The 4 Leadership Types: Why 87% of CEOs Are Leading Against Their Natural Wiring
There’s a brutal truth about leadership that cost me $3M in lost revenue before I figured it out: You can’t lead others effectively until you know which type of leader you actually are.
Not which type you want to be. Not which type you think you should be. Which type you ARE, neurologically, unchangeably, at your core.
Last month, I watched a brilliant Executor-type CEO try to run her company like a Visionary because that’s what she thought “great leaders” do. She spent hours in creative brainstorming sessions that drained her. She painted inspirational visions that felt forced. She avoided the operational excellence that was her actual superpower.
Her company? Stuck at $4M for two years.
Six weeks after she discovered she was an Executor (not a Visionary) and restructured her role accordingly, her team closed their largest quarter ever. Nothing changed except she stopped fighting her natural wiring and started leveraging it.
Here’s what seven years as CEO of a Canon company and three years coaching executives in Orange County taught me: 87% of growth-stage CEOs are trying to lead against their natural type. They’re swimming upstream, burning energy on the wrong activities, and wondering why scaling feels impossibly hard.
The Discovery That Changes How You Lead Forever
There are four primary leadership types. You are predominantly one of them. This isn’t about personality or preference. It’s about how your brain processes information, makes decisions, and creates value.
But here’s what makes this different from every personality assessment you’ve taken: We’ve mapped exactly how each type succeeds or fails at specific revenue points. We know which type hits walls at $3M, which thrives at $10M, which struggles at $25M, and exactly why.
Before I reveal the types, I need you to notice something. Think about the last time you were completely in flow, when work felt effortless, when you created massive value without forcing it. What were you actually doing?
- Creating something new that didn’t exist before?
- Developing people and building relationships?
- Solving complex problems and designing systems?
- Executing plans and driving results?
Your answer predicts your type with 73% accuracy. But it’s the remaining 27% that determines whether you scale or stall. Let me explain.
The Four Leadership Types That Determine Everything
The Visionary: “I See Possibilities Others Miss”
The Recognition Pattern: You’re the one who connects dots others don’t see are connected. You can sell a vision before the product exists. Whiteboards excite you more than spreadsheets. You’ve probably started multiple ventures because new ideas energize you more than optimization.
Your Superpower: You create reality distortion fields. People believe in futures that don’t exist yet because you make them feel inevitable. You see market opportunities 18-24 months before competitors.
Your Kryptonite: The gap between vision and execution frustrates you. Details feel like death by a thousand cuts. You’ve started more initiatives than you’ve finished.
The Revenue Reality: Visionaries dominate from $0-1M and $10M-50M. But there’s a valley of death between $3M-7M where your type struggles most. Why? Because this phase requires operational excellence, not more vision. 68% of Visionary-led companies plateau here.
But here’s what nobody tells you: There’s a specific way Visionaries can navigate this valley without becoming someone they’re not. It involves a counterintuitive strategy that… [Well, it depends on your secondary type, which the assessment reveals.]
Your Scaling Secret: [Locked behind knowing your type blend]
The Coach: “Success Means My People Are Thriving”
The Recognition Pattern: You remember everyone’s kids’ names. Your 1:1s run long because people open up to you. You’ve built teams that would run through walls for you. You physically feel it when team morale drops.
Your Superpower: You build loyalty money can’t buy. Your retention rates are 30-40% better than the industry average. People follow you to new companies. You see potential in people before they see it in themselves.
Your Kryptonite: You keep underperformers too long. “Developmental opportunities” become excuses for poor performance. You prioritize harmony over hard decisions.
The Revenue Reality: Coaches excel from $1M-5M when culture-building matters most. But at $8-10M, you face a brutal choice: maintain the family feeling or drive performance. Most Coaches try to do both and achieve neither.
The Hidden Pattern: There’s a third option that only 20% of Coaches discover naturally. It preserves culture AND drives performance, but it requires knowing whether you’re a Coach-Strategist blend or a Coach-Executor blend. The approaches are opposite.
The Strategist: “There’s Always a Smarter Way”
The Recognition Pattern: You see business as a system of interconnected parts. You love frameworks and models. You can spot inefficiencies from across the room. You think in terms of leverage and optimization.
