There’s Only 2 Types of Leaders Needed Right Now
The bread and butter of my last 4 years in executive coaching has been working with individual leaders to find their unique voice so that they can authentically express their leadership.
I’m here to tell you, your uniqueness is not needed right now.
It’s not that your individual spin on leadership isn’t important (because it is), it’s just not more important than winning this war. And when it comes to winning wars, there’s really only two types of leader you need to be.
These leaders are the Chessboard Leader and the Foxhole Leader. Both are critical.
The Chessboard Leader
This leader is exactly as you would imagine, sitting behind the board visualizing her positions five, six turns in advance.
She is intentionally unemotional in her decision-making. Purely strategic. She will let you kill off a few pieces as she advances her plan.
Her only objective is to win, but often, she has to lose a few battles in order to win the war.
Most of us hate, fear, or fundamentally misunderstand this leader, especially if we’ve ever felt like the pawn on their chessboard. But that’s exactly the type of leader needed right now.
The one who will make the tough calls that no one else is prepared to.
The Foxhole Leader
Now, on the other hand, is the Foxhole Leader.
They’re often a fan favorite and have earned that rapport from standing shoulder to shoulder with their people right in the trenches.
If you work for this type of leader, you wouldn’t experience this person as someone who’s playing the game of Risk off in the distance. This leader is wielding a weapon same as yours, fighting right alongside you.
This leader provides hope, direction, and the type of clarity that can only come from boots on the ground leadership. When your team needs to charge the hill, this leader will be the first to run.
For this leader, hope actually is a strategy.
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So here’s the thing; you’re probably being asked to be both types of leader right now.
Your challenge is to have the situational awareness to recognize which leader you need to be and when, and to develop the skills necessary for that role.
What’s interesting is that the blind spots of each of these leadership archetypes couldn’t be more opposite. For the Chessboard Leader, he can come off too logical, unemotional, and cold. For the Foxhole Leader, she can be too collaborative and relational at the expense of productivity.
Like the yin and yang, your task is to walk the fine line between chaos and order, cold and warmth, directive and collaborative, to lead your organization to victory.
And I certainly don’t expect this to come easy.
I’ve been working with leaders and their personal wiring for a long time, and the leading research suggests that less than 7% of leaders are truly wired to naturally lead like the Chessboard Leader. That means 93% of leaders will struggle to make the strategic (and difficult) decisions that are required of their role.
Similarly, many others aren’t naturally wired for the collaborative and inspired approach of the Foxhole Leader.
Like writing with your non-dominant hand, it can only be done with intentional effort and discipline.
If this crisis hasn’t done so already, it will reveal to you who your leaders are … and who are just great managers. And it will reveal what type of leader you already are, and what type you’re being asked to become.
Perhaps the best litmus test for your leadership during this time is asking this one question: “Am I leading by example?”
Even more so now, your people are paying way more attention to what you do rather than what you say, and if they sense incongruence it will undermine your very leadership and cause massive panic.
Lean in. Think six moves ahead. And charge those hills.
- Jordan, J@mm.coach
