Every leader I have ever coached carries the same quiet longing: to know what they are actually for. Not their title, not their job description, but the way they are wired to make a team better. Few questions have produced more books, blog posts, conferences and surveys, in every field from politics to the pastorate. It is worth asking because the answer, honestly given, frees you.
There is a sea of good material on this subject. I want to offer something simpler: what I believe are the three core types of leaders. In my experience, most people can place themselves in one of these categories with enough honesty and self-awareness.
Placing yourself in one category does not mean you are void of the other two. It means you have a primary leadership driver, the instinct that shapes how you approach teams and organisations before you have had time to think. These categories are broad, but I have found them to be one of the most useful frameworks I know for understanding how leaders actually function.
Don't read ahead. Answer these first.
1. If given the option, based on your first and most basic instinct, would you:
A. Establish a new museum?
B. Serve as Executive Director of an established museum?
C. Curate and maintain the artefacts of an established museum?
2. If an established, well-run museum hired you, would your first instinct be to:
A. Execute the best practices that make the museum run with excellence?
B. Curate and maintain the museum's artefacts, keeping it the enjoyable and exciting place it already is?
C. Tirelessly look for ways to make this well-run museum better?
Write your answers down. Your first instinct matters more than your best reasoning, so don't overthink it. Your answers are invaluable in evaluating the kind of leader you most naturally are.
Three needed leaders
The Curator
A curator is "the keeper or custodian of a museum or other collection." Every team needs one. The curators in your organisation are the people who love preserving the systems and the people already in place. You can recognise them by the high level of care they display and the caution they bring to every situation.
Curators care deeply about the systems you have built together and about the people those systems serve. They believe the current way is a good way, often the best way, and so they feel responsible to guard it. Their goal is to keep the artefacts in good order, so the place stays as enjoyable and life-giving as it is today.
The gift of a curator is faithfulness. The temptation is to mistake the museum for the mission, to guard what was built long after it has stopped serving the people it was built for.
The Executor
An executor is "a person who produces something or puts something into effect." These are the doers in your organisation. They are task-oriented. They see an organisation's systems as tools for accomplishing a clear goal.
Executors love the structure that is in place, but they are constantly tuning it from within so it runs at its best. They tend to be highly efficient and highly proficient, accomplishing a great deal with what looks like relative ease. These are the executive directors of the world. To them, the top priority is executing the best practices that make the organisation excellent.
The gift of an executor is momentum. The temptation is to measure everything by output, and to quietly treat people as parts of the machine rather than the reason the machine exists.
The Innovator
An innovator is "a person who introduces new methods, ideas, or products." These are the agitators in your organisation, and I mean that as a compliment. Innovators are less concerned with whether the machine runs smoothly than with whether it is the right machine at all.
They have little attachment to any system, even one they created, beyond its ability to accomplish the goal. They are inquisitive. Even while working inside a system, they are wondering why it works the way it does, what it is for, how it could be better, and whether it needs to exist. Innovators love what could be. They are often the ones who want to break the system and start over, convinced that the best way forward is a brand-new structure or a complete overhaul.
The gift of an innovator is vision. The temptation is restlessness: tearing down what is working because building is more exciting than tending, and wearing out the people who have to live inside every new idea.
Now look back at your answers
In question one, A points to the Innovator, B to the Executor and C to the Curator. In question two, A points to the Executor, B to the Curator and C to the Innovator. If both answers landed on the same type, you have likely found your primary driver. If they split, pay attention to the second question. It describes what you do with something that already works, and that is where most of us spend our lives.
So, what type of leader are you?
Why your team needs all three
Here is a question worth considering: which of these three is the best leader? The honest answer is none of them, on their own. The apostle Paul, writing to a divided church in Corinth, said that "the eye cannot say to the hand, 'I have no need of you'" (1 Corinthians 12:21). Healthy teams work the same way.
A team of only curators will preserve itself into irrelevance. A team of only executors will run very efficiently toward a goal no one has questioned in years. A team of only innovators will start a dozen things and finish none of them. Each type needs the others to be its best. The curator keeps the innovator honest about what is worth keeping. The executor turns the innovator's vision into something real. The innovator keeps the curator and the executor from settling.
Most team conflict I have walked through was not really about personality. It was three kinds of leaders who had never named what they were for, each experiencing the others as obstacles instead of gifts.
Use these questions with your team
Next, ask the two museum questions of the people you lead and serve. Ask them before a planning meeting, a hire or a hard conversation. You will learn who on your team needs room to dream, who needs a clear target and who needs to know that what they love will be protected. Leading people well starts with knowing how they are wired.
If you want to go further, take the free 10-minute team assessment from Building Teams That Last and see where your team is thriving, where trust is thin and what to work on first. Take the assessment