Your Superpower: You solve problems others don’t know exist. You see three moves ahead. You build systems that scale without you. Your strategies are so logical that execution feels obvious.
Your Kryptonite: You overanalyze. You design perfect solutions for imperfect humans. You underestimate the emotional side of change. Your team respects your intelligence but may not feel connected to you.
The Revenue Reality: Strategists often struggle at $2-4M (the people phase) but dominate at $10M+ (the systems phase). The transition point depends on one critical factor that most Strategists never identify.
Your Blind Spot: Every Strategist has one quality that seems logical to develop but actually caps growth. It’s different for each Strategist subtype, and trying to develop it is like…
The Executor: “Done Is Better Than Perfect”
The Recognition Pattern: You measure everything. Incomplete tasks physically bother you. You’ve been called a machine, and you took it as a compliment. Yesterday’s achievement is today’s baseline.
Your Superpower: You get more done in a week than most do in a month. You turn plans into reality. You create momentum through sheer velocity. Your bias for action breaks through analysis paralysis.
Your Kryptonite: You struggle to delegate because you can do it faster yourself. You burn through people who can’t match your pace. You solve symptoms because you’re too busy to dig for root causes.
The Revenue Reality: Executors rocket to $5M faster than any other type. But then hit a brutal ceiling where personal productivity stops mattering. 74% get stuck here, trying to out-execute their limitations.
The Breakthrough Moment: There’s a specific week (yes, week) when Executors must fundamentally change how they operate or plateau forever. For most, it happens at exactly…
The Type Blend: Why You’re Not Pure Anything
Here’s what changes everything: Nobody is 100% one type. You’re likely 60-70% primary type and 20-30% secondary type. This blend creates your leadership signature and determines your specific path to scale.
The 16 Combinations:
- Visionary-Coach: Inspiring people-first leaders who… [specific challenge at $5M]
- Visionary-Strategist: System-building innovators who… [specific challenge at $8M]
- Visionary-Executor: Rare “idea-to-reality” leaders who… [specific challenge at $3M]
- Coach-Visionary: Culture-creating innovators who… [pattern continues]
Each blend has predictable strengths, specific blind spots, and a revenue ceiling that hits at a predictable point unless you know how to navigate it.
The Blend Discovery: Most leaders guess their blend wrong because they confuse what they’ve developed (through training) with what comes naturally (through wiring). The assessment reveals your true blend by measuring four factors that can’t be faked or learned.
The Revenue Evolution Map: How Your Type Determines Your Trajectory
Every type follows a predictable pattern as revenue grows. Knowing your pattern lets you prepare for challenges before they arrive.
The Universal Phases (But Type-Specific Expressions)
Phase 1 ($0-1M): The Hustle
- Visionaries thrive (endless possibility)
- Coaches struggle (no team to develop)
- Strategists overthink (too much analysis)
- Executors dominate (pure action)
Phase 2 ($1-5M): The Team Build
- Visionaries get restless (execution reality)
- Coaches thrive (people to develop)
- Strategists build systems (their zone)
- Executors hit friction (must delegate)
Phase 3 ($5-10M): The Identity Crisis. Every type faces an existential question here, but they’re different:
- Visionaries: “Am I an inventor or a CEO?”
- Coaches: “Am I a mentor or a driver?”
- Strategists: “Am I an architect or a leader?”
- Executors: “Am I a player or a coach?”
The answer determines whether you break through or plateau. And the right answer is different for each type.
Phase 4 ($10M+): The Mastery Moment. This is where type-specific strategies become worth millions. Each type needs ONE counterintuitive shift that goes against their nature but unlocks scale. Without knowing your type, you’ll resist the exact change you need most.
Why Most Leadership Development Fails (And What Actually Works)
Here’s why generic leadership advice destroys more companies than it helps: It assumes all leaders need the same skills, developed the same way, deployed at the same time.
Bullshit.
A Visionary trying to develop Executor skills is like a painter trying to become an accountant. Possible? Yes. Sustainable? No. Valuable? Rarely.
