#482 Keenan L. McBride and Niels Brabandt on Why Leadership Requires Dominion, Not Dominance
Keenan L. McBride and Niels Brabandt on Why Leadership Requires Dominion, Not Dominance
Leadership is often misunderstood as an exercise in control. Many organisations still equate authority with dominance, volume, and visibility. Yet in a profound and intellectually rigorous conversation, leadership expert Niels Brabandt speaks with leadership author and learning and development executive Keenan L. McBride about a radically different paradigm. True leadership is not defined by dominance, but by dominion.
Their conversation, grounded in philosophy, cultural appreciation, and executive practice, provides decision-makers with a blueprint for cultivating authority through presence, perspective, and disciplined self-refinement.
Why dominion creates stronger leadership than dominance
Keenan L. McBride introduces a powerful distinction. Dominance relies on force, assertion, and control. Dominion, by contrast, relies on presence, confidence, and inner stability.
Leaders who rely on dominance may achieve compliance, but they rarely achieve trust. Leaders who embody dominion create voluntary alignment. Their teams follow not because they must, but because they believe in the leader’s stability and clarity.
As Niels Brabandt emphasises, leadership credibility emerges not from constant assertion, but from consistency, emotional control, and strategic awareness.
Why leaders must refine their mindset continuously
A central concept discussed by Keenan L. McBride is the refinement of mind. Leaders who rely solely on past success risk stagnation. The modern business environment requires continuous intellectual and emotional development.
Exposure to diverse perspectives, cultures, and disciplines expands leadership capability. Leaders who broaden their intellectual horizons strengthen their judgement, empathy, and decision-making capacity.
Continuous learning is not optional for leaders. It is essential.
Why cultural and artistic appreciation strengthens leadership judgement
One of the most distinctive leadership insights shared in the interview is the role of cultural and artistic appreciation. Keenan L. McBride explains that art teaches leaders to observe without immediate judgement.
Just as different artistic styles evoke different emotional responses, different individuals bring unique strengths, perspectives, and behaviours.
Leaders who learn to observe without immediate judgement develop superior relational intelligence.
This capability enables leaders to manage diverse teams more effectively.
Why quiet strength creates stronger executive presence
Many executives mistakenly believe leadership requires constant verbal dominance. Keenan L. McBride presents a different model. The most effective leaders often demonstrate quiet strength.
Presence, composure, and thoughtful contribution amplify leadership authority.
Leaders who speak deliberately, listen actively, and maintain composure create trust and psychological safety.
As Niels Brabandt highlights, executive presence is not measured by volume, but by impact.
Why leadership success depends on relationships
Leadership is fundamentally relational. Technical competence alone cannot sustain leadership effectiveness.
Keenan L. McBride emphasises that leaders must develop genuine understanding of their team members. Leaders who invest in relationships create stronger engagement, performance, and organisational cohesion.
Trust remains the foundation of leadership success.
Conclusion: Leadership requires inner discipline and refined perspective
The interview between Keenan L. McBride and Niels Brabandt reveals a critical leadership truth. Leadership effectiveness depends not on dominance, but on disciplined self-mastery, cultural awareness, and refined perspective.
Leaders who cultivate dominion, rather than dominance, create resilient organisations, engaged teams, and sustained success.
Leadership begins with refining the leader.
Niels Brabandt
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More on this topic in this week's videocast and podcast with Niels Brabandt: Videocast / Apple Podcasts / Spotify
For the videocast’s and podcast’s transcript, read below this article.
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Niels Brabandt is an expert in sustainable leadership with more than 20 years of experience in practice and science.
Niels Brabandt: Professional Training, Speaking, Coaching, Consulting, Mentoring, Project & Interim Management. Event host, MC, Moderator.
Podcast and Videocast Transcript
Niels Brabandt
The question is, how do you actually lead people? Do you have to dominate, do you have to tell them what to do? And the question is, who actually knows about that? And we have someone with us here today who actually knows how to do it. Hello and welcome, Keenan McBride.
