Leadership Behaviour

Leadership Archetypes:
A Secret to Team Success?

Team work is widely regarded as a more successful approach to solving business problems than strict hierarchical structures. A group of individuals can perform better and more efficiently together than each on his/her own. But what are the success factors that determine the team performance? While it remains undisputed that technical knowledge plays a key role, the importance of different leadership styles and behaviours is still not explored in-depth.

Kets de Vries, head of the Global Leadership Centre at the INSEAD Business School in Paris, has identified eight archetypes that can be used for understanding leadership behaviour. They are aimed at describing how managers handle not only problems, but also people. Depending on the situation and the challenges a company is faced with, different leadership qualities may be required. Should these specific requirements not be met when selecting the team members, then the undertaking is almost inevitably bound for failure – even in spite of outstanding technical competences of the respective managers.

The eight identified leadership archetypes are:

Strategist
recognizes future paths for growth and produces visionary and revolutionary ideas; shows difficulties in motivating people to follow

Change-Catalyst
keeps a clear head in an unstable environment and implements new forms of organization under pressure; tends to be bored by too much steadiness

Transactor
loves negotiations and permanently opens up new business transactions; often proves impatient in day-to-day business

Builder
strives for independence, acts as a strong decider and aims at creating lasting value; demonstrates high control affinity and has difficulties in communicating

Innovator
develops new concepts and solves highly complex problems through creativity; is likely to lack social skills and become isolated in the process

Processor
smoothens processes, creates new structures and translates abstract concepts into practice; often shows obstinacy and inflexibility

Coach
promotes personnel development and encourages performance by listening and empathy; tends to have problems with tough decisions

Communicator
has a positive attitude, is optimistic and can influence by eloquence; reluctant to go into detail and appears superficial


When considering the vast array of leadership behaviour, it becomes obvious that great care and foresight must be used when staffing teams with respective managers. Strengths and weaknesses of each of the leadership archetypes that prevail in the existing human resource pool need to be recognized and allocated accordingly. Thereby, conflicts and frictions in communication and cooperation can be minimized beforehand, leading to a considerably higher team performance.

And where does that leave the individual manager? There are only few specimens on Earth that can claim to thoroughly cover all eight archetypes; most of us have to conform themselves with a lower number. A good strategy might be to improve personal skills in some of the lesser developed archetypes. An even better strategy, however, concentrates on specific strengths and aims at expanding them: excellence in a few leadership archetype areas gains over weak coverage of all of them.

So which ones are your leadership archetypes?

Andreas Hauser