As a student of leadership and an executive coach helping leaders to grow for nearly two decades, I’ve been inspired by the remarkable stories of leaders who overcame great adversity and managed through a crisis to reach their goals, and not nearly enough on those who accomplish great things through careful planning and strategy execution.
I call the first type of leader a reactive leader and one who is quick to shift focus and respond to the given situation to succeed. The second type is more proactive as they carefully prepare for what they want to do and with steady and thoughtful means then accomplish their objectives. Obviously, no one leader is 100% one way or the other but is likely to be stronger in one direction.
Reactive leaders are better known because they typically overcome adversity and succeed despite the odds, and this lends itself to a captivating story. These leaders include polar explorer Ernest Shackleton, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, and President Abraham Lincoln.
Proactive leaders may be less well-known and celebrated as what they do may not make headlines or provide a necessarily compelling story to promote their legacy. These are leaders like polar explorer Roald Amundsen, Boeing and Ford CEO Alan Mulally, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Being both reactive and proactive are important qualities in leadership, but perhaps we focus far too often on the former due to the compelling stories they provide. Yet reactive leaders can sometimes create their own crisis that demands they are needed to rescue us.
Look no further than Shackleton, who is celebrated for his leadership in keeping every one of his crew alive and reaching safety despite incredible odds. Trouble is the journey should have never taken place given the conditions Shackleton knew of but largely ignored. Or Musk, the mercurial leader of Telsa, SpaceX and X (formerly known as Twitter), who continually confounds customers, shareholders and employees due to his erratic behavior.
Management historian Martin Gutmann in his TED Talk says we too often celebrate the wrong leaders when we focus on these more reactive qualities. And, unfortunately, the leaders we celebrate are the leaders we learn from.
It’s important to avoid what Gutmann calls the “Action Fallacy,” which tricks us into celebrating the wrong leaders. Gutmann says we too often look for leadership potential in those who:
- Talk a lot (regardless of what they say)
- Show up confidently (regardless of their competence)
- Are constantly busy (regardless of what they are doing)
We see this play out in the workplace constantly and it needs to be corrected if we want to elevate leaders who will truly make a difference.
The novelist David Foster Wallace wrote that real leaders are those who “help us overcome the limitations of our own individual laziness and selfishness and weakness and fear and get us to do better, harder things than we can get ourselves to do on our own.”
Don’t confuse a good story with good leadership. Don’t be fooled by those who speak a lot, exude confidence, and are constantly busy as good leaders. Instead focus on what they say, their competence and what they accomplish. Look for a track record of success, an ability to avoid crises, and overall boring management skills. And seek out proactive leaders, who are skilled to react when a crisis occurs.