Keenan L. McBride
Thank you, Niels, for having me. I appreciate it.
Niels Brabandt
Thank you very much for taking the time. You wrote the book, Via Ze Leonatas, which is available right now. So first, of course, I have to ask, what was your motivation to write the book? Because let's face it, it is very competitive out there when someone wants to get into that topic with a book. What was your motivation to do so?
Keenan L. McBride
Well, my first and core motivation, Niels, would be my father. My father, who is a constant presence in my life. We just lost him in November.
Niels Brabandt
Very sorry.
Keenan L. McBride
Thank you. And I realize and look back on my life that his words and guidance have added structure to my life from the very beginning. And then just my working experience and dealing with people. And I've learned to deal with people in different ways. I've taught, I've built curriculum, I've led people in different aspects of their life and working life cycle, if you will. And everybody's looking for that magic bullet of how to deal with people. And so I felt like taking it back to the basics.
Niels Brabandt
Excellent. And I saw you also connect leadership to cultural appreciation of the art. That is quite unusual. Most people say, okay, what's the scientific framework?
Niels Brabandt
Give me the buzzwords. I will learn the buzzwords, repeat them, I get my promotion. Thank you very much for that. What is your take? Because let's face it, I'm in this industry now for more than 20 years, and I haven't heard of such an approach as of yet, which makes it that interesting. Can you give me more details on that?
Keenan L. McBride
Oh, absolutely. I became a lover of art. I've been involved in art in some way, shape, or form since childhood. I lost connection with it as I grew and began working, but I've found it again. And one thing I've noticed about art is we tend to look at art and we let art drive our feelings in a lot of ways.
Keenan L. McBride
For example, Claude Monet is a favorite artist of mine. Okay. And if I look at a Monet piece, that's exactly what it brings me. Peace. I look at it and it's tranquility, no matter what the scene is. I look at other artists and while I may love the work, what it says to me, it may say upheaval or noisy. A Van Gogh, for instance, a lot of his pieces are very dramatic and detailed.
Keenan L. McBride
And where that ties into people is we tend to look at people and we make quick judgments on them based off of our dealing with them immediately. However, if we sit back and we look and say, okay, well, how does this person make me feel? Let me look at this person like I look at art. Okay. And I can make a better judgment.
Keenan L. McBride
Now, sometimes that means we have to broaden our perspectives in order to enjoy art. And that brings in things like Plato's Allegory of the Cave. If you're familiar with that, if all I'm exposed to is one segment of reality, this is my reality. I've never seen anything else. Then, of course, I'm only going to be able to deal pleasantly with a select group of people that fit that narrow narrative or that narrow scape.
Keenan L. McBride
However, if I expose my mindset, I expose myself to other cultures, to other appreciations, to other artistic works that teaches me how to broaden my perspective. Thus, I see the world differently and I can then deal with people differently because I have a broadened viewpoint or paradigm of life.
Niels Brabandt
Excellent. What do you now tell people when, of course, because I prepare with this interview and I ask other people about what they think, how do you deal with people who say, look, I'm a City of London banker? What we do is we sell things and we sell stocks. When you tell me, sit down, it's like art.
Niels Brabandt
Take your time, mate. I just don't have the time. I have to bring the numbers. My sales manager evaluates me based on these numbers. How do you deal with people who work in a high-stress environment who simply will tell you, I don't have the time to settle down and focus in this way as you expect me to do?
Keenan L. McBride
Well, one thing I would do there is I would call them to there's a statement in the book that says to lead with dominion and not by domination.
Niels Brabandt
Yes.
Keenan L. McBride
And so with high-stress situations, one of the key things is for us to always, as leaders, to appear, even if we don't feel like we are, to appear in control of the situation, because that will actually maximize our team's efforts. And especially if what we're driving for is higher performance and we're driving for more impactful performance, the more people see that their leader is controlled, that their leader is steady, then the better off the team will be because they have faith in the leader. And so if we need to, we've got numbers, we got to get things out.
