Chapter 1 · Tool
The Hourglass Model
Every journey starts with YOU. The Hourglass connects your inner world to outer reality — three lenses (You · Context · Impact) that turn reactive leadership into deliberate, grounded action.
How to use it
Step 01
YOU — look in the mirror
Reflect on strengths, areas of development, pitfalls, and what you stand for. Self-awareness is the floor every other choice rests on.
Step 02
CONTEXT — read what's around you
Map the constantly changing environment: stakeholders, what bothers you, what you can and cannot influence.
Step 03
IMPACT — choose where you act
What impact do you want to make, why does it matter, and how do you want to be seen as you make it?
Step 04
Use it with your team
Run the Hourglass aloud as a team and you create shared language and surface different perspectives on the same context — gold in intercultural settings.
Reflection
Sit with these questions.
- →Why do I do what I do — and why is this issue important to me?
- →What habits or assumptions are hindering me and others?
- →What can I influence right now, and what can I not?
- →Where do I want to have a bigger impact — and what's the urgency?
Inside TOP Academy
Most leaders nod at the Hourglass and keep reacting. Inside the Academy, you run it on yourself — with a coach, with peers, on the real situation that's burning your week — until it stops being a model and starts being a habit.
The Leadership Essentials programme has run with 350+ leaders across Europe and Asia — blending the book's models with peer coaching, real-life cases, and follow-through that sticks.
See the programmeWant to work this through with us?
Explore it together in a free online session with Sonja.