Top 8 Leadership Tools. Part 1.

 

If you want to stand out from the crowd, the best leadership tools are not the classics that everyone knows. So, you won’t find transformational or servant leadership in this list, for example.

 Instead, you want to focus on tools for today. Over the past year I’ve shared many such tools, some my own, some from others. For The Strategic Leadership Playbook, I’ve curated a list of the 8 tools that you liked most. Together, they received 3.5 million impressions and 60,000 engagements. Here they are:

1. Three Types of Leadership

• Leading from the Front: Visionary type of leaders that lead by example.
• Leading from the Side: Mentoring type of leaders that guide their people.
• Leading from the Back: Servant type of leaders that support their people.

2. Which Type of Strategist Are You?

A matrix based on approach (Top-Down vs. Bottom-Up) and mindset (Conservative vs. Progressive):

• Regent Strategist: Top-Down + Conservative.
• Servant Strategist: Bottom-Up + Conservative.
• Joker Strategist: Top-Down + Progressive.
• Player Strategist: Bottom-Up + Progressive.

3. Six Questions to Boost Meeting Effectiveness

1. What is the topic?
2. Who should be there?
3. What is the desired outcome?
4. How long will it take?
5. What needs to be provided?
6. When is the next meeting?

4. 10 Principles of Strategic Leadership

These include distributing responsibility, being honest about information, creating the right to fail, developing multiple paths to victory, and hiring for transformation.

5. Nice Leaders vs. Strong Leaders

• Nice Leaders: Humble and leading from behind; serving, attending, and coaching; soft-spoken, thoughtful, and kind; vulnerable and showing weaknesses.
• Strong Leaders: Visible and leading by example; decisive, sturdy, and daring; sharp and making tough choices; strong and leverages their strengths.

6. 7 Types of Negativity to Kill

1. Controlling everything.
2. Perfectionism.
3. Judging.
4. Complaining.
5. Blaming.
6. Self-doubt.
7. Expecting the worst.

7. Humble vs. Vulnerable Leadership

• Humility is the recognition that you don't know everything.
• Vulnerability is the willingness to admit mistakes and weaknesses to your team.

8. The Five Principles of Engaged Feedback

Focused on providing feedback that is constructive, growth-oriented, and maintains the dignity of the employee.

There are three types of leader. Those that stand in front of their people, those that stand behind their people, and those that stand next to their people. Which type of leader are you?

 

In the volume of leadership typologies, it is hard to see the forest for the trees. There’s visionary leaders, transformative leaders, servant leaders, transactional leaders, humble leaders, and so on and so forth.

 

To simplify things I’d like to divide leaders into three broad categories: leaders that lead from the front, leaders that lead from the back, and leaders that lead from the side.

The "Three Types of Leadership" tool by Jeroen Kraaijenbrink focuses on where a leader physically and psychologically positions themselves relative to their team.

Rather than choosing just one, a "complete leader" is agile, switching between these positions based on the specific needs of the situation and the maturity of the team.

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1. Leading from the Front (Visionary)

This style is about being highly visible and taking charge at the forefront of challenges.

• Approach: You lead by example, directing and "paving the way" for your people.
• Key Benefits: Powerful for driving innovation, creating a strong sense of alignment, and providing decisive direction during crises.
• Risks: Can become overly dominant, potentially making team members feel "unsafe" to speak up or creating followers who are too dependent on the leader.

2. Leading from the Side (Mentoring)

This is a peer-to-peer approach rooted in equality and collaboration.

• Approach: You stand alongside your team members, offering "hands-on" guidance and frequent feedback.
• Key Benefits: Fosters high openness and a collaborative culture where everyone's voice feels valued.
• Risks: The leader can become "invisible," which may lead to legitimacy issues or unclear decision-making processes.

3. Leading from the Back (Servant)

Often compared to a shepherd tending a flock, this style emphasizes support and empowerment.

• Approach: You focus on your team's needs, facilitating their work from behind the scenes to let them take the lead.
• Key Benefits: Highly people-centric; it builds team confidence, independence, and long-term resilience.
• Risks: Can be perceived as "weak" or passive; if not balanced, it can lead to a lack of clear vision or "pampering" that stalls progress.