Keenan L. McBride
We've got to, okay, well, look at the steady guidance and the steady leadership that we have in our department, in our region, or whatever it is. And the leader can give guidance in that way. Even if it's underneath the water, the leader's feet may be like the swine underneath the pond. So really, that broadening of perspectives allows me to deal with each person on my team in such a way to where I keep that faith in me as a leader so that we can meet our objectives.
Niels Brabandt
Excellent. So would you say it's possible to state you focus on growing the leader, not necessarily the person?
Keenan L. McBride
Yes. You see that. And that's the turnaround part of it. Because all throughout leadership, and you look at many leadership philosophies, a lot of it tells us how to guide a person, how to support the person, how to build the person.
Keenan L. McBride
Well, in this instance, with Via Ze Leonatas philosophy, it's about consistently molding the leader, molding the leader to the person. And when we mold the leader to the person, I don't know about you, but when I feel like somebody genuinely has my best interest at heart, it makes me want to join with them.
Niels Brabandt
Absolutely.
Keenan L. McBride
And to follow their leadership, if that's my leader. And so what this does is it allows me to see people meet them where they are. And then people, in a lot of cases, will naturally rise to meet you to the level of expectation that you have. But they have to first know that you have that care for them or that concern for them.
Niels Brabandt
Absolutely. You also have the term refinement of mind, which I find highly interesting. How does that work and how do you think it works, especially in, let's say, senior management and executive practices?
Keenan L. McBride
Okay. Well, a lot of what refinement of mind has to do with is refining that mindset. Right. It's easy to allow the world to pass us by because we find something that works and we stuck with it. So the first five years of my career, this was the way to go. The next five years, this was. But I get stagnant because this has worked for me and I don't improve. I don't move on. I don't find continuously improve, buzzword of the industry. Right. And so constantly looking for ways to learn, always learn.
Keenan L. McBride
And I think I can probably attribute that to my over 20 years. I've been a learning and development professional, learning development leader. So I know the impact that learning can have on an individual, and it constantly makes you refine yourself.
Keenan L. McBride
Now, from a personal side, you expose, again, in my experience, the arts, the cult, in different cultures and different ways of thinking. All of this helps me to become a better, a deeper person, thus building relationships better. Because at the end of the day, it's all about the relationships. Because if my relationships are garbage, then my team performance is probably going to be garbage.
Niels Brabandt
Yeah, that's true.
Keenan L. McBride
So leaders at senior level have to also refine their mindset to stay in tune with what's going on.
Niels Brabandt
Excellent. So when we now focus on this rather, let's say, quiet strength that leaders build, some people, when I talk to them about this, they said, look, it looks really interesting, but to me, it feels a bit like I'm becoming passive, like a bit nonexistent. And maybe people stop following me when I'm not the very present, very dominant person.
Niels Brabandt
So how can I deal with that when people just say, I actually think it makes sense, but it feels wrong to me. It feels like I'm just too passive to nonexist. And maybe I get bypassed with the promotion because people will say, I just don't see you anywhere. How do you deal with these situations?
Keenan L. McBride
There's a quote in the book that speaks to the symbol of the lion that I use quite frequently throughout the book. And it says that the lion does not announce its presence. The world simply feels it. So it's not so much about the flow of words and constantly having to have something to say, but it's about building our presence in the moment.
Keenan L. McBride
Little things that build our presence, such as when we do say something, make sure it's something impactful, something that adds to the conversation. We don't want to create groupthink where we're the leader that paints the room. We speak up first, and thus everybody around us will then start to agree with us because they don't want to disagree with the leader. So sometimes it's good to be the room's point of stillness instead of stirring the pot, so to speak.
Keenan L. McBride
Get your team. And then plus, that allows your team to become comfortable with you because they know that you want to hear from them. You see. And then when you speak, you are tying everything together. They know you hear them because you haven't interrupted, you haven't needlessly cut them off, you haven't needlessly interjected your ideas. Because let's face it, if you're going to do that, then there's no need for a team meeting. This could have been an email.
