Leadership decisions shape more than short-term outcomes—they influence culture, team dynamics, and long-range strategy. Yet one of the most overlooked factors when hiring for an executive team is leadership style.
Organizations often focus on credentials, experience, and industry expertise during the selection process. These are necessary, of course. But they do not paint a full picture. Without evaluating how a candidate leads—not just what they’ve accomplished—you risk creating misalignment that affects everything from team performance to strategic execution. You also run the risk of overpaying for skills that aren’t really necessary and won’t be used - do you really need them to be an expert in their field or to leverage the experts in their functional area? It comes back to the leadership question.
In this article, we’ll discuss:
- The Strategic Importance of Leadership
- Consider the Team You Already Have
- Five Common (and Critical) Leadership Styles
- Delegation: Building Organizational Capacity Through Trust
- Strategic Thinking: Aligning Today’s Work with Tomorrow’s Goal
- Communication: Driving Clarity, Alignment, and Accountability
- Planning and Organization: Executing with Discipline and Structure
- Team Building: Fostering Engagement, Trust, and Collaboration
- Building a Leadership Team That Matches Strategy And Culture
The Strategic Importance of Leadership Style
Leadership style refers to the consistent behavioral patterns a leader brings to problem-solving, communication, decision-making, delegation, and team development. It defines how leaders engage with others and how they operate under pressure.
Why does this matter when building a leadership team?
Because effective teams require both alignment and diversity—specifically, behavioral diversity. When everyone on the team approaches challenges the same way, gaps emerge. Innovation can slow. Communication becomes redundant. And blind spots multiply. On the other hand, teams that are behaviorally diverse—composed of complementary leadership styles—are more likely to anticipate challenges, adapt to change, and deliver long-term results.
Consider the Team You Already Have
Before identifying the leadership styles your organization needs, think about the existing leaders you have, the characteristics and motivators that make them effective. Also consider the characteristics that have contributed to the failure of other leaders to be effective in your culture. This begins with evaluating your current leadership team’s behavioral strengths and motivational drives.
Are your current executives primarily strategic thinkers? Do they favor execution and operational detail? Is there a strong focus on collaboration or an overreliance on individual performance?
Organizations that assess these questions upfront are better positioned to identify gaps—and make informed hiring decisions to fill them. Several tools exist to facilitate this process, including behavioral assessments and culture alignment tools that provide insight into individual and team leadership styles. At The Metiss Group, we specialize in helping companies define and measure these dimensions to align leadership capabilities with business objectives
Five Common (and Critical) Leadership Styles
While there are dozens of leadership styles that may support a business depending on its goals, here are five commonly needed styles that frequently appear in high-performing executive teams:
1. Delegation: Building Organizational Capacity Through Trust
Leaders who are strong delegators know how to extend ownership without losing accountability. They understand which responsibilities must remain with them and which can be entrusted to others. Delegation is not simply about efficiency—it’s about empowering others to lead and grow. This style prevents bottlenecks, builds bench strength, and enables scalability across the organization.
2. Strategic Thinking: Aligning Today’s Work with Tomorrow’s Goals
Strategic thinkers see beyond current operations. They identify trends, assess risks, and think several steps ahead. Leaders with this style excel at aligning short-term actions with long-term strategy. They provide critical perspective, ensuring that day-to-day decisions support the broader vision. Without strategic leadership, organizations risk becoming reactive rather than proactive.
3. Communication: Driving Clarity, Alignment, and Accountability
Effective communication is at the heart of leadership. Leaders who communicate well create shared understanding, reduce ambiguity, , align teams well around priorities, and set clear expectations with measurable goals.. They are also strong listeners, able to synthesize input and adjust messages as needed. This leadership style is essential during periods of change, where transparency and consistency can stabilize the organization.
4. Planning and Organization: Executing with Discipline and Structure
Execution without planning is guesswork. Leaders who exhibit strong planning and organizational skills bring structure to complexity. They break goals into actionable steps, establish clear timelines, and monitor progress. This leadership style is critical for translating strategy into execution and for ensuring that resources are used efficiently and effectively.
5. Team Building: Fostering Engagement, Trust, and Collaboration
Leaders with a team-building style, also attributed to strong Emotional Intelligence (EQ), prioritize relationships, collaboration, and shared success. They are adept at building cohesion, resolving conflicts, and creating an environment of psychological safety. This leadership style is especially valuable in cross-functional teams and in organizations that rely heavily on interdependence to achieve goals.
Management Research Group (MRG), recently found in their research that leaders with strong Empathy, the ability to genuinely listen to the challenges, needs, and drives of direct reports achieve higher performance levels. Empathy is a specific skill that can be developed through The Emotional Intelligence Journey™ through The Metiss Group.
Building a Leadership Team That Matches Strategy And Culture
There is no ideal combination of leadership styles that fits every organization. The right mix depends on your strategic priorities, company culture, industry landscape, and growth objectives.
One of our clients has an executive team with an insatiable thirst for knowledge, and strong grasp of strategic impact to problem solving – not just tactical actions. As a result, they’ve found bringing in someone who doesn’t possess those characteristics is a horrible fit and dismissed as having little substance by the rest of the leadership team. Imagine adding an executive to this team who only gets their news from the rock music station at the top of the hour and who solves problems exclusively with “what’s the worst that could happen?” - that won’t end well.
The question is not, “What’s the best leadership style?” It’s “What leadership styles do we need now—and what will we need next?”
Conducting a thorough assessment of your current leadership composition and comparing it against your strategic roadmap gives you the clarity to answer that question. From there, you can determine whether to develop, shift, or hire to meet those needs.
The Bottom Line
Leadership style isn’t a tactical approach rather a strategic one. When leadership teams consider leadership style as a core component in executive hiring, they make decisions supporting long-term success, cultural alignment, and team synergy.
While credentials and experience are important, there’s much more. Leadership style shapes how decisions are made, how teams function, and how effectively strategy is executed. Understanding your current team’s behavioral makeup allows you to determine which leadership styles are missing and whether development or a targeted hire is the best path forward. Whether our clients focus on strategic thinking, communication, delegation, planning, or team building, style must match both your strategy and culture.
Overlooking leadership style can result in poor fit, friction, and failure even among otherwise qualified candidates. But when organizations intentionally curate a leadership team with diverse, complementary styles, they create a foundation for adaptability, resilience, and sustained growth.
So before you make your next executive hire, go beyond the resume. Examine how your leaders lead and what styles your business truly needs. The right leadership behaviors, aligned with your goals and culture, will drive your organization forward.
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