Who Are You Meant to Be? (14 page)

Giving advice comes easy for Leaders. They automatically seem to know the right thing to do in any situation. Free with both solicited and unsolicited advice and opinions, Leaders let people know their thoughts on which direction to take in life. If you’re not careful, the Leader will sit right down in the driver’s seat of your life and speed away. This is the way Leaders show their love and affection—by taking charge of the planning and activities of their family, friends, neighbors, and colleagues. They don’t just help people get started; once Leaders are involved, they stay in control to ensure that everyone stays on track.

The character Monica Geller on the TV show
Friends
is a prime example of the Leader Style:

Well known for her need to be in control, Monica was often described as “freakishly strong.” Not one to give up this control easily, she was always more careful with dating than her female friends were, ultimately choosing Chandler as her mate—a man she could certainly dominate!

Monica’s need to control her environment and everyone in it was acted out frequently in her obsession with cleaning. In the pilot episode of
Friends,
roommate Phoebe had just moved out because she was concerned that their friendship would not survive Monica’s maniacal tidiness. In the episode “The One with the Stain,” Monica arrives home to find that the apartment has been cleaned. She asks Chandler, “Oh, no, was I cleaning in my sleep again?” Sheepishly, Chandler replies that he hired a maid to clean. Monica replies anxiously, “I hope that by maid, you mean mistress, ’cause if some other woman was here cleaning, then…!” Chandler tries to soothe her by saying, “Honey, I know you don’t like to relinquish control…” but it doesn’t work. Monica blurts, “
Relinquish
is just a fancy word for lose!”

What Makes Leaders Tick?

The Leader Style operates from the left rational brain and therefore tends to focus more on thoughts about people and situations than on any personal experience of the situations themselves. Recall that the left rational brain is responsible for the formation of our self-concept or our idea about who we are and is unaffected by moment-to-moment changes in our feelings. This makes Leaders confident and self-assured as long as they think they are right. “Sometimes in error, but never in doubt” captures the essence of the Leader’s self-concept. While other Styles feel they have to earn the right to take charge, Leaders believe they are born with it.

The left rational brain is strong on self-regulation, or the management of impulses and emotions. Leaders are able to dispassionately consider facts and situations and use reason to decide on the appropriate course of action relative to their desired results. However, they also have the tendency to control rather than manage. Should they have an impulse to see a friend or to do something special for their partner, they can easily override it in favor of finishing whatever task they were doing.

Generally, Leaders have a powerful presence and need to stay in control of any situation they are in by exercising this power. Leaders enjoy feeling powerful—to achieve, to produce, and to control outcomes—both their own and others’. They desire to be the person implementing their agenda and influencing others to follow it. They don’t like having to depend on others to get things done.

Leaders have the ability to be intensely involved in many things but not personally invested in anything. They will discuss all subjects with vigor and not be personally hurt or affected by what is said. Their conversations often involve them thinking out loud and using the other person as a sounding board. They put all ideas forward, even the ones that don’t make sense. Leaders need to say things aloud so they can “see” what they are thinking more clearly.

Terry is the chief operating officer of a global manufacturing company that has recently become unionized. He is taking the unionization of the workforce very personally, as he believes it reflects negatively on him as a leader. Terry now has to follow new procedures and can no longer operate with full control and impunity in managing his employees. In classic Leader style, Terry is growing increasingly frustrated with the situation, feeling his power and control slipping away from him.

At home, he has started being hypercritical of his wife, Lara, and their children, insisting that they do everything his way. He lost his temper twice in a single week and almost got into a fight with a driver who cut him off on the way to work. He blamed his behavior on the people who led the unionization movement at the company, and his rants against them have become legendary.

Lara finally put her foot down, telling him that he couldn’t keep acting the way he was. She suggested they go to counseling to improve the situation. When Terry and Lara came to see me, it was clear in the first session that the issues were not between them, but with Terry’s loss of control at work. We agreed that Terry would continue with counseling but that Lara didn’t need to return unless Terry’s behavior escalated at home.

During the ensuing sessions, Terry began to see how his need to be in control was being frustrated by the unionization at work and that he was trying—unsuccessfully—to meet that need by becoming more controlling at home. I presented Terry with the choice he had to make: he could either reflect on his leadership style and work to change his approach, or he could leave his employer and find another position in a nonunion environment. Either way, he could not bring his frustrated need home.

Terry decided that after working so hard to get where he was in his job, he was not willing to leave, and we began working on developing his emotional self-awareness. I gave him feedback on the emotional impact of his behavior on others and how frightening he could be. This was a shock to him, as his idea of himself was very different from the reality of his behavior. He couldn’t believe that people didn’t see how much he cared about them and how hard he was working for them. Through many sessions and a lot of hard work on Terry’s part, he shifted to a more synergistic and collaborative approach to managing people. Just talking about his behavior and recognizing he could do something about the situation helped him feel more in control. His home life returned to normal as he practiced new ways of dealing with issues at work.

Relationship Style of the Leader

Leaders’ relationships tend to be open, honest, and stimulating. Leaders like to do things with others and often have a large circle of friends and acquaintances. They are entertaining, engaging, and social people who easily attract people to them. Both at work and in their personal lives, Leaders form relationships based on what they are doing or producing. They tend to get involved with people in organizations that have a purpose—serving on the board of organizations associated with music, art, and literature, or managing fund-raising projects. They may become the coach of their children’s soccer team or head of the board for the local homeless shelter. This is the way they show their caring to others. They take an active part in their relationships and express their thoughts and ideas with enthusiasm.

