Decoding the Team Conundrum: The Eight Roles Executives … · Decoding the Team Conundrum: The Eight Roles Executives Play MANFRED F.R. KETS DE VRIES T here was once a general who

Decoding the Team Conundrum:

The Eight Roles ExecutivesPlay

MANFRED F.R. KETS DE VRIES

T here was once a general who faced aformidable battle. He had three regi-

ments, led by three colonels, each with avery different character structure. The firstcolonel was very entrepreneurial and self-confident. The second was conscientious andhighly efficient, if lacking in imagination.The third was abrasive and confrontational,but always seemed to achieve the impossi-ble. The night before the battle, the generalvisited his three colonels in turn. First, hetold the entrepreneurial colonel briefly thathe needed him to take the lead in planningthe morning’s attack. Then he sat his secondcolonel down and gave him a detailed battleplan. To the third, he confided that the battlewas already lost, that they had no chance.The colonel disagreed violently – the generalwas wrong, and the colonel’s regimentwould wipe the enemy off the field. At dawnthe next day, the three regiments attacked,each regiment was victorious and the battlewas won.

There is no one ‘‘Great Man’’ in thisanecdote. Instead, we find four highly effec-tive leaders. Our general was an astute judgeof character. He understood how each of hismen would think and act, and he knew whatbuttons to press to get them to do so. Heknew that their personality make-up woulddetermine how they led their troops andfaced the enemy. He knew how to leverageeach member of his team to maximumadvantage.

LAYING TO REST THE GHOSTOF THE ‘GREAT MAN’

Although the ghost of the Great Man – thestereotypical all powerful, undisputed leaderwho controls an organization and determinesits success or failure – still haunts leadershipstudies, most now recognize that successfulorganizations are the product of distributive,collective, and complementary leadership. Agroup of carefully selected individuals can bestructured in such a way as to turn into ahighly effective team that delivers much morethan the sum of its parts. The first step is toidentify each individual’s personality make-up and leadership style, and then matchstrengths and competences to particular rolesand challenges. This sort of creative teamconfiguration can energize and enhance theworkplace. On the other hand, a mismatch canbring misery to all concerned, and cause con-siderable damage.

Mary Johanssen was a human resources(HR) manager in an international cosmeticscompany when she was spotted by HarryOller, vice president, Europe, for the com-pany. ‘‘She gave a superb presentation abouthow they’d dealt with new hire integration ina South African subsidiary. I said to my col-league, ‘We have to get her to sort out Poland.’We were having major problems with a newacquisition there.’’ It was a big leap in terms ofpromotion but Mary was given the jobof introducing and implementing a new

Organizational Dynamics, Vol. 36, No. 1, pp. 28–44, 2007 ISSN 0090-2616/$ – see frontmatter� 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.orgdyn.2006.12.002www.organizational-dynamics.com

28 ORGANIZATIONAL DYNAMICS

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.orgdyn.2006.12.002

cascading excellence program within the Pol-ish subsidiary. ‘‘It was a disaster,’’ Ollerremembers. ‘‘A load of money spent on con-sultancy and implementation studies; rudi-mentary, half-hearted efforts at running aninappropriate program; and a workforce thathad no clearer idea at the end of 12 monthswhat they were doing or why.’’ What haddazzled Oller were Johanssen’s analyticaland communication skills. She was at sea,however, in a more operational role.

Testing, test ing

So if an understanding of individual char-acter is essential to identifying leadershipstrengths, what tools do we have to helpus? Because deciding ‘‘She’s good,’’ as HarryOller learned to his company’s cost, is notenough. The question is ‘‘good at what?’’There are a number of so-called diagnostictests around, of debatable value. Learning thatsomeone is abrasive and could be a characterin the film Sunset Boulevard might make youfeel better about your perception of her as anindividual, but will be of limited help indeciding how best to use her in your organi-zation. It is not enough to slap a label onsomeone. Until we understand a person’sinner theatre – the dramas and major scriptsthat play within all of us from birth – we willnot understand the person’s behavior. Buthow do we dig deeper than this and howdeep, feasibly, can we go?

Outside a psychotherapeutic context, theanswer is probably, ‘‘Not far.’’ But we canobserve behavior and action patterns, andcompare these with individual self-percep-tions. Most of us are motivated by a naturalcuriosity about how we come across to othersand whether their perceptions of us are con-sistent with our own. We want feedback aboutour effectiveness; we want to know how wecan change, if change is needed, either for thebetter or simply to adapt to changing circum-stances. Feedback can have a behavioralimpact and will have action implications.The process is rather like peeling an onion:as the outer, superficial layers come away, ourcore life experiences are steadily revealed.

There are, of course, a number of conscien-tious leadership questionnaires that areworlds away from the enneagrams and com-patibility tests that litter the life-coachingcircuit. Most try to identify certain recurringbehavior patterns considered more or lesseffective in a leadership context. So we havetests to discover whether executives are peo-ple- or task-oriented; autocratic or demo-cratic; transactional or transformational;and variations on all of these. This sort ofquestionnaire may be overly simplistic, but itcan help point someone in the right directionon a career or organizational path.

Deeper insights can come from a moreclinical approach. Henry Mintzberg was apioneer in this area. He identified ten essentialexecutive roles: figurehead, liaison, leader,monitor, disseminator, spokesman, entrepre-neur, disturbance handler, resource allocator,and negotiator. Mintzberg suggested thateffective executives need to play a variety ofthese roles at different times and to differentdegrees, depending on the level and functionof management. Meredith Belbin looked simi-larly at the construction of teams, concludingthat balanced teams, made up of people withcomplementary behaviors, were more effec-tive than randomly assembled teams.

