Reflecting on decades of performance changes and evolution within my company, and considering the teachings and philosophies, I envisioned a more comprehensive model for organizational culture. In this envisioned culture model, I link a culture pillar to each of the three domains of an organization: the principal executive (CEO), the organization itself, and the marketplace. The three culture pillars linked to these domains are “executive leadership,” “organizational facilitation,” and “marketplace accountability.” Each of these cultural pillars has its own internal mechanisms for optimization, with overall organizational culture depending on the integration of the optimized pillars. Executive leadership is the leadership provided by the CEO over the organization. Organizational facilitation is the mechanism by which values and purpose are discovered or developed, and the flow of communication through the organization is enabled and optimized. This is the pillar of organizational health. Marketplace accountability is how the organization holds itself accountable for adding differentiated value to the marketplace – the core purpose of business. In the culture model, each of these pillars has its own internal structure and mechanisms that enable it to perform and integrate with the other pillars.
This paper is a summary of only the Executive Leadership pillar of my three-pillar culture model. The Executive Leadership pillar, as described in this paper, is observational and emerges from reflection on historic performance within my company, as well as a study of existing leadership models and theories. It is motivated by the evolution of leadership in my company, and that the leadership models I’ve studied have failed to fully capture my personal experience as an entrepreneur and CEO. Further, my experience in the study of leadership models is that while many of these model effective leadership, not all effective leadership is modeled – in essence, there are often exceptions or outliers that are left unexplained. For me, this makes these models valuable but insufficient.
For my model, I examine executive leadership along two dimensions: from core to peripheral aspects, and from relational to non-relational influences. Aspects core to business leadership are those within the leader’s purview and relevant to the business’s goals and objectives. Aspects peripheral to business leadership are those that are outside the leader’s control or outside the business’s goals and objectives. Relational influences are those that require interactions or affinities between the leader and the subordinate. They are exclusively relational, and the leadership power exists only through relational connection. Non-relational influences may or may not have relational elements, but they are not relationally exclusive. They are circumstances or leader attributes that influence subordinate response, independent of or incremental to relational connection.
From these two dimensions, we have four quadrants of power that leaders can draw from:
Moving clockwise from top left, quadrant 1 is titled “Managerial.” Here, we are defining managerial as the interactions between the leader and subordinate that are relevant to the goals and objectives of the company. This would be all work related interactions between the leader and the subordinate. In quadrant 1, the leader derives leadership power from these interactions. Quadrant 2 is titled “Attributive,” because the leader derives power from personal attributes that facilitate influence, independent of interactions. Quadrant 3 is titled “Circumstantial,” because the leader derives power from the external circumstances within which they are operating. Quadrant 4 is titled “Affinitive,” because the leader derives power from non-business affinities shared with subordinates. These can be interactive or non-interactive but are always relational.
We can think of quadrant 1, as ‘using or applying’ and quadrant 2 as ‘having or possessing.’ Quadrant 3 is ‘outside of the leader’s purview‘ and quadrant 4 is ‘unrelated to company objectives.’
To help with understanding, here are a few of the many items that may appear in each quadrant:
The premise of the framework’s value is that different leaders draw leadership power from different quadrants at different times, and further that different leaders have a core quadrant from which they draw their leadership power. While all successful leaders draw from multiple quadrants (more on that later), we can look at a few well-known, high-profile entrepreneurs and CEOs as examples of drawing power from different quadrants. Steve Jobs, who was intensely passionate and a strong visionary, drew disproportionately from quadrant 2 in building Apple. Howard Schultz, who emphasized human connection at Starbucks, drew disproportionately from quadrant 1. Elon Musk tailors his narrative and is strategically deliberate with his messaging to draw from quadrant 3. In a very different way, we can see quadrant 3 leadership in Ryan Gellert at Patagonia, or when John Mackey was running Whole Foods. Both companies integrate their company mission with solving a meaningful societal problem. This is leadership power. In quadrant 4, we can see business leaders like Andrew Cathy at Chick-fil-A or David Green at Hobby Lobby, both of whom have spiritual and ideological affinities with key employees and market segments. Here, shared values that are separate from the specific goals and objectives of the company create leadership affinities. The manifestation of these values as intrapersonal attributes for work ethic, integrity, and honesty is an example of quadrant 2 integration. The distinction between the affinities and the attributes is difficult, but research validates its legitimacy. The affinities themselves are peripheral to the goals and objectives of the company; the manifest attributes are core.
