Why Leadership Styles Usually Do Not Matter - The Harsh Reality Of Leadership And The Few Times It Does Matter
Cody Dakota Wooten, C.B.C. is the Chief Regenerative Design Officer and Founder of The Leadership Guide, Change The World Fitness Apparel, and he is the Category Creator of the Multi-Award-Winning Categories: Sageship Cultivation Legendary Leadership As a Sageship Coach, Daily Digital Writer (800+ Day & Article Streak),... more
I was a Dedicated Student of Leadership for Many Years.
I Read The Books.
I Took the Courses.
Then I Began to Teach the Course.
To Coach the People.
And I was Amazing.
But I Began to Notice Something when I Looked at the World at Large...
Something was Missing.
It really Struck Me when I Found a Statistic...
Leadership Development Completely Fails 80% of the Time, with "Limited" Success the Rest of the Time.
That Statistic was at the Height of the Leadership Development Industry...
When it was Worth $350 Billion.
That Never Sat Right with Me, and it was the Beginning of Me Leaving the Leadership Development Industry.
I Started to Look at How and Why Leadership Development Failed so Frequently.
What is Discovered is that, Especially in Today's World, Your Leadership Style Usually Does Not Matter.
Now, I Know that May Sound Extreme...
Especially when We can All Agree that there are Terrible Leaders and the World Needs Better Leaders...
But let me Explain What I Mean.
There are Many Situations where the Quality of a Leader Matters Very Little.
It is a Part of the Reason that We See Leaders in Positions of Power for So Long with Little to No Consequences for their Ineptitudes.
It Also Explains Why So Many Good Leaders End Up Unable to Make an Impact...
Despite their Incredible Abilities "As" a Leader.
Which I Completely Understand How that is Frustrating.
It Frustrates Me as Well.
But it is the Reality and there are Reasons Why this Occurs.
The First Aspect to Consider for Understanding is "Why" We Want Leaders to Rise Up in the World.
The Reason is because there are Problems in the World.
We Desire for Leaders to Rise Up and Overcome and Fix those Problems.
Yet it Rarely Happens.
The Reason is because of How Ecosystems Work.
Within All Ecosystems - Natural, Business, Political, Etc. - there is a Rule that they Run On...
Survival Occurs when a Role is Filled.
Once that Role is Filled, it Usually Remains that Way.
In Africa, the Lion has been the Apex Predator for an Estimated 2 Million Years.
In the United States, the Two Party System has Existed for 175 Years.
In Business, Walmart has been the Highest Revenue Company for 11 Years, Despite being Valued Lower than Amazon and having Target as a Primary Competitor since the 60's.
Once the Role has been Established, it really Does Not Matter "Who" Leads or What Decisions are Made...
As Long as They Do Not Completely Destroy their Established Role, they Remain Within their Role and Tend to Stay Extremely Strong There.
The Leadership Development World has this Belief that Whoever "Leads" these Companies "Must Be Brilliant," and so they "Study" and "Analyze" these Leaders to Gain a "Glimpse" of How they are Successful...
But the Truth is that Most of these Leaders are Carried "Not" By their Abilities, but Simply By Maintaining their Role within their Ecosystem.
When we Honestly Look at Most of Their Track Records as "Leaders", they are Quite Horrendous in Terms of the Classic "Marks" of Great Leadership.
It is Also "Why" AI Could "Do" Most of the Jobs of C-Suite Executives "Better" than They Can...
Because the Reality is that Most C-Suite Leaders are Completely Ineffective Leaders whose "Success" is Based Solely on their Organization's Role within their Ecosystem.
AI's Ability to Do these Roles is a Testament to the Uselessness of these Leaders More than the Effectiveness of AI.
But this is Also Part of "Why" Leadership Development Fails to Impact Organizations...
As the Organization becomes "Established", there becomes a "Way to Do Things", which is Simply Considered "Expected" within the Ecosystem's Unspoken Community Rules.
Think of it Like How Animals begin to Establish Rules which All Members Live By, like Fighting for Territory...
When People Attempt to "Change" the Rules Too Dramatically, they are Seen, usually Subconsciously, as "Threats" to the Established Order.
This Leads to those Leaders Being Pushed Down or Out of the Organization...
Even if Those Leaders "Are" Better Fits to Lead.
This Typically Leads to a Secondary Problem for Leaders, where the Good Leaders Attempt to "Supplant" the Other Organization by Working for a Competitor.
Except It Never Works.
The Ecosystem is Established, and Competitors either have to Claim a Different "Niche" within the Ecosystem...
As Target has done with Catering to a "Higher-End" Market, or Amazon has Established Itself as the "Online-First" Organization, both against Walmart...
Or the Organization Perishes by Failing to Establish Itself within the Ecosystem.
The Abilities of the Leader Matter Little in Comparison to the Importance of the Role within the Ecosystem.
Then, there is Another Problem for Leaders in Today's World that Prevents Leadership Styles from Having Any Effect.
Psychophysiology.
Specifically, the State of Burnout.
In Burnout, We as Humans are at Our Worst.
Our Ability to Communicate and Our Emotional Intelligence Diminishes.
Our Productivity Potential Drops and Becomes Capped at 5%.
We Struggle to Engage with Our Work or Care about it At All.
And a Leader's Abilities "As" Leaders Do Not Change Any of This...
Because Leadership Styles Do Not Matter in the Face of Burnout...
Which Over 80% of the Workforce is Currently Experiencing.
You could be the Best Leader in the World...
But it Would Mean Nothing when the Problems have a Psychophysiological Basis, such as Diet and Energy (Mg-ATP) Production or Problems Stored in the Nervous System.
Unless, of Course, You Help "Fix" those Problems...
When we Combine All of these Factors...
We Discover that Leadership Styles Usually Do Not Matter.
However...
There "Are" A Few Times Where Your Leadership Style "Can" Make a Difference.
If You Are Establishing a New Category...
Especially if the Category Expands Rapidly with Multiple Potential Organizations Vying for the Primary Role within that Ecosystem...
Then Your Leadership Style Can Make a Gigantic Difference.
Similarly, if Your Category is Dying...
And You Need to Completely Revamp Your Organization to Remain Relevant...
Then Your Leadership Style Can Make a Gigantic Difference.
Also, You Need a Workforce that is Healthy for Your Leadership Style to Make a Difference.
If the People are Unhealthy, then the Organization will be Unhealthy.
As Humans, We are Interdependent, and We have Direct Impacts on Each Other.
The More People that are Unhealthy...
The More Difficult it becomes to Accomplish Anything.
So, if You Want to have an Impact as a Leader, then You Should First Focus on Sageship.
Interesting, All Aspects of Leadership become Significantly Easier when We Utilize Sageship First.
Both EQ and IQ will Naturally Increase.
Flow States become More Consistent, which Becomes More Innovation and Faster and More Effective Problem-Solving.
You can More Easily Design a Workplace or Organization that People "Want" to Go To and Engage In.
When we Focus on Psychophysiology First...
Everything Else becomes Simpler...
While Also Feeling Better.
Start to Seek Sageship Today.
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Are You Ready to Go Beyond Leadership?
Tired of Broken Algorithms and AI Slop?
Excited to Dive Deeper into Psychophysiological Mastery?
Want to Change The World?
