Leadership Types

I have always been fascinated by observing the number of people who want to create an impression. All of us at some point or the other want to make an impact that is a resounding statement to demonstrate that we are bigger and more important than we seem.

The quest for Leadership is not much different from this. However, the difference is the willingness to place the greater good ahead of our own personal impact. Therefore, is Leadership an altruistic occupation or an encompassing Passion?

I have seen that there are three primary types of Leaders who are motivated by different outcomes:

The Opportunistic Leader – This is the Leader who grabs opportunities for both themselves and the Organization. Most Leaders today fall into this category. To clarify, this is not a selfish Leader but a person who leverages opportunity to further his own cause along with that of the Organization. A variant of the “Opportunistic Leader” is the “Selfish Leader” who places personal success ahead of the Organization’s.

The Altruistic Leader – This is the do-gooder Leader who is constantly looking to change their environment for the greatest good. This type of Leader will go to a great lengths to try and run everybody’s life around self-sacrifice, and a vision of getting to a world of perfection. Organizations that have such Leaders in them typically feel full of lofty ideals – but do not necessarily deliver as advertised.

The Purposeful Leader – This is the kind of Leader who is driven by a sense of purpose in almost every thought and action. Typically, these Leaders are able to explain and convince others as to the rationale and Purpose. This Leader is grounded in the “greater good”, but is neither opportunistic nor altruistic. This Leader has clarity of Purpose and direction, and the humility to be adaptive, with the willingness to learn from all sources. Most of all, this is the Leader who understands completely the concept Positive change for all.

In my opinion and experience, I have seen a number of Type-1 Leaders – perhaps the majority; a few Type-2 and an extremely rare handful Type-3.

As a result, the Organizations led by each of these types of Leaders also have a difference of feel to them.

Opportunistic Leaders, typically foster Organizations that are highly responsive to environmental changes. The ability of such Organizations to absorb and respond to change is very rapid, with a result that many of these Organizations feel like they do not have clarity of Vision or a sense of Purpose.

Organizations which are led by such people thrive on reactions and the short-term response always seems the most appropriate. The Leaders themselves are spending much of their time responding to changing circumstances rather than positioning themselves to meet the Change.

Initiatives, rather than a Vision and Strategy drive decision-making. The goal is usually something not everyone understands. As a result, the environment engendered is one where perceptions and their management play a key role in defining individual and organizational success.

Such Organizations have a terrific sense of responsiveness. Closure is valued; execution and risk management become mandatory competencies. Process thinking usually comes up at times when too much change hits the Organization – and for a brief while, the Organization mobilizes around a few key initiatives. Once the crisis passes, opportunism comes to the fore again.

Such organizations are usually led by strong personalities who are charismatic and savvy. Much of the Organizations energy becomes attuned to reading and understanding the Leaders’ mood and current thinking. Innovations in such organizations are usually not a priority – rewards come to those who react fastest and manage perceptions best.

It is easy to see a number of such organizations and Leaders in today’s world chasing the mythical business Quarter which usually tends to go on ad-infinitum with minor variations.

Altruistic Leaders on the other hand build organizations that have a strong sense of Vision and Strategy. Such organizations are built around concepts that are also strong ideals. Mission statements in such organizations have a tendency to meld Business Goals with positive Social Impact. These organizations most of the time operate from a long-term Strategy perspective. Many of today’s startups have a similar feel.

The Leaders in these organizations have usually come together because of a shared sense of values and experiences. People have a tendency to mistake Idealism for naiveté. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have seen more than a few such organizations and interacted with many such Leaders and have usually come away with a sense that there is great clarity in these people combined with a tough savvy.

Usually though, what I have observed is that other than the few Leaders at the top who share such a strong bonding and congruence of Vision – the Managers below have a tendency to struggle with the same.

The Leaders in such organizations are usually not very inspiring – but have a strong belief in the goals of the organization and its direction that this translates itself down to the employees. Such organizations have a deep engagement with their employees and employees too respond to this clarity of direction.

All of this being said, I do believe that such organizations know and believe in their values so much that when it comes to interacting or conducting business, there is a tendency to sit on this ideological “high-horse” that gets in the way of a sound realism in driving decisions – or responding to changing needs in the marketplace.

I was introduced to a senior executive of a company a few years ago. This was a process of my own exploration into Indian businesses after a long stint overseas – preparing myself to set up a software unit for GE (General Electric). This executive came across as very open and passionate about many of the same things that I tend to be passionate about. When he started to tell me about his Company, I noticed that this person would lean forward in his seat to drive home to me the importance of what their Company was trying to accomplish. We had a long talk about the responsibility an organization has to its employees and society at large. How companies in India were not necessarily doing the right thing by paying lip-service to concepts such as civic responsibility, Employee and Community welfare.

