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Every organization needs a leader. But not just any leader will do. Success depends on finding the right leader to meet the organization’s needs in that precise moment.
But, as we have learned over more than 12 years of working to place the right leader into the right organization at the right time, doing that is no easy feat.
In fact, it’s why we wrote our new book on leadership, Right Leader Right Time: Discover Your Leadership Style for a Winning Career and Company. (Visit Right Leader to learn more.)
The book is the culmination of our experience over the last 12 years, experience that has shown us what the most successful leaders do well.
Highest, Best Use
The best leaders stand for something. They commit to a leadership mindset that serves their highest and best use.
Our years of experience pairing executives with for-profit and non-profit organizations — big and small — allowed us to identify four distinct leadership modes: Fixer, Artist, Builder, and Strategist, or FABS.
Each has a unique leadership mindset. Let’s take them one at a time.
Fixer
The Fixer’s leadership skills allow him or her to see what’s broken, and then laser-focus on the problem-solving needed to fix it.
Fixers are drawn to the most dysfunctional, even toxic situations. They bring order out of chaos. Send a Fixer into a company that is hemorrhaging, and they will stop the bleeding.
But send or keep a Fixer in a stable situation and, at best, boredom will be the result. Much more likely, they’ll break something just so they can fix it.
Artist
The leadership mindset of an Artist means viewing the world (and your organization) as a blank canvas on which to paint, whether it’s a new product, service, technology, project, or anything else.
The Artist leader is a renegade wired for decision-making rooted in innovation, ingenuity, revision, and revolution.
Send an Artist into a company in need of a jolt and a whole new future could emerge. But if you box in an Artist too tightly, they can feel as if oxygen is being sucked from the room.
Builder
This leader has a growth mindset; market domination is their mantra. The Builder puts people, process, and product in place to ramp up a project, company or division.
You need this leader to break through ceilings in growth.
But once scale is achieved and markets dominated, don’t expect the true Builder to stick around. It’s time for a new challenge.
Strategist
This leader operates at scale in both complexity and vast size. If the Builder makes great buildings, the Strategist makes the roads, bridges and towns that connect them together.
Strategists know how to build leadership teams, can see the many pieces at play on the field, and can rally all team members around a common mission and vision.
Self-Awareness Matters
While it is true that most people operate well in more than one leadership mode, the reality is that only one will qualify as “highest and best use.”
You might be an Artist/Builder or a Fixer/Strategist and can call on each leader’s mindset as needed. But the best leaders know their strengths and double down on their dominant style, seeking out opportunities that play to their highest and best use, and rejecting what is not. It is key to their well-being as a leader and a person.
Search as you will, but you won’t find a business leader who is both the best Fixer and also the best Artist, Builder, or Strategist. The most effective leaders excel at recognizing and promoting new leadership with complementary styles, knowing that as organizations change, needs change.
Matching the Right Leadership with the Right Company
Given that, why do so many of us think a great leader will perform just as well in any situation?
When we are honest with ourselves, we know that while we can adapt as our team, client, project, or organization grows, pivots, and hits bumps along the way, there is a limit beyond which adaptation is enough. At some point, it just doesn’t feel fun or productive anymore.
Entrepreneurs, leaders and executives might not even be aware that they are not acting in their highest and best leadership roles. But you can bet the stakeholders around them can see it clearly. Likewise, they can see when a good leader shines brightest.
Do you need help finding the right leader for your company? Call us at 847.849.2800 for a confidential consultation to learn which of our RED Team executives has the skills and expertise you need.