A whole consulting industry has grownout of studies like these, using a plethora oftests based on various configurations. Attimes, unfortunately, the literature describ-ing the merits of these tests is reminiscent ofthe sales pitch of a used-car dealer: a lot ofpromises, but in the end it’s the same oldsame old. And as you would if you wereclosing the deal on your second-hand car,you want the answers to different questions:Just how solid is it? Has it been test-driven? Isit valid, reliable, honest and authentic? Ordoes it just look superficially appealing?

Identifying leadershiparchetypes

At the danger of sounding like a used-carsalesman myself, I want to introduce a newapproach, and a new tool, for assessing lea-dership behavior. In doing so, I look at lea-

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dership somewhat differently from others.My work is based on observational studiesof real leaders at the strategic apex of theirorganizations. My aim is to help executivessee and understand the continuity betweentheir behaviors in the workplace – the outerlayer of the onion – and the inner core of theirdeep-seated character traits. Leaders’ atti-tudes and interactions with people are theresult of a complex confluence of their innertheater (including relationships with author-ity figures early in life), significant life experi-ences, examples set by other executives, andformal leadership training. Sometimes, theantecedents of specific leadership behaviorare quite clear; at other times the connectionsare more tenuous.

My studies have shown that there are anumber of recurring patterns of behaviorthat influence an individual’s effectivenesswithin an organization. Over time, I formu-lated these patterns into a number of leader-ship archetypes, templates for interpretingobservations and behavior. The eight leader-ship archetypes I identified are: strategist,change-catalyst, transactor, builder, innovator,processor, coach, and communicator.

A leadership archetype characterizes theway in which leaders deal with people andsituations in an organizational context. TheLeadership Archetype Questionnaire (LAQ)was devised to help executives identify theirpredominant leadership archetypes, under-stand their behavior more clearly and identifyorganizational situations in which a particularleadership style could be most effective. (SeeAppendix A for a sample of the questions.) Itshould also be noted – given the importance ofbehavioral adaptability – that effective leaderswill score high on a number of these arche-types. They will be able to switch focusdepending on the circumstances. A lack offit, however, between a set of leadershiparchetypes and the context in which execu-tives operate is a main cause of organizationaldysfunction and executive failure. Executivesshould always ask themselves what qualitiesof leadership are required for future success.The LAQ helps executives analyze themselvesand those they work with, identify specific

leadership styles, and then think about whatit’s like to work with people demonstratingcertain dominant behaviors. What are the bestroles they can play in the team – how to alignindividual strengths with team roles? What’sthe best way to manage them? What’s the bestprocedure if you work for them? How do youget the best out of them? Who else will theywork well with? What combinations of stylesshould you avoid? By applying this sort ofanalysis you can avoid toxic combinationsand construct A-teams. Additionally, youcan map the feedback from various constitu-ents (how the other team members view them)and see where perceptions differ and wherethey overlap. I will look at that later. First of all,what are the archetypes?

Development of the LeadershipArchetype Questionnaire (LAQ)

Over the last 20 years, I have studied thebehavior of executives from all over theworld in a specially-designed leadershipworkshop at INSEAD that has four itera-tions over the period of a year. Thisworkshop is intended to go deep belowthe superficialities that characterizemuch leadership education. It creates asafe transitional space—using the lifecase study as major vehicle—where indi-viduals are encouraged to unpeel thevarious layers of their personality. Inthe workshop, executives’ behavior andcharacter issues are put under a micro-scope. In addition, they are given person-ality tests and a number of other multi-party feedback survey instruments. Reg-ularly, they are put in smaller groups toexplore difficult organizational and per-sonal issues.

These workshops show that executivestend towards a specific behavior patternthat can be highly effective at one stage intheir career but quite dysfunctional atanother. The group work often revealsbehavioral inflexibility as people struggleto cope with new organizational situa-tions. I have also observed that comple-mentarity is vital to a team: all is well if an


individual’s weaknesses are counterba-lanced by others’ strengths. The oppositeis also very true. These findings havebeen confirmed repeatedly during orga-nizational interventions with groups ofexecutives undertaking a high perfor-mance team building exercise.

From the cumulative observations ofthese workshops, and discussions withcolleagues in the entrepreneurship, orga-nizational behavior and strategy fields, Iformulated eight distinct leadershiparchetypes and constructed the Leader-ship Archetype Questionnaire (LAQ), adiagnostic multi-party feedback instru-ment for individuals and organizationalstakeholders to use to identify leadershipstyle. The LAQ consists of 48 questions,carefully constructed to elicit indicatorsof an individual’s personal style and tosupply 360-degree feedback.

It needs to be noted that it is impos-sible to include all existing charactertypes and their behavioral consequencesin a study of this sort. The fact that mytypical study sample is not a cross-sec-tion of the work population excludesthat possibility. People in positions ofleadership are a self-selected group. Theidentification of these eight leadershiparchetypes is a direct consequence oftheir prominence in a leadership con-text. For example, there were very fewpeople in the workshops with self-defeating, dependent, depressive ordetached personalities, ways of behav-ing that makes the attainment of a lea-dership position quite difficult.

THE ARCHETYPES

The strategist : leadership as agame of chess

Strategists are good at dealing withdevelopments in the organization’senvironment. They provide vision, stra-tegic direction and outside-the-box

thinking to create new organizationalforms and generate future growth.