These quadrant associations, as described, do not mean that all these leaders don’t draw from other quadrants as well – they certainly do.
A challenge of adoption for this framework is understanding or defining the barriers between the quadrants, especially between quadrant 1 (managerial) and quadrant 2 (attributive). For example, attributes cultivated through company development, such as passion and vision in quadrant 2, may be more dependent on quadrant 1 integration than attributes that are intrapersonal character traits, like integrity, honesty, and work ethic. Can passion and vision have value for leadership without interactions in quadrant 1? Within this framework, yes, and those quadrant 1 skills function as an amplifier rather than an enabler for these quadrant 2 attributes. A 2023 GQ Magazine interview with Tim Cook effectively demonstrates this. Cook explained that he wanted to join Apple because Steve Jobs “really wanted to change the world.” For Tim Cook, this set Steve Jobs apart as a leader. Here, vision alone provides leadership power – drawing only from quadrant 2, independent of quadrant 1.
I can draw from my experience for another example. One of my quadrant 2 strengths was work ethic. As the company Founder and CEO, I felt obligated to work hard. I could never have expected a company employee to work harder than I did, or to work when I wasn’t. For me, this was a matter of conscience. While not the intention, this was leadership. My work ethic contributed to leadership power in quadrant 2 – again, drawing only from quadrant 2, independent of quadrant 1.
Quadrant 3 can also be further delineated. Competitive or non-competitive threats may be more situational, while societal needs and nobility of mission are more stable states of circumstance. Additionally, there is a distinction between leaders who leverage quadrant 3 opportunities hyperbolically by exaggerating or inventing circumstances or leveraging false narratives and those who honestly assess and communicate circumstances with accuracy and integrity. The former would be trading quadrant 2 (honesty and integrity) for quadrant 3 (a compelling circumstance). Here, we can envision a leader who can find power in the short term by creating an illusion of a circumstance but relinquish it in the long term by compromising integrity. Trade-offs exist between quadrants.
The model further postulates that leaders typically have a natural and primary quadrant source of leadership power. However, sources of power may also be situational. There is ongoing fluidity, and quadrant boundaries are not rigid. There is interdependency between quadrants. Individual items within quadrants will vary in their interdependency. For example, ‘passion’ in quadrant 2 is interdependent with ‘communicating’ in quadrant 1. Leaders who are very passionate (quadrant 2) often manage reactively (negative for quadrant 1) but are also effective in communicating their vision (positive for quadrant 1). Influencing, which would be a quadrant 1 item, is amplified by track record or integrity in quadrant 2. Circumstances in quadrant 3, which are often short-term and transient, can mask deficiencies in quadrants 1 and 2. Leaders can sometimes exaggerate or embellish circumstances in quadrant 3 to draw more leadership power.
For me, this perspective of leadership adds value to the current narrative in three ways:
1. It helps explain the exceptions and outliers that are unexplained in the existing modeling. Much of the current modeling is effective at creating an understanding of how its elements and design will foster great leadership, but it doesn’t explain great leadership that doesn’t fit the design. From this quadrant framework, there are very different ways leaders can lead, albeit with likely differences in durability and influence on organizational maturity. We mentioned Howard Schultz, Steve Jobs, and Elon Musk as each drawing leadership power from different quadrants. Much of the contemporary modeling that focuses on interpersonal skills would predict success only for Howard Schultz. Yet, all three built very successful companies that demonstrated a wide margin of competitive advantage.
2. My personal and observational experience is that Founders and entrepreneurial leaders, unlike hired or promoted CEOs, often lack quadrant 1 leadership skills, and lead disproportionately from quadrant 2, at the expense of quadrant 1. This makes sense because a Founder’s rite of passage to their executive leadership position is their good idea along with marketplace viability, and with a lot of drive and passion. Unlike a hired or promoted CEO, their rite of passage is not their inter-relational or managerial skills. Additionally, strong vision and passion can cultivate impatience, intolerance, and ill-temperament – reactive managerial behaviors that are subtractive from quadrant 1, and not very helpful or productive. By recognizing the different quadrants, these strong quadrant 2 leaders can work on quadrant 1 skills.