I agreed to visit their offices – and throughout my visit(s), was deeply impressed by everybody’s energy around their belief that they were making a difference – and they were. I came away so impressed that I arranged to have my fledgling Leadership team meet with their Leaders to share experiences and best-practices.
That visit clearly demonstrated to me that these folks sure knew how to build software well and were serious about their processes which were in contrast to many of the other software businesses I had interacted with.

Following this meeting, I had a serious discussion with their CEO and COO about doing business with them. That is when I felt a distinct change. It almost felt like – “We will do business our way or no way”. The surprising or rather enlightening part of this was that I realized that it was exactly because of the Ideals that made it very near impossible to consider meeting someone halfway.

As this organization had some absolutely terrific people, I decided t continue working with them. What my experience has taught me since then is that, unless you are willing to accept the rules set down by such Organizations – everybody is better off not trying to work together. Usually in such organizations – it is an all or nothing sort of deal.

Such organizations usually have great people – thought and action leader – great processes too. But what happens is that these organizations become inflexible for exactly the reasons that made them attractive in the first place.

Purposeful Leaders may at first blush seem to be zealots. These Leaders are constantly passionate and at times may even burn. As you work with them and begin to understand their motivations, you begin to understand that they are people filled with a mission of making great positive changes to their Organizations.

Very high on balancing their Purpose with a great sense of Positive Change for People and Organizations they lead. Such Leaders are rare and also have a tendency to not necessarily carry along everybody in their quest for Positive Change. While they may seem at times seem to be very blinkered, they have a clarity of goals for the long-term that is usually unmatched. These Leaders are also adaptable and flexible in realigning their short-term tactics but yet maintain the focus on the goal. However, the bane of such Leaders is that they surround themselves with people of similar thoughts and experiences, leading to significant dynamics within diverse and large organizations.

Such Leaders are very charismatic and usually carry along people with their sheer passion, focus and energy.

I once worked in an organization where the Leader had clearly articulated a vision for the company that focused on delivering IT Solutions leveraging AI (Artificial Intelligence) and Expert Systems. The Leaders’ premise was that in every aspect of Business Operations there was a place to apply these technologies. A very exciting and novel concept to be sure... There were a few catches though that nobody seemed to have considered.

First, there were probably less than a handful of employees in the organizations who actually had real-world experience implementing Software Solutions – irrespective of scale.

Second, other than the Leader and one other person on his staff – nobody else had actually worked on any AI/Expert Systems implementations.

Third, the Technology available at the time was either very expensive or extremely simplistic.

Fourth, none of these Technologies had actually attempted to integrate with traditional technologies using large databases, or complex operating logic and many simply did not work with multi-tasking Operating Systems.

Last, but not the least – the Vision was to create a suite of products which would be so good that the “People would come” to buy it.

What made the organization tick were the energy, passion and Vision of the Leader. This person was extremely people-focused and was always there with the next great idea, the concept that he would float and expect his people to follow and deliver results on.

As a reasonably seasoned IT professional who had been around the block a couple of times – I made attempts to suggest that we probably needed to have a business strategy around developing our first product. Such as identifying our Customer-base, identifying a specific business need and then probably modeling it before attempting to get into full-blown development.

This was simply too arduous a process for such a fledgling organization. Instead, the Leader chose to define the concept of a product right there in the conference room. The idea was excellent – but could it be developed and would it make money?

The teams started to build with no process or methodology to speak of. With the handful of experienced personnel, the product was developed and even piloted at a few installations – but nowhere near profitable. One of the attributes of such Leaders I have observed is that it is their definition of success that further reinforces their energies and sense of Purpose.

This Leader was on a complete “high” from the success and saw this as a vindication of his Vision which then enabled him to leverage his Passion and charisma even further to reinforce it within the organization.

Objectivity is not a virtue with such Leaders and usually, when the context changes dramatically; such people have a difficult time reorienting themselves and by extension, their organizations. However, such Leaders when surrounded by strong tactical minds and diverse opinions make huge strides in making an organization stronger, better and faster.

Having talked about three broad types of Leaders, I have always thought about what the attributes would be of an Ideal Leader.

The key to this, I believe is that a Leader who is principled – has a strong sense of values, is purposeful – as in, deliberate about the Purpose and Passionate about it. If we could combine these ingredients in a further attribute of Strategic and Tactical flexibility – then I believe we would come close to the attributes of an Ideal Leaders’ mindset.