The "A-Type" Leader: Alpha to Agile

Over the past several years I have been coaching many clients who are transitioning into leadership or executive roles, and some that have been in these roles for some time. A recurring theme of the coaching has been about how best to behave in certain situations or with different people - the internal conflict is based on who they are versus who they think they should be as leaders. This is where this topic opens up the conversation on the transitioning expectations of leaders from being Alpha leaders to Agile leaders.

For many of us who have been in the workforce for years, the traditional definition of a leader might sound familiar: "He is decisive and sticks to decisions," "He is strong," "He knows everything," "He has authority," "He is powerful," "He likes to win," and so on. You get the point—these descriptions often start with a masculine pronoun, although this is not always the case in reality. These traits define traditional leadership behaviors, which are still considered qualities in many contexts today. This leadership style, known as Alpha leadership, is characterized by such behaviors.

To understand where this Alpha set of behaviors might have originated, let us look to nature. In ethology, the study of social animals, the highest-ranking individual with dominance is known as the alpha male or female, achieving their rank by being physically stronger than the others. Human evolution, laws, and social structural changes have shifted this alpha behavior from physical dominance to mental and verbal overpowering. Outspoken, aggressive, and domineering leadership styles were, and often still are, considered strong. Consequently, anyone across the gender spectrum who did not naturally exhibit these behaviors felt pressured to conform to this rigid mold to succeed. This meant suppressing vulnerability, compassion, empathy, and compromise, as these were seen as weaknesses—not traits of a leader.

The Alpha leadership style relies on force and fear rather than empathy and inclusion, making the Alpha leader very lonely at the top.?

As you read the last few paragraphs, you might have felt some tension in various parts of your body, whether you agreed with me or not. I certainly did while writing it! Now, take a few deep breaths and release that tension before we delve into the idea and necessity of an Agile leader.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines "agile" as "having a quick, resourceful, and adaptable character," often referring to an agile mind. To put it in my own words, being agile means having the ability to adapt our behavior based on the situation, environment, and people we are engaging with to achieve a lasting positive impact and build deeper trust.

Awareness and humility are essential for understanding one's nature and how the environment can foster personal growth. Awareness forms the foundation of being Agile, and humility is the tree that helps you grow. There are three layers of creating awareness:

Self-Awareness is being aware of our natural behavior and tendencies is the starting point. The base behavior that each of uniquely exhibits is our lowest energy state; the state in which we instinctively react. There are many assessment that can be taken to systematically learn about our natural behavior. My go-to assessment is DiSC for two reasons: 1) It simple with two dimensions, four quadrants, and twelve styles - very easy to understand and practice. 2) It has a fundamental belief in humanistic psychology - humans are whole and complete, and with awareness, we create our choices.

External Awareness is understanding and recognizing the external situation (known and open to unknown factors), the cultural dynamics, the other individual's own behavioral style. As many factual data points that can be gathered with a curious and open mind during this stage, the better the understanding. What are the goals? Do we align on the goals? Why don't we align on goals? How will I communicate? Will they understand? How much time do we have? What decision do we need to make? When do we need to make this decision? Etc. Connecting the dots of the multiple factors increases awareness. In turn, this analysis opens up multiple ways we can behave and calculate the potential reaction. We now have options.

Awareness of our actions and the behavioral shift needed to move the current state forward positively. From all the options we have created, we can make a conscious choice on the behavior required that will positively benefit the path forward, faster.

Let us put this in a couple of examples:

?? Taylor tends to be introverted, takes a lot of pride in being accurate and thorough, and has a laser focus on the task at hand. As a self-aware person, Taylor also understands the limitations of being ultra-thorough against tight deadlines. The team leader has pulled in a timeline for the project, so now Taylor is at a crossroad of choices: spend energy to push to delay the project to feel comfortable when all the data is available (nature) or spend same energy evaluating the current data and create risk mitigation plans to maintain new timeline (agile).? Taylor makes the choice to meet the deadline with the data available by being more agile towards taking risk.

?? Sashi by nature is a driver for results and encourages paths forward to meet goals regularly. The current situation is sensitive as everyone is adjusting to a hybrid working environment after working from home for several years due to covid. They are balancing work, commute, home and childcare, and communication structures towards projects are being reevaluated. Shashi is a little frustrated and fully aware of this change. The options in front are to drive the team to meet the goals against all odds (nature) or to take a pause, listen and empathize with the individuals, make appropriate adjustments to the workload (agile). Shashi exercises that agility muscle to also slows down.

Let us dive deeper into self-awareness as this is where the journey starts. I will use the DiSC Assessment as the tool, but you can think of this as an analogy for any other assessment. Again, this assessment stems from its inherent belief that we all are whole and complete as we are; with awareness we have choices to change behaviors for more positive outcomes. Understanding our nature allows us to nurture ourselves better and be more agile with our choices.

If you are a C (Conscientious), aka Taylor, think of your pin (natural behavior on the DiSC spectrum) as one end of a rubber band. Taylor was stretching from C (Conscientiousness) to D (Dominance) and Shashi was stretching from D (Dominance) to S (Steadiness). When you stretch throughout the DiSC circle, based on your nature, certain behaviors will require more energy, others less. It is more difficult to be at this higher energy state for too long before you are snapping back. The further the stretch from the natural state, the more energy it will require. The more often you shift to new behaviors, the longer you can hold that state. Stretching to the different behaviors is a muscle - this is being Agile!

Agility involves recognizing when to change behavior and pivoting in time. It is a muscle you can work out and strengthen. Agile leaders are flexible, capable of making regular micro-shifts, and can return to their lower energy state without feeling drained. They create positive, inclusive spaces where acceptance thrives, yet objectively challenge the status quo.

An agile leader can adapt to their employees, peers, and stakeholders, understanding and appreciating their contributions, ensuring they are never isolated at the top. Begin your journey of self-awareness by asking, "What is my natural behavioral style?" Give yourself choices and take ownership of your behavior!