Identity is in the news. Caitlyn Jenner and Rachel Dolezal are just two examples of people choosing who they are. Our reactions to those choices vary. The direct impact their choices have on us is limited, if it exists at all. But, what about a more subtle identity choice: what is your leader identity? If we’re wrong about our leadership identity, or don’t choose one at all, that can have a significant impact on a whole lot of folks. Therefore, it’s important – very important – we know what kind of leader we are, own our identity, and drive it how it needs to be and where it needs to be for everyone who depends on us to have impact in positive ways.
In Ben Horowitz’s recent book, The Hard Thing About Hard Things, the Horowitz half of famed venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz posits there are two types of CEOs (and I’d expand to leaders overall):
Ones – who are more strategic and broad in their thinking and approach; and
Twos – who are more process oriented.
Each type has its specific assets and flaws.
In the case of Ones, they love pursuing and engaging in complex competition with rival business. They embrace comprehensive decision-making, and prefer analyzing sufficient data, but they’re also comfortable with making a call on instinct when needed. Where the Ones struggle is they become quickly bored with the nuts and bolts of execution that can create the lost opportunity of clarity, consistency, and accountability.
Twos, on the other hand, love clear goals and consistent processes. Where they struggle is with taking the time to learn continuously (because they feel they should be doing “real” work). It’s difficult for Twos to deal with ambiguity in certain decisions that have a lack of sufficient data in the their view. To compensate, they may create a complex decision-making process to make them feel they better evaluated the options … though nothing substantive has changed. Instead, they’ve created confusion and delay.
In my experience, the definitions of leadership and leaders are far bigger than Horowitz allows, especially when it comes to their approach to engaging their teams. He comments on the engagement topic briefly by offering three variations of CEO’s as represented by Steve Jobs, Bill Campbell, and Andy Grove as the Vision guy (Jobs), the Engager (Campbell), and the Executor (Grove). Horowitz acknowledges that there’s no such thing as “best,” and, in fact, some combination of the various traits noted is required to fully succeed.
Whatever their type or tendency, leaders who know who they are, and have a grasp on their leadership identity, are more effective at consciously adapting to address their lesser areas of orientation. They even complement their strengths with those of others they bring in to share the load. A CEO who’s a One, for example, does well to bring on a COO who’s got the gifts of a strong Two. Knowing who you are, sharing who you are, and dealing with who you are as a leader makes you and everyone around you better.
Things get dicey when a leader believes she’s something she’s not. I’ve observed many people who have blind spots of this sort. There is the leader, for example, who believes he is the great promoter of his team when in fact everything has to go through him or he pouts (literally). The problem is, when his people come to him, he obstructs their access to other senior leaders so that their talents remain obscured. Then there’s the leader who views himself as the most evolved member of his leadership team and that everyone else is the problem. He tends to communicate with his colleagues in an abrasive and dismissive manner then wonders why they do not seek him out for his counsel and collaboration.
There may not be one type of leader profile that can be definitively said to be the best, but those who fool themselves as to what type of leader they are definitely have an identity: trouble!