� Excellent at abstract, imaginativethinking� Long-term orientation� Ability to see the big picture and planaccordingly� Great conceptualizers/presenting allthe options� Talented at simplifying highly com-plex situations� Capacity to think globally� Ability to think laterally: ground-breakers� Great interest in undertaking newthings/solving unorthodox, difficultproblems� Champion unconventional thinking� Agile in response to change� Excellent at aligning vision with strat-egy

Works best in turbulent times, when changesin the environment require new directions.

In times of crisis a strategist can provide thevision, confidence, and strength to motivate adisorientated and demoralized workforce.President Franklin D. Roosevelt did it for anation when, in the grip of the Depression, hetold Americans, ‘‘The only thing we have tofear is fear itself.’’ The confidence he inspiredwon him an unprecedented four consecutiveterms, as the U.S. moved from the crisis of theDepression to the conflict of World War II.

In the workplace, a strategist may know theright direction to take, thus making for manyadmiring people, but may not be so good atconvincing them to follow. Although strate-gists usually have a high IQ, they may belacking in emotional intelligence (EQ).Despite their talent for aligning vision withstrategy, they are not always good at takingthe next step – aligning strategy with valuesand behavior – as this would entail the sort ofawkward human interventions they are reluc-tant to deal with. To compensate for thisdeficiency, strategists often join forces withcoaches.

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In one European retailing chain, where themanaging director was involved in time-con-suming and complex negotiations to fight offa takeover bid, he began to rely on his affable,rather older head of sales – whose preferredend-of-day position was a comfortable seat atthe bar in the company’s leisure suite – tokeep people up to date with what was hap-pening. This informal arrangement, whichgrew out of one specific situation, workedso well that the head of sales was alsobrought in to facilitate communicationsand people issues during a limited down-sizing operation the following year.

The change-catalyst : leadershipas a turnaround activi ty

Change-catalysts love messy situations.They are masters at re-engineeringand creating new organizational ‘‘blue-prints.’’

� Skilled at recognizing opportunitiesfor organizational transformation� Great capacity for identifying andselling the need for change� Prepared to take on risky, indepen-dent assignments� Good at turning abstract concepts intopractical action� Always looking for new, challengingassignments� Possessing a great sense of urgency� Ability to make difficult decisions:tough mindedness� Very talented at implementation� Setting high standards and monitor-ing performance� Ability to align vision, strategy andbehavior� Aptitude in selecting executive talentto get a task done

Works best in situations of culture integra-tion after a merger or acquisition, or whenspearheading a re-engineering or turn-around project.

Rudy Giuliani was used to tough assign-ments. As mayor of New York, he cut crimeby two-thirds, and made the city a model forcrime management all round the world.However, his aggressiveness and turbulentprivate life polarized opinions about him.Then, on September 11, 2001, Giuliani wasone of thousands who fled for their livesduring the terrorist attacks on the WorldTrade Center, and people saw another sideto him. On the day of the attacks, with Pre-sident George W. Bush kept off the ground inAir Force 1 for his own safety, Giulianibecame ‘‘America’s mayor,’’ broadcastingcalm and informative bulletins, comfortand reassurance. He convened police andfire chiefs and kept them with him through-out the day, coordinating the rescue services;he brought together leading local andnational government figures for strategymeetings; and he went on to the streets tosee and be seen. In the following days heinsisted that the city stay open for business asusual and he attended the funerals of morethan 200 emergency service workers whodied in the attacks. ‘‘Tomorrow,’’ he said,‘‘New York is going to be here. And we’regoing to rebuild, and we’re going to bestronger than we were before.’’

If change-catalysts thrive on crises anddifficult decision-making, the flip side is thatthey get easily bored with the status quo.They might revert to rocking the boat inorder to liven things up, or lose patienceand leave the organization.

Simon Levinson, in his early fifties, has theenergy of someone half his age and has madea career of turning around failing overseasmarkets for a number of multi-media com-panies. The longest he has remained in onecompany is five years. His partner recognizeskey signals: ‘‘The three-year point is classic.First the restlessness starts – he can’t carry ondoing this job for the next n years – then hestarts discovering things to feel resentfulabout, lack of support, slow responses. Thenthe calls start to come from the headhuntersand there are weeks of anticipation anduncertainty before I find out whether I’vegot to start learning another language, or


whether I’m going to be faced with anextended period of depression and sulking.’’

Simon’s energy could be channeled if heworked with a team that included a coach,processor, and/or communicator archetype.The different perspectives offered by theseindividuals could help him to take a longer-term focus, and guide him in projects thatwould keep his interest after the initial turn-around effort.

The transactor : leadership asdeal-making

Transactors are great deal makers. Skilledat identifying and tackling new oppor-tunities, they thrive on negotiations.

� A preference for novelty, adventureand exploration� Thriving on new challenges� Less interested in day-to-day manage-ment� Great salesmen/negotiators� Embracing change� Enthusiasm/dynamism� Proactive mode� Short-term focus� Great adaptive capacity� Creative networking to attain goals� Great risk tolerance� Powerful drive to accumulate wealth� Good reader of people

Works best when negotiating acquisitions orother deals.

Tom Maral’s negotiation skills – acquiringor making licensing deals (particularly in thepharmaceutical industry) – led to a meteoricrise and made him a very young partner in theinvestment bank where he worked. He andhis deputy made a particularly effective team.His deputy was detail-oriented, good at deal-ing with people, and knew how to select andkeep the right people to make a deal work.

