Dominique Haijtema’s The Holy Grail is a rare and ambitious book that offers a unique perspective on leadership through a series of interviews conducted over the past 25 years. What makes this book stand out is not only the impressive breadth of thought leaders featured, but also Haijtema’s ability to distill their core ideas and bring their personalities subtly to the surface.
The interviewees span an extraordinary range: from iconic leadership thinkers such as Stephen Covey, Yuval Noah Harari, Brené Brown, and Jim Collins to practitioners like Madeleine Albright (US Secretary of State), Jack Welch (GE), and Louis Gerstner (IBM). It’s a testament to Haijtema’s journalistic perseverance and network that she was able to speak to so many influential voices across disciplines. Also striking is her inclusion of figures more associated with self-help and psychology, such as Gabor Maté, Irvin Yalom, and Andrew Solomon.
The interviews succeed in capturing the essence of each interviewee’s philosophy while occasionally offering glimpses of their humanity. We read, for example, about John Kotter’s short temper (“Don’t psychoanalyze me”), Charles Handy inviting Haijtema to stay over before being interviewed (Before you interview me, I want to know who you are), the hug she got from IKEA-founder Ingvar Kamprad, and the curiously distant tone of Simon Sinek, Barbara Kellerman, and Marianne Williamson, who seem to stick rigidly to their talking points.
The strength of this book lies in its rich, multifaceted exploration of leadership, brought to life through the words of people who have spent decades thinking, writing, and speaking about it — and who have influenced countless others in the process. It is not a manual, nor a straightforward analysis, but rather a reflective and deeply human collection of ideas on what it means to lead.
At the end of the book, Haijtema posits that she has found the holy grail of leadership: love — or the lack thereof. Many of her interviewees affirm that leadership is fundamentally about relationships with others, which in turn depend on the relationship one has with oneself. This insight feels both profound and grounded.
However, the final chapter, in which Haijtema articulates this conclusion, might have benefited from further development. Rather than delivering a fully-formed synthesis, it reads more like a continuation of her journey — a thoughtful reflection, certainly, but not quite the conclusive answer the title promises.
In sum, The Holy Grail is a compelling and rich tapestry of leadership philosophies, offering both inspiration and introspection. The book is only available in Dutch and deserves to be published in English. It doesn’t claim to provide a single answer — and perhaps that’s the point. True leadership, as this book suggests, begins with inner work and evolves through connection.
Dominique Haijtema. De heilige graal. Een zoektocht naar leiderschap. Boom, 2025