Niels Brabandt
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Very, very good point here. When we now talk about these moments and people probably see potential, so leading through potential, finding potential, often people say, look, potential left, right, and center managers. I mean, you just have to look into corporate America here or any corporate world, basically. They say you kind of have potential left, right, and center.
Niels Brabandt
At the end of the day, people just have their biases and they will most likely fall victim for their bias, especially when they were not professionally trained on unconscious biases. How can you overcome that situation that people say, I see potential? And by coincidence, that is exactly the person you had in mind five years ago, which is nothing else than unconscious bias or confirmation bias in this case. So how to lead by potential when bias is such an omnipresent limitation or even threat to the outcome?
Keenan L. McBride
Well, one thing about us is people, right? We're wired to pick up on patterns. We have our preferences on things and we have our morals, our values, or whatever that may be. And thus biases get formed, right? And biases get formed early on in life.
Keenan L. McBride
However, what I found is that the more we allow ourselves to see and be exposed to different things, while we may have some deeply held values or biases that are within us, we can then see, okay, well, it's possible other people have their own sets of values and biases within them, but this is why they have them. Once I understand why you think the way that you think on something, it's easier for me to then relate to you versus me attacking you through my biases.
Keenan L. McBride
And you mentioned potential. I look at potential in a lot of us look at potential as what someone can be, what they can aspire to. I look at potential in a different way. Potential is like having a 5,000-pound weight suspended by a crane. Okay. Am I going to walk underneath that weight? Probably not, because I probably not. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It has the potential to fall is when we learn about potential energy, kinetic energy, things like that.
Keenan L. McBride
Being a leader is the same thing. When our team sees us act in certain ways where they build faith in our strength, our presence, they know we have the potential to hold them accountable, to hold others accountable for treating our teams in certain ways. We don't have to necessarily use it all the time. Thus, that saves us that energy. I don't have to come down on an individual, especially that an individual knows I will come down on them if I have to, or either I will speak up if I have to. Potential can actually do a lot of the work for us. A lot of the true power is in that potential. That weight still is 5,000 pounds. Nonetheless, it just hadn't dropped on me.
Niels Brabandt
Yeah, absolutely. I have an additional question for that. When you now speak about this example and some leaders say, look, I really struggle with broadening my perspective when people are very, very different from how I am.
Niels Brabandt
So some people say, look, I want to get in the meeting room, sit down, give me the facts. Thank you. Next meeting. And then you have someone who goes into storytelling and tells you everything around that. I just get annoyed by that. So when someone tells you something like that, how can you make people change perspective or broaden perspective when they have to deal with people who are probably the polar opposite of what they are?
Keenan L. McBride
Well, that's when we have to make people appreciate that there is benefit in always learning. And that's one of the hardest things that we can get, mostly seasoned leaders. Let's just be honest. It's hard to get seasoned leaders to see that sometimes because they feel they have reached the pinnacle they want to.
Niels Brabandt
I know how things run in this industry. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Keenan L. McBride
Absolutely. Right. But getting them to understand the five pillars of Via Ze Leonatas just starts with refinement of mind. Right. But then you go into elegance and expression, courtesy and charisma, confidence and command, cultural appreciation. All of this has to do with melding that quiet strength. And the more we meld quiet strength, then the more that allows us to watch and observe other people. That helps us by itself to get along with people in a more symbiotic way. Because I watch how you think, I watch how you react in certain situations. I learn your values. I learn what's important to you. And honestly, knowing that people are respecting people's abilities and rights to think differently actually will help us in that aspect as well.
Keenan L. McBride
We have company policies for a reason. Right. Policies keep us in line with structural and legal obligations. However, outside of that, those are relational standpoints that we as leaders have to set the stage and be able to maneuver. That's what makes us leaders. That's why it's not always the thing to pick the most technical person as a leader. Sometimes we want to pick the most relational person and teach them the skills. You see, it's all about relationships.
Niels Brabandt
Yeah. Excellent. And when we talk about relationships, how do you deal with people who say, and that is, I have to quote word by word, quote, in my industry, we are highly results driven. We are culturally narrow by design.