Though not overtly tender and empathetic, Leaders are often loyal and committed partners and friends. They make sure the lives of their partner and children are well organized and directed, and they provide equal praise for success and criticism should they stray off course. They want their partner to participate in their social world and often have rituals with other family members to make sure they stay in touch. While they enjoy being active and doing things for fun, their need to critique what they are doing instead of just having fun can be a source of puzzlement for others.

For twenty years, Blake (Stabilizer) has golfed with his brother-in-law Steve (Leader) three or four times a year. Steve had the habit of recounting exactly what he had done wrong after every missed shot. Blake would listen to his self-critiques and would agree with Steve; however, he couldn’t understand why, if Steve knew what he was doing wrong, he wasn’t fixing his own mistakes.

Some Leaders try to run their relationships as they would run their real estate firms or widget factories. They believe there is a place for everything and that nothing should be out of place. They are constantly intervening to do things for others and easily take over from people who can’t keep up with their pace. At some point, when Leaders takes stock of their relationships, they realize that they are the ones who do everything and that without their nagging or cajoling others, nothing would get accomplished. When their take-charge behavior unconsciously becomes a taking-over behavior, others just step back, afraid to get swept up in the Leader’s warp-speed productivity. Leaders have a tendency to foster dependency in others because they think they know how to do things faster and better than others can, and often they’re right!

Although they deeply care about their loved ones, Leaders can be so focused on work that it interferes with their personal relationships. If it’s your birthday, you can bet that your Leader partner has that information tucked away somewhere, neatly organized, but you can’t assume that this knowledge will translate into anything like a romantic weekend, or anything with a heart or a flower on it, although sometimes it might if he or she scheduled it into a planner. Although Leaders are armed with the best intentions and enjoy time spent with family, doing so often takes second place to work. When at home, they may even go as far as to sneak their iPhone to the washroom with them after you think you’ve won the “turn your iPhone off when you get home” battle.

How Leaders Satisfy Their Need to Be in Control

If I allowed these tragic letters to affect me, I’d be a wreck, because I get many heartbreakers, and I just have to separate myself from the problems of these readers. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to help them.

—Ann Landers

Giving Advice

It often seems that Leaders have a finger in every possible pie. Their talents for organizing and advising in a variety of situations are both useful and beneficial to others. Leaders will take on the role of adviser with friends, family members, and others in their community. Their unique ability to be objective and detached lets them delve deeply into someone’s personal problems without being emotionally affected themselves. They can then move on to something totally unrelated in the next moment, cool and collected. They aren’t bogged down in the emotions of others, so they can stay with the issues long enough to give advice that is substantial and undiluted by their own feelings.

Self-Protective Leaders overpower others.
In their SP System, Leaders are tougher, more aggressive, and domineering. No longer objective in their advisory capacity, they become impatient with others, lose their temper, and become emotionally and physically intimidating. They behave like dictators, pushing or browbeating others to take their advice. They can go from zero to ballistic in seconds, leaving the witnesses to their behavior in shock. Leaders amp up their criticism of others to get others to do things according to the advice they have given. When it comes to being critical, Leaders are in a class by themselves. Their critical thoughts are almost palpable before they are unleashed. Self-protective Leaders can be so intimidating that they cause a domino effect of activating others’ SP Systems. When the SP Leaders convention comes to your town, it’s a good time to take a vacation somewhere else!

I have sometimes…forgotten…to pat the back of someone or say “thank you”…I wish I were just the nicest person [but] I am a business person.

—Martha Stewart

Self-Actualizing Leaders let others be.
Leaders often know the best course of action for people to take, but need to develop influence skills. Their command and control tactics are fine when situations warrant them, but taking over someone else’s life is generally not a good use of these skills. Although not being attached to whether people take their advice initially causes them to feel anxious, SA Leaders let go. They learn to let people find their own way and make their own mistakes. They also cultivate an appropriate amount of patience and wait for others to take the initiative. Leaders show their caring for others by helping them without giving into the impulse to take control. They can tolerate their own feelings of helplessness while they watch a loved one struggle with problems, and they trust that everything will work out. They have learned that people are not objects to be fixed but feeling beings to be understood, cared for, and nurtured.

Being Productive

Leaders are much more motivated when their activities have a purpose, when they can feel a sense of their physical power and mastery, and when their efforts produce a tangible result. Having goals and achieving them provides opportunities for Leaders to increase their sense of mastery and power. Because there must be a component of usefulness and productivity to their activities, Leaders don’t make a point of satisfying their social or personal needs. They prefer to do things with others rather than alone while at the same time either calling the shots or giving input into the rules of the game. Leaders radiate a cool, calm, and collected attitude while doing whatever they must do to reach their goals.

Kyle was a highly successful business manager in a brokerage firm. He worked fourteen-hour days and usually weekends, sending emails to his subordinates at all hours. His work ethic and management style made everyone around him feel both anxious and inadequate. Although most of the time Kyle was pleasant enough, he never engaged in small talk or inquired about the lives of his staff. If someone got sick and couldn’t meet a deadline, or made a mistake, Kyle would blow up and rant, then storm into his office and slam the door. He would later reappear as though nothing had happened. He was surprised when his managers told him that several staff members had threatened to quit if he didn’t change his behavior.

Self-Protective Leaders work, work, work.
SP Leaders can dehumanize themselves when they work as hard as they do without taking into account the impact this has on their well-being, their behavior, and their relationships. These Leaders end up working so much that they are absent from their personal lives. They usually love their work, so they have difficulty setting boundaries around the amount of time they spend there. Work is probably the most common addiction for Leaders and is a way of avoiding their relationships, emotions, and interpersonal conflict. They risk being perceived by others as machinelike sticks in the mud or “married to their work.”