3. The third area of added value is less obvious but equally important. By recognizing leadership in this quadrant framework and understanding which quadrants leaders are drawing power from, leaders can engage in activities or practices to integrate the quadrants. By integration, we mean that the whole of the quadrant items working together across quadrant boundaries is greater than their sum. This is integral leadership. Instead of a collection of leadership skills, the grid quadrants become a system of leadership through integration. We should consider quadrant integration as the quality of fit of quadrant items across quadrant boundaries. How quadrant items fit together into a system determines the amount of amplification in quadrant integration.
With this understanding of quadrant integration, leaders can facilitate or accelerate it to improve leadership effectiveness. One opportunity to achieve this acceleration in leadership effectiveness lies in quadrant 1, specifically in the difference between reactive and responsive managerial styles. If a leader with a reactive style can transition to a responsive style of interactivity, this serves as an amplifier for quadrants 2 and 3. Similarly, items in quadrant 2 or 3 can amplify the value of responsiveness. My experience suggests that contemplative practices, such as mindful meditation, can be beneficial in facilitating this transition. A substantial body of research demonstrates that this practice is highly effective in fostering a transition from a reactive to a responsive interactive style. The practice also cultivates systems intelligence – an affinity for interrelatedness, which enables the intuition of the value of fit for amplification—the essence of integration.
Although this paper’s subject is the executive leadership pillar of the larger culture model, it is worth mentioning that an opportunity for quadrant integration also exists in the organizational facilitation culture pillar, mentioned in the opening paragraph. Here, organizations can utilize assessments to discover complementary quadrant strengths for their key decision-makers in executive positions and leverage organizational health to integrate quadrants across the organization. As a Founder, I drew disproportionately from Quadrant 2 (often at the expense of quadrant 1), so hiring other executives and key decision-makers with strong quadrant 1 skills was effective for integrating the leadership quadrants.
At an inflection point for scaling in my company, both of these methods were utilized, yielding positive and measurable results. I began practicing mindful meditation, which resulted in the emergence of improved skills in quadrant 1. My experience was that the transition to less reactivity and more responsiveness amplified the quadrant 2 attributes and quadrant 3 circumstances, which were already present. At the same time, the organization benefited from employing new key decision-makers in executive positions who were very talented and had powerful quadrant 1 leadership skills. Through the facilitation of an organizational health initiative, the complementary leadership skills resulted in quadrant integration and amplification across the quadrants and improved performance across the company.
We should also note that quadrants can contain negative or subtractive items that work against the benefit of quadrant integration. These subtractions can occur within a quadrant, or as tradeoffs between quadrants. Researchers Robert J. Anderson and William A. Adams, in their book “Mastering Leadership,” demonstrate from many years of research that reactive leadership is subtractive from leadership effectiveness. In the quadrant model, this leadership style would subtract from quadrant 1 and work against the benefits of quadrant integration. Transitioning quadrant 1 from reactive (subtractive) to responsive (additive) reverses this. Similarly, the psychologist and professor Paul Bloom, in his book “Against Empathy,” would say the same about empathy in quadrant 2. Here, replacing emotional empathy (subtractive) in quadrant 2 with rational compassionate interactions (additive) in quadrant 1 would enable amplification of other attributes and circumstances. In quadrant 3, catastrophizing or embellishing threats or overstating a company’s ability to respond to or remedy societal needs can have short-term leadership benefits. However, over the longer term, these practices in quadrant 3 will subtract from quadrant 2 – most notably authenticity and integrity, with long-term consequences for leadership effectiveness. Quadrant 4 is particularly vulnerable to subtractive elements or practices. Research strongly supports that identity affinities that result in a dearth of culture or gender diversity, or a perception of inequities due to affinities, are sharply subtractive and associated with underperformance in companies.
