The Paradoxes of Leadership, Pt. 3 - Commanding vs. Collaborative
- gheverly
- Sep 4
- 6 min read
About the Author: Pete Ward - Partner, Rise Above Consulting
Pete Ward is a globally experienced founder and executive. After kicking off his career as a rock climbing rescue ranger, Pete then contributed to our foundational understanding of the mathematics of Neuroscience at university. Looking for the greatest possible positive impact, Pete brought that intellectual rigor combined with a fearless commitment to results into the business world where he has built his career as a leader. That career has spanned industries and continents and resulted in a truly unique perspective on how to build and grow profitable businesses. From New York to Oxford to Switzerland and from Tech to Financial Services to Retail, Pete has crafted high-performance strategies on the cutting edge regardless of context.
How do you motivate the people around you? How do you inspire them to believe in the direction of your organization? Do you motivate them to believe in you first as the leader, or do you inspire them to believe in themselves first as the team? You need both of course, but you need to start somewhere and your natural bias says a lot about who you are as a leader.
Previously, I introduced the concept of the Paradoxes of Leadership and the four core responsibilities of a leader. In the simplest terms, the work of a leader is as follows;
Make Decisions | Provide direction, commitment, and impetus to your organization |
Motivate Your People | Align your organization, clarify its purpose, and get buy-in |
Resource the Organization | Provide the tools, structure and assets that your people need to do the job |
See the Big Picture | Think strategically, and know when to be adaptable and when to be resilient |
Today, we will focus on how you motivate your organization and your people. Are you commanding or collaborative?
The commanding leader is easy to spot. They inspire those around them and provide clarity, purpose and motivation to an organization. Think about famous executives or founders that we idolize and borrow quotes from in business. They’re charismatic celebrities in their own right and can influence outcomes through the force of their personality alone. The power of being revered is real and when your people believe in you, they will go above and beyond to execute your vision.
Meanwhile, the collaborative leader is probably that one boss you’ve ever had who you actually liked. Most leaders will say they like to elevate those around them, but very few actually know how to do it. A truly collaborative leader elevates the people around them naturally, and you feel better about yourself after speaking with them. Even when they’re delivering hard news.
So it helps to ask yourself: Does your team believe in you? Do you help your team believe in themselves? Both are important, but do you truly understand the difference, and do you know how and when to use both approaches to leading your team ?
Commanding and Collaborative are complementary antonyms because the complete leader must understand when it is most valuable to inspire their team and when it is more important to mentor them. And the complete leader must equally be able to perform both functions.
Commanding Leadership
The Good
You build an inspired culture around your vision for the organization. You want to make people feel like they are part of something special. You have the ability to be engaging and captivating and your presence can be felt throughout your team or organization, even when you’re not in the room. Your teams like you, maybe even love you and as a result they are often willing to go the extra mile to support your vision.
The Challenge
It’s easy to make the business about YOU rather than about the goals of the organization. From the perspective of those you manage, this approach can feel overbearing and like a cult of personality where in-groups and out-groups form, upending incentives and creating a culture where liking you and being liked by you becomes more important than the work. As Rise Above’s Founder Gavin Heverly likes to say “In leadership, it’s ON you, but it’s not ABOUT you”.
Collaborative Leadership
The Good
You are a humble and thoughtful mentor who lifts your team with pragmatism. You create a culture of shared responsibility where team members rarely feel isolated or alone, and encourage support in the business. You invest, and encourage others to invest in the success of the team in such a way that all ideas are welcome and respected. You strive to be respected for your diplomacy and open communication, which not only makes you an approachable leader, but creates a bond amongst your team.
The Challenge
This approach can create a leadership vacuum if you are not also able to take a more assertive approach when circumstances require. And if you fade too far into the background, you may also present as withdrawn which can lead to a sense that you’re hiding something. In the worst-case scenarios, you can create a culture where comfort becomes more important than growth. Organizations can then fall into a death spiral of dwindling performance as individuals lack accountability and there are no clear expectations or performance management systems in place.
How do I address “The Bad” from each approach?
First, understand that it’s not easy. The Commanding/Collaborative Paradox of Leadership is a reflection of your personality as a leader. The team(s) that you manage will take on your strengths and weaknesses to a degree, and while we all wish to improve, real change and self-awareness is hard. More than any of the other Paradoxes of Leadership, you cannot outsource improvement in this area.
Here’s what I suggest:
If you’re naturally more commanding - comfortable leading from the front, making decisions and being in the spotlight, then I suggest considering the following axiom:
“You are listening when you are able to be changed by the people around you”
Look at every member of your team. They all have a valuable perspective, otherwise they wouldn’t be there. When was the last time that each individual on that team changed your mind about something? When were you last in a mindset where you were legitimately able to be changed by someone else? If you become legitimately collaborative, every member of your team should see their own work positively reflected in the business and credit should be shared widely for success. Have you ever created that environment before?
If you’re naturally more collaborative - caring, empathic, and good at making people feel connected and seen, then I suggest considering this axiom instead:
"The art of leadership is saying no, not saying yes. It is very easy to say yes"
When was the last time you were willing to directly confront someone on your team? Do you have a strong enough sense of self to know how to do that in a productive fashion? Does the idea of confrontation make you anxious in the first place? All of us, even those of us at the very bottom of the Org Chart, are the leaders of something, even if only the leaders of our own careers. Can you be assertive - providing the clarity, confidence and decisiveness that any organization (or individual) needs to be successful?
Ultimately, the reasons that Commanding vs. Collaborative Paradox of Leadership matters are summed up brilliantly in the Radical Candor matrix by Kim Scott:
If you wish to lead your organization into the upper right quadrant of this matrix and towards growth, you need to be direct and caring. Commanding and Collaborative. We have all experienced the negative outcomes from a leader or manager who lacks either skill, even when they’re good at the other. Many of us in the climbing industry wish to be the good guy, but is that leading your organization to ignorance and ruinous empathy?
Here are some small, but helpful things that I suggest to learn more about your leadership style:
In a group meeting…
Do you sit at the head of the table, or off to the side? Try whichever is less comfortable for you.
Do you speak first and direct the agenda, or do you delegate the agenda ahead of time and take notes, waiting to speak last. Again, try whichever is less comfortable for you.
In a 1 to 1 meeting…
What is the ratio of you speaking vs the other person? Can you have the same success if it's 70/30 either way? Why or why not?
What are you communicating with your body language? Are you open and attentive? Are you distracted and dismissive? Studies differ on the exact number, but I think it's safe to say that over 50% of all communication is non-verbal. Do you know what you’re communicating?
In your communication patterns…
Do you provide context and rationale for your thinking or do you just say what you mean in plain language? Both are important skills, but which comes more naturally to you?
Going back to the first Paradox of leadership, are you more naturally decisive or analytical? Both are important, which is your comfort zone?