By the time he was in his early thirties,Tom had become restless at the bank and was

looking for another challenge. It didn’t takehim very long to find a group of investorshappy to support his idea to set up a privateequity firm, specializing in the pharmaceuti-cal industry. But Tom was a disaster as hisown boss. Although he closed a number ofvery promising deals, everything fell apart.Day-to-day managerial responsibilities boredhim, and he constantly put off decisions andmeetings. This led to poor relations with anumber of scientist-entrepreneurs, whosecooperation was essential to making the busi-ness model a success. After a few years ofstruggle, the investors had had enough andsevered their association with him. Tomfound himself looking for a new job.

Transactors’ dynamism and judgmentskills are often counterbalanced by impa-tience with structures and procedures.Although they are excellent at wealth gen-eration, left to act too much on their own,they can create havoc within an organization.They need strategists, processors, and coa-ches to redress the balance.

The builder : leadership as anentrepreneurial act ivity

Builders dream of creating somethingand have the talent and determinationto make their dream come true.

� Great need to be independent/to be incontrol� Enormous amount of energy, drive,dynamism and enterprise� Single mindedness/very focused/very decisive� Enormous perseverance: great capa-city to deal with setbacks� Ability to live with a great deal ofinsecurity/ambiguous situations� Capacity to thrive under pressure� Long-term focus� High achievement orientation� High but calculated risk taking pro-pensity� Good at creative adaptation/creativ-ity

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� Strong motivation to create something� Great talent for getting buy-in fromothers/to obtain resources� A moderate dose of social skills� Difficulties in dealing with authority

Works best setting up ‘‘skunk works’’ orother ventures inside or outside the organi-zation.

Sir Alan Sugar, the founder of Amstradand one-time owner of premiership footballclub Tottenham Hotspur, left school at 16. Bythat time, he was earning more by working inthe evenings after school and running amarket stall at weekends than his fatherearned in a week. He founded Amstradwhen he was 21, the same year he married,and made his fortune selling basic, low-costcomputers and electronics. At 40, he was the15th richest person in Britain. When his per-sonal wealth was cut by two-thirds followingthe London stock market crash in 1987 heremained philosophical, continuing to workwith undiminished energy. (‘‘It’s basicallyshares, and I have always totally ignoredit. It’s flattering, but you haven’t got it andso it’s irrelevant.’’) Now a television star inthe U.K. with The Apprentice (based on theU.S. show with Donald Trump), he retains aninterest in Amstrad and Spurs, and has alucrative property portfolio. Self-confessedlyaggressive, rude, and explosively short-tem-pered, he nevertheless inspires great loyaltyin his people. His gentler side as a dedicatedfamily man and generous supporter of cha-rities is less well-publicized.

Builders tend to be strongly controllingand have little regard for others’ authority.They live with the illusion (and this mayhave been true once) that nobody can dothings as well as they do. Given their greatneed for control and ambivalence towardauthority, they have great difficulties withdelegation. They live with the illusion thatnobody can do things as well as they do.Although their leadership can be inspira-tional, poor communication and a cultureof fear can make this person lose touch with

reality, and contribute to dysfunctional deci-sion-making. Difficult as it may be for them,they need help of more organizationallyoriented types – the processors – to bringtheir organizations to the next phase.

The innovator : leadership ascreative idea generation

Innovators are focused on the new. Theypossess a great capacity to solve extre-mely difficult problems.

� Great drive to pursue their ideas� Creative and imaginative� Always on the lookout for future pos-sibilities: new projects, new activities,new procedures.� Never satisfied in developing theirideas/difficulties with closure� Tolerance for and enjoyment of com-plex problem solving� Stretch goals at whatever needs to beaccomplished� Enormous perseverance/focused� Long-term orientation in the pursuitof their ideas� Not political/quite naı̈ve about orga-nizational politics� Ineffective communicators� Financial gains secondary� At times eccentric

Works best as idea generators within anorganization.

Innovators are constantly generating newways of doing things, whether they areinventors or inventive implementers, devis-ing new ways to position products or ser-vices. A prominent, somewhat controversialexample is Madonna, who is constantly rein-venting her image and style and segues see-mingly effortlessly between acting, singing,writing, and celebrity wife-and-motherhood,depending upon which of her talents is in theascendant or particularly in demand.


U.K. inventor James Dyson spent nearly10 years developing the bagless, dual cyclonevacuum cleaner that has made him a house-hold name. He nearly bankrupted himselfwith the hefty cost of annual patent renewalsbefore he saw a penny in sales. Now world-wide sales have exceeded £3 billion, anddyson has joined hoover as a transitive Eng-lish verb. The sole shareholder of his com-pany, Dyson has a personal fortune of £700million. Dyson’s inventiveness is matched byshrewd marketing and planning. In 2005, herode out adverse publicity when he movedhis manufacturing out of the U.K. to Malay-sia, to save costs and allow expansion.Research and development remained in Brit-ain, and within a year Dyson was employingmore people in the U.K. than before hemoved the manufacturing offshore.

The downside of innovators is a tendencyto introversion and insularity. The subtletiesof organizational political life may escapethem, but if teamed with people who com-plement their talent with more highly devel-oped social skills, they can be a powerfulleadership force.

The processor : leadership as anexercise in efficiency

Processors like an organization to be asmoothly running, well-oiled machine.They are very effective at setting up thestructures and systems needed to sup-port an organization’s objectives.

