send us a message via the chat. You can also call us on +44 20 3835 2929 (UK) or +1 737 888 5112 (US).

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