Business (can be a function within the business) goes through different times. One of the lenses to look at it is “war” and “peace” times.
“War time” is when the business is facing a major challenge or opportunity, and it needs to respond and experiment (to figure out the path) to maximise favourable outcome in the situation. In short, it is a chaotic environment with lots of unknown.
“Peace time” is when the business is gliding smoothly and mostly applying known frameworks and techniques to achieve business goals.
One prioritizes “outcome” and the other “process”. In one, you may be walking blind with a fuzzy destination, whereas in the other, you may have a clear roadmap and goal. I hope you get the drift?
My learning has been that both situations need very different kind of leaders and leadership traits. And the success depends a lot on the choice of leader driving through these times.
War time leader:
– runs on first principal thinking
– uses limited information to take decisions
– takes a decision and make it right
– changes direction and decision often
– is seen in the battlefield with team
– is an active support and demands aggressive results
– generally have spent a lot of time on the ground
– zoom-in, zoom-out rapidly
– extremely hands-on
– bias for action
– can be autocratic
Peace time leader:
– runs on mental models and uses his/her experience
– extremely data driven and analytical
– often takes the right decision
– sticks to the direction and decision taken
– is seen at the command centre analysing and supporting
– is an enabler for team and have patience with people
– generally have consulting background
– zoom-out view
– prefers to be hands-off
– bias for deeper thoughts
– democratic
One is not superior to other, but they are different, and are built through different circumstances over time. Both inspire, support, and develop their team mates.
If you are putting a peace time leader in charge of a team which is at war, it will probably fail. The reverse may also be true. And there will always be exceptions.
Identify the state of business – war and peace. And then understand the background of the leader, and understand what is his/her intrinsic leadership style. Accordingly, give them responsibilities.
I tilt more towards being a war time CEO who performs better in chaos and distress. What about you?
Do you have a leadership stories that resonates the above experience and thoughts?