Martin Gutmann is an author, speaker, and scholar interested in how the past can illuminate today's most pressing challenges. He is a professor at the Lucerne School of Business, a lecturer at ETH Zurich, and the best-selling author of The Unseen Leader: How History Can Help Us Rethink Leadership.
Born in Sweden, Martin has also lived and worked in Japan, the US, Canada, Mauritius, Germany, and Switzerland. From 2016 to 2020, he was the founding Managing Director of the Swiss School of Public Governance, where he launched a programme for future global public sector leaders. He's also one of PepTalk's top exclusive speakers.
His writing and thought leadership has reached over 60 million people through pieces in top business magazines, such as Forbes, Big Think, Fast Company, and Minute Hack, and appearances on well-known management podcasts, such as Phronesis, The Leadership Podcast, and We Are Human Leaders.
Martin delivers story-driven talks centred on vibrant cases, anchored in evidence from modern organisational psychology and management science with actionable takeaways. His recent TED Talk, “Are We Celebrating the Wrong Leaders?”, has had over 1 million views.
As a writer, he is best known for his book The Unseen Leader: How History Can Help Us Rethink Leadership, which challenges the "Action Fallacy", our mistaken belief that great leadership requires a propensity for action. Adam Grant, organisational psychologist and thought leader, calls it: “A provocative look at what history really teaches us about effective leadership. This book will challenge you to rethink some of your core assumptions about what it takes to align people around common goals.”
Martin holds a Ph.D. in history from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University, an Executive MBA from IE Business School in Spain, and higher education teacher’s training from Harvard University and ETH Zurich.
In this talk, Martin compares key technological disruptions in history to the emergence of AI and reveals three surprising predictions about what implications AI will have for business and society (and what leaders can and should do to prepare accordingly).
Building on examples of exceptional sports teams and businesses, as well as state-of-the-art research, Martin weaves a compelling case for how curating happy and healthy teams is the only path to sustained productivity. And he tells you how to do it.
Martin Gutmann explores why history is valuable for leadership insights, highlighting better sources, a neutral perspective, evident long-term outcomes, and a broad range of challenges. He introduces leaders from varied times and places: Toussaint Louverture, Roald Amundsen, Gertrude Bell, and Winston Churchill. Gutmann identifies three universal leadership traits: fluency in context, a balance of humility and confidence, and a pragmatic, iterative approach. Attendees will learn to cultivate these essential traits in their leadership.
Martin Gutmann explores the 1927 race to fly across the Atlantic and Charles Lindbergh’s successful flight, highlighting Lindbergh’s lack of a fuel gauge and forward windshield. He parallels this historic event and today’s leadership challenges, defined by VUCA, BANI, and Poly-crisis. Gutmann introduces three enduring leadership principles: subtract rather than add, use a compass, not a map, and focus on how new technologies interact. Attendees will learn timeless strategies for navigating crisis and uncertainty.
Historian Martin Gutmann urges us to reconsider our definition of effective leadership, highlighting that true greatness lies in preventing crises rather than responding dramatically to them. Drawing lessons from the disaster-prone explorer Ernest Shackleton, Martin challenges conventional views and offers a fresh perspective on what makes a leader truly exceptional. Attendees will learn to appreciate the often-overlooked skill of crisis prevention in leadership.
