By bringing together behavioural science, organisational psychology, and real-world case studies from global corporations, government, and the military, this book explains why leaders do what they do—it offers a model that is at once deeply human and immediately practical.
This book challenges widely held assumptions about leadership by revealing the hidden psychological patterns and schemas that shape how individuals think, behave, and collaborate at work. These schemas operate below the level of conscious awareness, influencing how we make decisions, respond to pressure, handle conflict, and engage with power. They determine whether people step forward as leaders, contribute as effective teammates, or withdraw as silent followers. At the heart of the book is a simple but powerful premise:
• Leadership is not a role you hold. It is a schema-driven behaviour you adopt in a moment.
• Teaming is not a personality trait. It is a schema that shapes how you collaborate.
• Followership is not passive obedience. It is an active schema that can drive loyalty, dissent, or disengagement.
This is not another leadership-style model; it is a cognitive framework that explains why styles emerge in the first place and shows readers how to develop role agility across the challenges of modern organisational life.
Table of Contents:
Foreword By Simon Taylor, Acknowledgements, Preface, Part I – The Cognitive Foundation, Chapter 1: Schemas: The Hidden Architecture of Behaviour, Chapter 2: The Hidden Patterns of Leadership, Part II – Patterns in Action, Chapter 3: Teaming and the Hidden Patterns of Collaboration, Chapter 4: Followership and the Hidden Patterns of Engagement and Performance, Chapter 5: The Hidden Patterns of Power and Influence, Part III – Patterns at Scale, Chapter 6: Followership and the Hidden Architecture of Culture, Chapter 7: Beyond the CV: The Hidden Behavioural Patterns that Make or Break Executive Appointments, Chapter 8: Schemas, Tensions, Paradoxes, and The Boardroom, Chapter 9: Patterns of Innovation: Inside the Intrapreneurial and Entrepreneurial Mind, Chapter 10: Schemas Across Cultures: How National and Organisational Contexts Shape Us, Part IV – Development and Application, Chapter 11: Schema Agility: From Awareness to Adaptive Capacity, Chapter 12: Developing Others: Creating Schema-Savvy Organisations, Chapter 13: Schemas of Cohesion and Change: Saudi Arabia, Islam, and the Behavioural Mechanics of Transformation, Chapter 14: Schemas in the Age of AI and Algorithmic Decision-Making, Conclusion: Conscious Leadership in a Complex World, Appendix: Using the HiddenPatterns™ Assessment Toolkit
About the Author :
Ian Stewart is a behavioural scientist, teacher, and international leadership consultant. He was former Head of Applied Behavioural Science at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, and his public sector roles have included Head of Media Training and Corporate Identity at the UK Ministry of Defence and Head of the Leadership Academy at the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), where he developed leadership capability frameworks aligned with national transformation goals.