� Systemic outlook� Extremely effective at turning abstractconcepts into practical action� Good at implementing process-basedactions� Effective at providing structure/pro-cesses/boundaries� Dislike for unstructured situations� Adherence to rules and procedures� Possessing a great commitment to theorganization� Good corporate citizens/loyal andcooperative

� Great self-discipline, very reliable,efficient and conscientious� Remaining cool-headed in situationsof stress� Positive attitude toward authority� Excellent at time management

Works best when creating order out of dis-order.

Processors are adaptable and collabora-tive, and complement most other leadershipstyles. They are important in any executiverole constellation, and they are not the kindof people who will get an organization intotrouble. Deeply loyal, they are not afraid ofdifficult decisions, even if there is a personalcost involved.

When Gerald Ford became U.S. Presidentin 1974, his major task was to restore con-fidence in the presidency, which his prede-cessor, Richard Nixon, had brought intodisrepute. Maintaining that ‘‘the difficultdecisions always come to this desk,’’ withina month of taking office he issued a formalpardon to Nixon, sparing the former Presi-dent the humiliation of a highly public trial.Ford then faced national uproar and a con-gressional enquiry into allegations that thepardon had been part of a pre-arranged dealbefore Nixon’s resignation. Ford judged thatthe pardon was ‘‘the right thing to do,’’ inorder to re-establish the authority of theWhite House, and, as Ford’s successor JimmyCarter put it, ‘‘heal our land.’’ Watergate casta long shadow over Ford’s achievements,however, and cost him re-election in 1976,although his work to reunite the country waslater recognized by the Presidential Medal ofFreedom awarded to him by Bill Clinton.

Sometimes a respect for order, systems andrules can shade into stubbornness and inflex-ibility, so that a processor can be slow torespond to new opportunities or even hinderthem. But generally processors are good teamplayers, and know how to make things work.

Kiera Rhodes was director of internationaldevelopment at a leading educational insti-tute when she was asked to undertake an

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urgent downsizing study: the institute had topare down a workforce that was alreadystretched. Kiera knew that the answer wasto eliminate an entire area of operation, eitherwithin the faculty offerings or an adminis-trative function. One candidate was the chem-istry department. Following a nationwidetrend, chemistry was attracting fewer studentapplicants. However, the department’s fieldof research was cutting-edge and internation-ally recognized. The institute could not affordto lose that acclaim and intellectual capital to acompeting body. Another candidate immedi-ately became apparent: the department ofinternational development. Although a smalldepartment, its overheads and expenses weredisproportionate to its size and returnsremained stable—but low. Kiera’s finalrecommendation was to make herself, andher department, redundant.

The coach: leadership as peopledevelopment

Coaches create high performance teamsand high performance cultures.

� Empathic/high EQ� Good listeners� Inspire trust� Affinity with people/cooperative� Excellent at handling difficult inter-personal and group situations� Talent for creating high performancecultures and teams� Great developers of people/givingconstructive feedback� Excellent at giving career guidance� Great motivators� Good communicators� Have a positive outlook� Good delegators� Preference for participatory manage-ment

Works best when instituting culture changeprojects. Particularly effective in network-ing, knowledge-based organizations.

Adrien Fribourg, had worked for sometime as an interim manager, taking short-term appointments troubleshooting in a suc-cession of high-tech companies, when hisagent called with a proposition. A smallsoftware developer, with one outstandingproduct, had just rid itself of its founder-CEO but was floundering. They wantedsomeone for the long-term, who would givethe company a new style of leadership,something different from the very directive,hierarchical style favored by the departingperson. Adrien hesitated. His life workedout very nicely as it was. With his childrenindependent and out of the house, andhomes in France and Italy, short-term, inten-sive missions suited him well – and theywere lucrative. However, there was some-thing very appealing about the companyprofile. The single product excelled in themarket, and for the time being at least, itsposition looked unassailable. There wasclearly no shortage of creative thinking inthe organization, and the people were allhigh caliber. Unfortunately they were alsodisaffected, and the company had high exitrates.

Adrien took the job. During his first twoweeks, he rarely saw the inside of his office ashe systematically met every individual work-ing in the company, the suppliers, and majorclients. For three days he traveled with mem-bers of the sales team. Toward the end of hisfirst month he called all the employeestogether. First of all, he summarized thesituation as he saw it and announced that,over the next two months, he would be for-mulating a plan to bring in new financingand kick-starting some project innovationthat had been lying dormant. Then he saidthat during that period his door would beopen to anyone to come and present ideas:and after that, his door – and everyone else’s– would be gone. The internal partitions thatdivided the company premises (the top twofloors of a converted warehouse) into small,somber offices would be removed.

Adrien had identified likely leaders fordevelopment teams and immediately putthem to work on some of the slumbering


projects. He assembled a special unit to look atsecond and third generation developmentsfrom the alpha product, bringing in clientrepresentatives as advisors. The sales teamrecruited new members and were given spe-cialized training. Adrien’s office was also inthe new open-plan workspace and he wascareful to maintain a presence there, overcom-ing some initial wariness from employees.Eventually, he was obliged to relocate to aninterior ‘‘pod,’’ to establish a degree of privacyand confidentiality – but it had no door, andhis accessibility became a keynote of the newcompany culture. In the first two years, he sawvery little of his Italian and French homes. Bythe end of that time, the new generation ofsoftware was rolling out, several of the dor-mant projects were being activated, and thecompany’s improved performance hadattracted two new investors.

Coaches are highly effective at getting thebest out of people, and get a great deal ofpersonal satisfaction from developing andmentoring others. Consistent with this, theymay find it hard to be tough when needed,and shy away from dealing with underper-formance and difficult personal issues. Theyprobably do not represent the leadershiparchetype best suited to dealing with crises.

