What type of leader are you?

A leadership idea worth exploring

What type of leader are you?

THE SAVIOUR instructs, mentors, advises, decides.

They have a clear idea of how things should be done and help people follow that path.

THE SERVANT is an extractor.

They support those they lead to find their own clarity, direction, focus, and strategy.

When things aren’t working, they help people reflect, learn, and take responsibility.

THE SALESPERSON has a vision and sells people on that vision.

They persuade people to join, invest, follow, and do the work required to achieve it.

All have strengths.

I rarely meet anyone who is purely one type.

But clearly defining what type of leader you want to be, and what type you don’t, can rapidly upgrade your leadership.

The SAVIOUR often hires people without the necessary traits or skills.

They keep people who consistently fail to deliver.

They become frustrated when others don’t meet their standards.

Because deep down, they believe it is their job to save people.

The SERVANT believes nobody needs saving.

There are no victims or villains in their world.

As a result, responsibility increases.

Conversations become more honest.

People learn to solve problems rather than hand them away.

The SALESPERSON is excellent at creating movement.

The challenge is that people can buy into companies, jobs, strategies, and decisions they never really wanted.

When reality fails to match the promise, they often feel misled.

Which style do you recognise in yourself?

Do you perhaps switch styles under pressure and make the problem worse?

Something worth exploring is that which of these shows up often comes back to the structures in your business.

Eg absent clear job descriptions and performance measures there is no clear foundation for conversions around behaviour change.

An idea worth exploring

There’s just one rule.

No empathy.

The room looked at me like I’d just kicked a puppy.

Leadership, in their minds, was about putting yourself in someone else’s shoes and showing compassion.

“No,” I told them.

“Leadership is a service.”

You work for them.

That doesn’t rule out friendship.

But leadership is not something you are.

It’s something very specific that you’re doing for another person.

You are a tool.

The objective is to help someone solve a problem they have been unable to solve alone.

There was one other rule.

No advice.

No stories.

No “me too”.

Only questions.

Questions that would help them build a path forward for themselves.

The leaders hated it.

“It was so hard.”

“I kept wanting to give advice.”

“I wanted to tell them what worked for me.”

I wanted them to feel that resistance.

To recognise it as habit.

A pattern that wanted them to save rather than serve.

Because the SAVIOUR isn’t serving.

They’re avoiding their own discomfort with uncertainty.

And in doing so, they steal responsibility for both the problem and the solution.

Then I asked those being led how the conversation felt.

“Relief.”

“Seen.”

“Clear.”

“Optimistic.”

The leaders were confused.

The conversation felt less supportive to them.

Yet far more useful to the other person.

This week, ask yourself:

When someone brings me a problem, am I serving them or saving them?

And what would change if I did less of one and more of the other?

Each of these ideas points towards the same question.

Where in your leadership are you taking responsibility that doesn’t belong to you?

And where are you preventing someone else from taking responsibility that does?.