A more complex variant of the framework adds a third dimension. In this 3-D variant, we recognize the difference between “Strategic” and “Situational” leadership, and look at how quadrant integration affects leadership for these different leadership requirements. Strategic leadership is longer term and requires planning and vision. It includes a reconciliation of resources and objectives. Situational leadership is shorter-term and requires responsiveness to fluid circumstances. We can think of this as the difference between weekdays in the coach’s office and Sundays on the gridiron. We often see leaders who are effective in one application but not the other. In his book, “Blink,” Malcolm Gladwell recognizes that these are different approaches to leadership and require different skillsets. Intuitively, it seems that situational leadership requirements may skew toward the relational and interactive elements of quadrant 1, while the quadrant 2 attributes would better meet strategic requirements. This difference is speculation, but it would be interesting to explore. If this is true, then quadrant integration would have the additional benefit of providing fluidity between these two applications of leadership, which are otherwise disparate and often incompatible. The result would be a more complete leader who could better pivot between these two leadership requirements.
There has been little mention of quadrant 4 in this paper. I mentioned a couple of companies where non-work affinities result in improved leadership effectiveness. We also know that off-site bonding exercises which develop non-work-related affinities can be effective for facilitating quadrant 4 leadership power. However, subtractive risks in quadrant 4 are problematic. Quadrant 4’s relevance is increasingly suppressed over time and in the current leadership environment. While there are certainly leaders who draw power from quadrant 4, its appropriateness and effectiveness have declined as leadership has evolved. Quadrant 4 can invite accidental values into the organization that result from personal affinities but are inconsistent with and compromising to core values. It can also be inconsistent with Human Resource best practices, foster the perception of inequities, and preclude the individuality and diversity in an organization that, in research, is associated with improved employee engagement and performance. There are ethical considerations for quadrant 4 that are paramount.
I recall a decades-old article about a regional pizza franchisee who started an off-hours running club with his employees, which he used for bonding purposes. The context of the article was the success of the activity in cultivating effective leadership through the development and discovery of non-work affinities. This success would be an example of power drawn from quadrant 4; however, it is increasingly inconsistent with modern best practices and culture, and was a more ‘in-vogue’ leadership practice from decades past.
However, quadrant 4 can also be additive, and through quadrant integration can provide amplification across the quadrants, resulting in a level of effectiveness that is greater than the quadrant sum. This opportunity lies in moral conscience and higher purpose.
The core purpose of business (collectively) is to add value to the marketplace. It follows that the core purpose of a company (individually) is the unique or distinctive way it adds value to its marketplace, or the unique and distinctive (differentiated) value it adds to its marketplace. We define value as what people are willing to pay for. Without doing this, business can do little else. In the conscious business community, an argument is made that there should be no distinction between core purpose and higher purpose. I disagree with this assessment and believe the quadrant framework provides an understanding of the value of higher purpose for a company, separate from core purpose.
Research consistently demonstrates that companies that engage in higher purpose causes and initiatives and demonstrate moral conscience see improved company performance, even if the higher purpose is separate and apart from the company’s goals and objectives. This can be explained by moral conscience within executive leadership and is a testament to an additive power to leadership in quadrant 4. Here, I believe there is a natural humanistic affinity for this type of leadership that is separate and apart from the goals and objectives of the company. Revisiting the nuance of boundaries between quadrants, we could look at moral conscience as a quadrant 2 leadership attribute only when it is manifested in the goals and objectives of the business. Otherwise, it is an affinitive quality in quadrant 4, separate and apart from the business’ goals and objectives. It is a distinction that makes sense when considering core versus peripheral aspects of the company. Summarizing, while quadrant 4 has the potential to be problematic, it can also be a powerful amplifier in the context of quadrant integration when moral conscience and higher purpose are embedded in company leadership.
Concluding Thoughts:
Much of the current narrative on leadership conflates desirable leadership with effective leadership. As much as we would like it to be, these are not necessarily one and the same. Business leaders can effectively lead in different ways, with power drawn from each, or any of the four quadrants. Although only observational, my experience is that different leaders have natural leadership styles that draw disproportionately from any of the quadrants. Founders and entrepreneurs more often draw power disproportionately from quadrant 2, and in ways that are sometimes subtractive from quadrant 1. Professional CEOs and managers more often draw power from quadrant 1, and in ways that amplify quadrant 2.
In my company, when we integrated quadrants – intra-personally and organizationally, the results were profound. The path to leadership effectiveness is not to pigeonhole leaders or leadership into a single quadrant, as many models do – but rather to work toward quadrant integration, where the fit of the items across quadrant boundaries will create a whole that is measurably greater than the sum of its parts, the result being an integral optimization of leadership effectiveness.