The communicator : leadershipas stage management

Communicators are great influencers, andhave a considerable impact on theirsurroundings.

� Excellent at communicating broadthemes/big picture� Talented in using simple language/metaphors� Not detail-oriented� Great presence/knowing how toattract the attention of others� Impressive theatrical skills/creationof make-believe� Capacity to reframe difficult situa-tions positively� Talent for influencing others

� Good networking skills/building alli-ances� Excellent at managing various stake-holders� Very effective in getting people to seetheir point of view.� Very effective in using ‘‘experts’’� Not proud to ask for outside help/useadvisors and consulting firms

Works best when influencing various orga-nizational constituencies to overcome crisissituations.

Communicators have impressive theatri-cal skills and great presence. Optimistic anduniversally pleasant to those around them,their influence can be positive, even daz-zling. However, their preference for lookingat the big picture, rather than dealing withdetail, can put pressure on others and attractaccusations of superficiality.

Ronald Reagan, so media friendly that hewas known as the ‘‘Great Communicator,’’was an outstanding speaker long before hebecame President. Funny, disarming, andgifted at drawing people out and towardshimself, he was able to touch and inspirepeople individually at all levels. As President,he called on writers who crafted his speechesto suit his ability to deliver ideas and emotionssimply and sincerely. Happy to delegate toadvisors and his cabinet, Reagan took moretime off from the White House than any of hispredecessors. As President George W. Bushrecalled in his funeral eulogy: ‘‘He believed intaking a break now and then, because, as hesaid, there’s nothing better for the inside of aman than the outside of a horse.’’ Peggy Noo-nan, one of Reagan’s advisors and speech-writers, admired him greatly and wrote afamous tribute. Nevertheless, she noted:‘‘[His] great flaw . . . was his famous detach-ment, which was painful for his children anddisorienting for his staff. No one around himquite understood it, the deep and emotionalengagement in public events and publicaffairs, and the slight and seemingly formalinterest in the lives of those around him. . . .He

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would do in the nicest possible way what hadto be done. He was as nice as he could be aboutit, but he knew where he was going, and if youwere in the way you were gone.’’

With their self-serving tendency to look forsupporters and providers who can make themlook good, organizational communicators areideal clients for consulting firms. They need tobe reminded that effective leadership isdefined by results, not attributes. They needexecutives such as strategists and processorsto make their dreams become reality.

MAPPING ARCHETYPES

So, what do we do with this new set ofleadership archetypes? How do we buildon this opportunity for self-knowledge andbetter perception of others? How can thisknowledge be used to help leaders adapttheir behavior to function well in a new role?

A key point is that archetypes result froman individual’s response to the environment.Appropriate behavior in one situation will beunsuitable in another; obvious strengths inone role will handicap performance inothers. Understanding personality make-up, competencies, and roles is a powerfultool in the hand of an organizational designer

– as our clever general demonstrated. Under-standing people’s preferred style will be use-ful when building management teams,where members can help each other, lever-aging their strengths and allowing colleaguesto compensate for their weaknesses.

However, identifying leadership beha-vior patterns is not easy. It can be a complexprocess. What’s more, it triggers a sort ofhypochondria. Just as junior doctors discoverthey have the symptoms of every new dis-ease they study, we all start to recognizeaspects of ourselves in the description of eacharchetype – and that’s perfectly fine, becausethe truth is that most of us can be slotted intomore than one archetype, and archetypeidentifications will change as our lifechanges. Assessing where and what we areis not a static, one-off, operation.

A substantial part of the LAQ analysisgives guidance on working for leaders whofit the eight leadership archetypes and mana-ging others who align with them. This issummarized briefly in Table 1.

Ideally, the LAQ will be completed bythe individual, and also members one or twoof the core team(s) to which the personbelongs (for example, colleagues from thesame department, and fellow members of


TABLE 1 WORKING WITH/MANAGING LEADERSHIP ARCHETYPES

Leadershiparchetypes Working with them How to manage them

Strategist � Do not reject bizarre suggestions out of hand � Encourage their creativity� Help them align strategy with implementation � Listen to them� Assume responsibility for implementation � Protect them from internal bureaucracy� Help them translate abstract ideas into

communicable plans� Be patient: do not expect instant results

� Do not expect compliments or interestin your work� Ask their advice� Provide data to support or query their vision

Change-catalyst � Help them slow down � Use them as trouble-shooters� Be prepared for insensitivity and

thoughtlessness� Limit the risk of change for

change’s sake� Act as a buffer � Do not stifle their enthusiasm� Be prepared for action � Set boundaries� Be ready to indicate when they

are moving in the wrong direction� Develop their reflective side� Help them increase their EQ

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Table 1 (Continued )

Leadershiparchetypes Working with them How to manage them

Transactor � Be prepared for action � Keep them fulfilled� Expect direction � Help them to look at the long-term� Be prepared to take on a complementary

role� Stress the need for administrative

diligence� Be direct � Address volatile behavior� Maintain their interest � Encourage transparency� Act as a sounding board � Maintain attractive reward procedures� Expect surprises� Do not overreact to volatile behavior

Builder � Be a voice of reason � Listen to them� Demonstrate examples of professional

management� Recognize their need for independence

� Emphasize the value of delegation� Emphasize the value of delegation

� Help set priorities� Avoid over-solicitous information

seeking� Be ready to play devil’s advocate � Watch out for over-optimism� Do not expect compliments � Compliment them on their ideas

