Four Kinds of Leaders

November 12, 2017
Emmanuel F. Silan, PhD
Transformative leaders always choose to see the best in the people and the organization.


Part of our work and passion in NLP Manila is to help develop and provide
leadership development programs for various companies. Having seen a fair
number of organization leaders - both from the public and private sector, and from studying uncounted books and articles about leadership, we can say
there are four primary classifications of leaders.

Leader 1:
Traditional Leadership

These guys have basically obey-and-command, I-am-better-than you Leadership style.

Variation: Highly narcissistic, messianic, types. Believing that they are God's gift to humanity - or worse, direct children of God. Believing that they are the only solutions to all the problems in this world.

Leader 2:
Peer-based Leadership

The leadership approach, consciously or not, is based on "
" mentality. Go easy on the people, go easy on the rules, and what you have right now? ! (That’s ok!) Cool cats, but they not going to drive you to do your very best.


Leader 2 is fun to be with, and you better have an internal drive to do and be better because he won't push you that far.

Leader 3:
Productive Leadership

Almost everything is about performance and productivity for this type of leader. He is an enabler. He will make sure that you get what you need to perform your work loads in the most efficient possible way, with the optimum outcome. They are solutions-oriented guys, mostly focused on metrics, processes, and outcomes.

Leader 3 is where you will be pushed to your limit, and grow at the same time. Just don't go looking for emotional support from them. Some of them may be parsimonious with their time.

These leaders have the attitude and competency of Leader 3, but they go beyond the expected leadership roles.
They take the time to get to know their people individually, finding out their strengths and make these strengths overcome their perceived weaknesses. They
focus on people's strengths, and intentionally, consciously, have a bias for the positive: seeing the best in both the people and the organization.

They mentor their people, both the young and the senior ones. They even influence the search for meaning of their people, some, to the level of spirituality. Leader 4 people live and breathe for others. We call their leadership paradigm as Leadership for Humanity.


They are the leaders we are willing to live for, and die for.

What type of leaders do you have in your organizations? And what type of leadership do you practice?

Choose well my friend.

 

About the author

Emmanuel F. Silan, PhD

NLP Coach and Counselor/ Human Behavior and Communications Specialist/ NLP Master Trainer (IN) and Coaching Master Trainer (ICI) / Organization Development Consultant/ Highly Experienced Team Building Facilitator/ Certified NLP Instructor and Master Practitioner/ has MA in Instruction Development and Technology/ PhD in Organization Development/ and currently taking Master in Counseling Psychology at  Ateneo de Manila University.