As we can see, all three have their pros and cons. This means that there is no single best or worst way. But, we can have preferences. My personal preference is leading from the side: standing (or sitting) next to people rather than in front or behind them.

Most founders assume they must always lead from the front.
But the best leaders switch styles depending on the moment.

Great leadership isn’t about the spotlight.
It’s about knowing where to stand.

Which type of leader are you?

Which type of leader do you prefer?

 

The "Which Type of Strategist Are You?" tool is a 2x2 matrix designed to help leaders understand their natural strategic style based on how they approach change and how they interact with their organization. A strategist is a person with both the responsibility and the skill to formulate and implement an organization’s strategy.

This tool categorizes leadership into four quadrants based on two primary axes:

The Two Axes

1. The Vertical Axis (Hierarchy):
• Top-Down: Strategy is driven by the leader's vision and direct instructions.
• Bottom-Up: Strategy is collaborative, drawing ideas and execution from the frontline employees.
2. The Horizontal Axis (Mindset):
• Conservative: Focuses on stability, risk mitigation, and proven methods.
• Progressive: Focuses on innovation, disruption, and taking calculated risks.

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The Four Strategist Types

1. The King Strategist (Top-Down + Conservative)

• Style: Authoritative and traditional.
• Characteristics: This leader values order and established systems. They make the decisions at the top and expect the organization to follow a "tried and true" path. Having a clear vision of where to take their organization the next couple of years. They are capable thinkers and forward-looking.
• Best for: Turnaround situations or highly regulated industries where safety and compliance are paramount. This type know everything about the organization and they are strong and independent Chief Executive.
• Weakness: They can lose touch with the rest of the organization. Too far ahead and expect too much of others, thereby creating frustration.

2. The Servant (Bottom-Up + Progressive)

• Style: Supportive and steady.
• Characteristics: They focus on empowering their team to improve existing processes. They listen to the needs of the staff but prefer to make incremental, safe improvements rather than radical changes. Has democratic approach to strategizing. Instead of defining the strategy themselves, they prefer to keep their own views to themselves, and rather want to hear what others in the organization are saying.
• Best for: Maintaining high-performing, established teams and optimizing internal culture. This strategist is strong in creating harmony, engagement and commitment. They are able to create a shared strategy of which many people in the organization feel ownership.
• Weakness: Because they hardly share their own vision and let others do this, they may easily be seen as weak and indecisive.

3. The Elder Strategist (Top-Down + Conservative)

• Style: continuity and following traditions.
• Characteristics: likes to keep things as they are. They often have been decades with the organization and have been in a leading position for a long time. They appreciate continuity and are hesitant in embracing new developments. In their view, tomorrow’s strategy should largely be a continuation of the past.
• Best for: strong sense of history and continuity. Rather than jumping on hypes, they embrace what the organization is already good at.
• Weaknesses: can be defensive and with their focus on tradition can lose touch with internal and external developments.

4. The Prince (Bottom-Up + Progressive)

• Style: Collaborative and agile.
• Characteristics: This leader encourages everyone to be an innovator. They create a culture where the best ideas win, regardless of where they come from. They are full of creativity and enthusiasm and see opportunities for change everywhere.They are able to share their enthusiasm and motivate others to be innovative too
• Best for: Tech companies and creative industries where rapid, team-led innovation is the competitive advantage.
• Weaknesses: make the organization jump from one idea to the next, change strategy regularly and never get into delivery mode.

3. The Joker

• Style: Impulsive, non transparent, chaotic.
• Characteristics: The Joker Strategist is in fact a non-strategist. They have few, clear ideas about where to take their organization, and they have limited abilities to make decisions or enforce action.To hide their lack of ideas and abilities, some of them heavily use strategy concepts and tools to pretend. Or they do exactly the opposite, downplaying the importance of strategy and saying they rely on their gut feeling and that strategy is waste of time anyway.Like to joke around and stay popular.
• Best for: their weakness may trigger others to step up and take their role as one of the other four types of strategist.
• Weaknesses: the lack of clear strategy and the lack of execution, as well as their general ineffectiveness.

 

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