Innovator � Be a self-starter � Encourage them to explore unorthodoxideas� Do not expect feedback� Protect them from internal bureaucracy� Be a sparring partner� Do not put them in management

positions� Keep them in touch with financial realities

� Steer them towards valuable projects� Help them to achieve closure

� Channel their enthusiasm

Processor � Point out their negative influence on others � Help them see the larger picture� Be a buffer between them and creative people � Forestall any tendency to over-systemize� Encourage them to take action and be

more adventurous� Help them speed up decision-making

� Accept the need to observe establishedrules and procedure

� Calm any distress over departuresfrom procedure

� Understand that conformity will be rewardedmore than innovation

Coach � Be ready to play organizational executioner � Appreciate their ability to get the bestout of people� Encourage them to recognize and deal with

underperformance and difficult decisions � Encourage them to recognize and dealwith underperformance anddifficult decisions

� Inject a regular dose of reality

� Help them to feel comfortable aboutexerting authority

Communicator � Assume responsibility for implementation � Use them in communications rolesin crisis situations� Trust their instincts� Be directive� Make sure their exposure to questioning

is kept short � Make sure they understand what youexpect from them� Prevent excessive use of external advisors� Create a support system for

implementation� Pre-empt their tendency to go for

quick-fix solutions� Prevent excessive use of external

advisors� Make sure your own achievements are

recognized by others� Watch out for abuse of the system� Inject a regular dose of reality

an executive team). A third category includesall interested others inside or outside theorganization (for example, clients or peoplefrom other departments or subsidiaries). Theself-score, core team score(s), and others’scores are then averaged and mapped on aspider web grid, where congruencies anddiscrepancies are immediately visible. Tosee how this works in practice, let’s look atthe mapping for Kiera Rhodes, who decidedself-immolation was the only viable solutionto her organization’s crisis (see Exhibit 1).

Looking at her profile, the first observa-tion is that her self-perception and the per-ception of others are quite close, with theexception of the Strategist role. Furthermore,Kiera received a middle-of-the-road score inthe Transactor category, but in this case sherecognizes her limitations. As a Builder shereceived a somewhat higher than averagescore. Her high processor, change-catalystand coach scores noted by her departmentmembers (core team 1), the executive team ofwhich she is a member (core team 2) and theother observers could explain why she wasviewed as the person best suited to handling

the downsizing project. In addition, the highscores on the communicator axis points outher effectiveness in getting the needed mes-sages across. The divergence on the strategistaxis can be a consequence of the fact that thisparticular LAQ exercise was completedbefore she made herself and her wholedepartment redundant. But the executiveteam (core team 2) seemed to have been moreaware (in comparison to her departmentmembers) of her strategic capabilities.Finally, although she was quite innovativein engaging in self-immolation, she is viewedas everything but the innovator type.

Once individual test-takers have had theopportunity to reflect on their results asshown on the spider web graph, the nextpart of the process is to consider the follow-ing questions. Ideally, these topics should bediscussed with the person’s executive team,but even if the thinking is done individually,it is still an invaluable exercise.

1. What executive role constellation isneeded in your organization, given the envir-onment it is operating in? What leadership


EXHIBIT 1 A LEADERSHIP ARCHETYPE PROFILE

behavior is needed for maximum effective-ness? What kind of behavior should beplayed down or changed?

2. What do you perceive as your mostprominent style? If you have received multi-party feedback, what do others see as yourmost prominent style? How do you explainthe divergences?

3. How does your leadership style fit thecontext in which your organization is oper-ating? Could your style cause problems, andif so, what would they be?

4. What is the leadership style of yourpeers and key subordinates? How do theirstyles fit with yours? Should you try to mod-ify aspects of your style? What behaviorshould you avoid? What can your peersand subordinates do to help you?

5. What is your superior’s style? Howdoes his or her style fit with yours? Shouldthis person try to modify aspects of his or herstyle? What kind of behavior should he orshe avoid? Is there any advice you can giveyour superior?

6. Given the importance of executiverole constellations in teams, what changesneed to be made?

WHAT ARE WE LIKE?

What this discussion of leadership arche-types has demonstrated is that the ideal lea-der has the option of a repertoire of styles.Obviously, the higher the person rates on thevarious leadership archetypes, the moreeffective he or she will be. Having the luxuryof having more than one style to choose fromwill increase an executive’s options in deal-ing with changing situations. Rare will bethat leader, however, who rates high on all ofthe eight archetypes. But the identification ofleadership archetypes may be the first step inexpanding one’s behavioral repertoire. In

doing so, however, the person needs to berealistic. Certain roles will not come natu-rally. They just don’t fit the scripts in theindividual’s inner theatre. The person mightnot have the personality make-up for certainkinds of behavior. Furthermore, there will beproblems if people are put into roles they arenot suited for, particularly at senior levels inthe organization. It is much better for anexecutive to maximize her or her strengths,and ask others with complementary arche-types to work with him or her, rather thantrying to do, or be, the impossible.

By recognizing the importance of specificleadership configurations, we will gain valu-able insight into other people and how theyoperate. We will recognize the gaps that haveto be filled in teams. And, most importantly,by looking at leadership as a set of comple-mentarities, team effectiveness will improve.Furthermore, management teams that payattention to individual differences in leader-ship styles will appreciate interdependenciesand recognize how each member of the teamcan make the best contribution. It will helpcreate a culture of mutual support and trust,will reduce team stress and conflict, andmake for more creative problem solving. Inaddition, increased trust will decrease thekind of silo formation that is all too commonin large organizations, and encourage effec-tive knowledge management. Thus buildingeffective teams will contribute to the exis-tence of boundaryless organizations. Mostimportantly, however, when executives taketime to develop understanding of eachother’s strengths and weaknesses, they willhave laid the foundation of a high perfor-mance organization.