Niels Brabandt
That's a statement from an investment banker who said, we all know that we are not married. We are hardly even colleagues. We have one goal, and that means selling stuff. And that's what we do. We show up, we do the thing, and we go home.
Niels Brabandt
So what would your even first approach or your first intervention when someone says, by design, we are what they call culturally narrow?
Keenan L. McBride
Okay. Well, being culturally narrow is one thing. However, I would say being personally narrow is quite another, or professionally narrow is quite another. And part of professionalism is our conduct. And so when we think about confidence and command, that's where that comes in.
Keenan L. McBride
Well, as a leader, I want to give the executive presence that can make up for words. I don't have to speak in our rooms with calm assurance, shoulders back, you know, a gaze is steady. We mean business, right?
Keenan L. McBride
But acknowledge others with a quiet respect because you still respect is so key here. Just general respect of others, not dominance of others. If you do that, then that helps you. Helps you immensely.
Keenan L. McBride
Allow silence to work in your favor as you get things done because it amplifies your authority as a leader. And, you know, having confidence in what you have to do, that's not that's not arrogance. It's just it's just that. It's confidence.
Keenan L. McBride
So having set goals, objectives that you have to meet, that sometimes that's just business. But at the same time, we can be while we can be confident and we can command, we can also be courteous and do so through our presence and quiet strength. And that will get us more.
Niels Brabandt
Yeah, absolutely. Two more questions to wrap this interview up. If someone would now tell you, okay, maybe I'm a leader. I have never heard about appreciating the art as a leadership approach. What is one arts-inspired exercise that decision makers can use by next week to improve their judgment or their respect or both? Maybe any kind of first step you could give them.
Keenan L. McBride
One thing I like to do, and I'm actually working on this as part of a seminar series that I want to introduce with this book, is pick out 1 to 2, maybe three very different artists. And I use physical art and painting because that's what it is. It's what I love. A Monet, pick a Van Gogh, pick, I don't know, let's just go with a Da Vinci sketch. Right.
Keenan L. McBride
So, and look at those three things. Now, there may be three things that are hailed as masterpieces, but they may be very different. But ask yourself, what are the differences in your eyes, in your opinion? You know, that kind of goes back to the Plato's allegory. Have we painted ourselves to where all I like is this and I don't, I can't possibly see any beauty in this or any beauty in that.
Keenan L. McBride
If we have, then we're not looking deep enough because now we need to look at the feeling. We don't have to like and love everything, you see. But what we have to learn to do is to respect something for what it is. You see, once we learn to do that, then we can appreciate it, whether it's something we love or like or not.
Keenan L. McBride
I can appreciate it for what it is, what it's supposed to be. It's like trying to teach the Einstein, a quote attributed to Einstein about trying to teach a fish how to climb a tree and a monkey how to swim. Right. That doesn't mean the monkey's, I mean, the fish is stupid, right? The fish is not designed for that. And so we have to do the same with people. We look at people that way. And so that's, in my opinion, an exercise that we can do. Just look at different pieces of art and learn to appreciate it for what it's supposed to be.
Niels Brabandt
Excellent. And of course, one last question. When people now say, I think I'd like to have the book, and maybe some people even say, I'd like to get in contact with Keenan directly because I think he might be helpful for our organization. First, of course, where do they find the book? And of course, second, how can they get in touch with you?
Keenan L. McBride
Well, the book is on Amazon. So it's on Amazon.com right now. And you can easily, you can both get the book and get in touch with me on our website. It's just launched. It's VXCulture.com. And so it's I've tried to get in so I can make it very simple. VXCulture.com. There you'll find synopsis of the you'll find the five pillars. You'll find overviews of the book, how to get the book, and ways to contact me directly. They're right on the on the homepage.
Niels Brabandt
I think these are the perfect final words. Keenan McBride, thank you very much for your time.
Keenan L. McBride
Thank you so much, Neals. I appreciate it.