Some say that leaders are born, not made.  Most of the evidence says that leadership is a learned skill.  Anyone can be a leader, but certain types of leadership come more easily to certain types of personality. 

In my last post I talked about the distinction between evolutionary and transformational leadership.  Some leaders are happier in one mode than in the other, but both are necessary, depending on the situation of the organisation. In the organisational life-cycle you will need transformational leadership some of the time, and evolutionary leadership most of the time. 

There is only so much change an organisation can take at any one time.  All transformations need to settle if they are to be effective and the settling can take a long time (most Boards underestimate how long).  Those organisations that answer to political masters tend to do very badly, as they lurch from one appealing soundbite initiative to the next, and are hit with a new and exciting set of targets long before the last set of initiatives have settled.

Transformational leaders tend to hit the headlines with grand visions, whereas the evolutionary leader who delivers steady results year after year is less charismatic, but often more beloved of shareholders. 

The danger of being an evolutionary leader is that, when a real crisis hits, boards often decide that what they need is a new, exciting, transformational leader who will, in a very short time (of course), revitalise the organisation and transform its strategy.

There is always a high cost to this, although sometimes that price is worth paying.  The challenge for a board is that a successful transformational leader will often find life dull when the crisis is over and will have to be either removed or coached into playing an evolutionary role.

The reverse is true for the evolutionary leader.  If the situation suddenly requires transformational leadership, then most evolutionary leaders can be coached to deal effectively with situations that require transformation. 

This is because even the greatest transformational leaders do not transform everything all at once.  In fact, if you try to do that the organisation will be so unsettled that it will fail.  Good transformational leaders pick their battles very carefully.   Transforming 20% of the organisation will do very well in most crises, evolution can continue for the other 80%.

I have underlined the importance of coaching for leaders.  When a crisis hits then time is short and on-the-job learning is not really an option.  Acceleration of the process is vital, the support of a seasoned business coach, who has been down this road before and understands the pitfalls from first hand, can make all the difference between success and failure and can help minimise the cost to the business of leadership mis-steps.