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SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Most leadership tests have tried to identifycertain recurring behavior patterns consid-ered more or less effective in a leadershipcontext. In the most popular of these testsexecutives are classified as being people- ortask-oriented. Descriptions of theseapproaches can be found in Fred Fiedler’sA Theory of Leader Effectiveness (New York:McGraw-Hill, 1967); Robert Blake and JaneMouton’s The Managerial Grid III: The Key toLeadership Excellence (Houston: Gulf Pub-lishing Company, 1985); and Bernard Bass’Stogdill’s Handbook of Leadership (New York:Free Press, 1989). In the people (considera-tion) orientation, leaders are concernedabout the human needs of their employees.Such people are assumed to be more effec-tive in creating teams, in helping employeeswith their problems, and providing psycho-logical support. In the task (structure) orien-tation, such leaders believe that they getresults by consistently focusing on the taskto be done.

Another common approach found in lea-dership questionnaires is to assess whetherleaders have an autocratic or democratic lea-dership style. Good examples of this orienta-tion are the studies by Robert Tannenbaumand William Schmidt, ‘‘How to Choose aLeadership Pattern,’’ Harvard BusinessReview, 1958, 36, 95–101; Douglas McGre-gor’s The Human Side of Enterprise (New York:McGraw-Hill, 1960); and Robert Likert, NewPatterns of Management (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961). In the autocratic (directive) style,the leader tells employees what needs to bedone and how to do it, without soliciting theadvice of the followers. In the democratic orparticipative style, the leader includes theemployees in the decision-making process.However, the leader is still responsible forthe decisions that are made.

A relatively recent distinction has beenmade between transactional and transfor-mational leadership. The transactional lea-der works through creating structures thatmake it clear what is required of subordi-nates, and the rewards that will accruethrough following orders. Transformationalleaders, in contrast, seek to transform orga-nizations, including the tacit promise totransform followers in the process. Suppo-sedly, the result of transforming leadershipis a relationship of mutual stimulation andelevation that converts followers into lea-ders. Thus while the first kind of leadershipis more short-term oriented, focused on tac-tical issues, transformational leadershiptranscends daily affairs and helps releasehuman potential. Good examples of thisapproach are the studies of James McGregorBurns, Leadership (New York: Harper andRow, 1978); Bernard Bass, Leadership andPerformance beyond Expectations (New York:Free Press, 1985); and Robert House, ‘‘A 1976Theory of Charismatic Leadership,’’ in J. G.Hunt & L. L. Larson (Eds.) Leadership: TheCutting Edge (Carbondale: Southern IllinoisUniversity Press, 1977).

Many variations on these basic themescan be identified, some more realistic thanothers. Classifying leaders in this way, how-ever, frequently creates extremely simplistictwo-by-two matrixes, presenting a number ofleadership styles. But in spite of their over-simplified nature, these approaches havesome merit, as their insight can point a per-son in the right direction. They can also helpidentify people configurations that will bemore or less effective in an organizationalsetting.

Some leadership scholars have gonefurther, searching for richer descriptions ofexecutive behavior. The earlier mentioned


work of Henry Mintzberg as exemplified inhis book The Nature of Managerial Work (NewYork: Harper & Row, 1973) is very influentialin this area. Mintzberg has suggested thatexecutives must take on a variety of differentroles simultaneously to meet the manydemands of their functions. He identifiedten roles that most executives had in com-mon.

Taking a very different angle, MeredithBelbin in his book Team Roles at Work(Oxford: Butterworth Heinemann, 1996)focused on the working of teams. Observingthe way a business game was played bydifferent student groups, he found that ateam’s composition very much determinedits effectiveness. He noted how individualdifferences in style, role and contributionwould contribute to potential team strength.

From his observations (based on studentteams, unlike Minzberg’s sample of topexecutives) he distinguished nine team roles.He suggested that balanced teams, made upof people possessing complementary beha-vior, would be more effective than unba-lanced teams.

An article by Daniel Goleman, ‘‘Leader-ship that Gets Results,’’ Harvard BusinessReview, March–April 2000, 78–90, describessix leadership styles which appear to be amixture of the previously described demo-cratic-autocratic and people or task orienta-tions. To present executive behavior in such away can make, however, for a somewhatconfusing exploration of leadership beha-vior. According to Goleman, leaders whohave mastered four or more styles will pre-sent the best business performance.

Manfred Kets de Vries is the Raoul de Vitry d’Avaucourt clinicalprofessor of leadership development at INSEAD in France & Singapore.He is the director of INSEAD Global Leadership Center that offersleadership development and coaching programs to executives fromaround the world. Apart from being a management professor, he is also apracticing psychoanalyst/psychotherapist and a consultant on organiza-tional design/transformation and strategic human resource manage-ment. He is a consultant to many of the world’s leading companies. As aneducator and consultant he has worked in more than forty countries. Heis the author, co-author, or editor of 24 books and has published over250 scientific papers. His latest book is entitled The Leader on the Couch.His books and articles have been translated into twenty-five languages.(e-mail: [email protected]).

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mailto:[email protected]

APPENDIX A

Sample Questions LAQ


Documents

Decoding the Team Conundrum: The Eight Roles Executives … · Decoding the Team Conundrum: The Eight Roles Executives Play MANFRED F.R. KETS DE VRIES T here was once a general who