Happy Friday, Partners, 

As you know, this month, instead of sharing only my perspective on leadership, I am amplifying voices from people who have influenced my thinking over the years. My clients are some of the sharpest observers of human behavior I know, and I feel their lived leadership insights deserve an audience beyond our coaching sessions.


This week, I’m sharing a Thought Partner Friday response I received from Bob, a former client and a seasoned leader in the engineering space. He permitted me to share it, and I think you will soon understand why.


Hereeeeeeeeeee’s Bob:

“In my experience, some leaders are artists. They have a clear vision before work even starts, and that vision flows and is absorbed by teams like a great song or a painted masterpiece. The more team members absorb, the more engaged they become. This is good. Other leaders, I find, are more disciplinarians. Not necessarily dictating every step of the way, but typically they have a vision that is structured, logical, and clear. They often communicate more visible boundaries (expectations) as compared to an artistic leader would provide, which can help team members engage more rapidly. While it also may take a bit longer for team members to understand the end goal, I find this style to resonate a bit better than a purely artistic approach in my line of work (engineering). But in my view the best leaders are disciplined artists. They find a way to set near term goals with the long term vision, even if the final vision is still a bit of an open canvas. Maybe even more impressive to me is the way disciplined artists can switch back and forth to balance constraints with creativity. Creative constraints? Hmm… Now that’s something I can ponder over on my drive home this evening.”

— Bob 

I loved when Bob sent this to me because it gives us a useful lens through which we can view leadership styles we observe.

So here is your first invitation: Think about Bob’s three types of leaders and ask yourself where you think you land. Are you naturally the artist, painting the big picture and trusting your team to see and feel? Are you more of the disciplinarian, giving people structure and clear expectations to work within? Or are you living in that third space, the disciplined artist, toggling between the two as the situation dictates?

There is no right or wrong answer, only useful information to observe. 

You have those observations. They reside in the back of your mind from a project that went sideways, a team member who surprised you, a moment when you made the wrong call and learned something critical.

Your second invitation is: Set a timer for ten minutes sometime today or this weekend and complete this sentence as many times as you can: “In my experience, leaders who _________ tend to _________.”

Do not edit yourself. Just write it down. You might surprise yourself with what you already know to be true.

And if you write some pearls you feel are worth sharing, send them my way. You might just end up in a future Thought Partner Friday! 😉