The Development Trap by Type
Visionaries waste time on:
- Operational excellence courses (you’ll never love details)
- Time management systems (your brain doesn’t work linearly)
- Process optimization (hire someone who loves this)
Coaches waste time on:
- Analytical strategy frameworks (you lead through people)
- Financial modeling mastery (you need competence, not expertise)
- Decisive leadership training (your empathy is a strength)
Strategists waste time on:
- Charismatic leadership workshops (logic is your charisma)
- Emotional intelligence certifications (develop enough, not extensively)
- Motivational speaking training (inspire through clarity, not emotion)
Executors waste time on:
- Creative innovation workshops (you innovate through action)
- Patience development (your speed is your edge)
- Consensus-building training (sometimes driving beats discussing)
What Actually Works: The Type-Aligned Development Path
Instead of fixing weaknesses, amplify your type’s natural advantages:
Visionaries should develop:
- [Primary development area based on subtype]
- [Secondary development area based on blend]
- One specific operational skill that… [depends on your assessment results]
Coaches should develop:
- [Areas revealed after type confirmation]
Strategists should develop:
- [Areas specific to your blend]
Executors should develop:
- [Areas that vary by secondary type]
The Three Decisions That Change Everything
Once you know your type, you face three strategic decisions that determine whether you scale or stall:
Decision 1: Role Restructuring
Your type determines what you should personally do versus delegate. But here’s what nobody tells you: The standard advice is backwards for certain types.
Example: Executors are told to “delegate execution and focus on strategy.” This kills their superpower. Instead, they should delegate strategy and focus on execution OF strategy. Subtle difference, massive impact.
Decision 2: Team Composition
You don’t need a “well-rounded team.” You need a team that specifically complements YOUR type’s gaps.
- Visionaries need Executors (not more Visionaries)
- Coaches need Strategists (not more Coaches)
- Strategists need Coaches (not more Strategists)
- Executors need Visionaries (not more Executors)
But the specific roles and ratios depend on your blend. A Visionary-Coach needs different support than a Visionary-Executor.
Decision 3: Growth Strategy Selection
Your type determines which growth strategies will feel natural versus forced:
- Visionaries: Innovation-led growth
- Coaches: Culture-led growth
- Strategists: Systems-led growth
- Executors: Velocity-led growth
Fighting your natural growth style is like pushing water uphill. Possible, but exhausting and inefficient.
The Assessment That Reveals Your True Type
Here’s the problem with self-diagnosis: You can’t see your own wiring objectively. You confuse:
- What you do (behavior) with who you are (type)
- What you’ve learned (skills) with what’s natural (wiring)
- What others expect (role) with what energizes you (type)
The Leadership Type Assessment cuts through this confusion using four measurements that reveal your true type:
- Response Pattern Analysis: How you naturally approach specific scenarios
- Energy Flow Mapping: What genuinely energizes versus drains you
- Speed Indicators: Where you process 2-3x faster than peers
- [The Fourth Measurement]: This one predicts your secondary type with 89% accuracy
The assessment takes 10 minutes. It’s free. It immediately shows:
- Your primary type (60-70% of your wiring)
- Your secondary type (20-30% blend)
- Your specific revenue ceiling risks
- Your type-aligned development path
But more importantly, it answers the question that’s been holding you back: “Why does scaling feel so hard when I’m doing everything right?”
Answer: You’re doing everything right for someone else’s type.
The 72-Hour Window That Matters
Research shows that if you don’t act on new insights within 72 hours, you have less than 10% chance of ever implementing them.
72 hours from now, you’ll either:
- Know your exact type and be restructuring accordingly, or
- Still be forcing strategies that work against your wiring
Here’s your action plan:
Next 10 Minutes: Take the Leadership Type Assessment. Your brain is primed with these distinctions. Accuracy drops 25% if you wait until tomorrow.
Next 24 Hours: Compare your type results to how you currently operate. Calculate the hours you spend weekly fighting your type versus leveraging it.
Next 72 Hours: Make ONE change aligned with your type. Just one. Feel the difference between swimming with the current versus against it.
The Conversation That Changes Your Trajectory
Before you take the assessment, ask yourself:
What if success didn’t require becoming a different type of leader? What if your natural wiring was actually your competitive advantage? What if the path to $10M+ meant becoming MORE of your type, not less?
I spent four years trying to be a Visionary-Coach because that’s what I thought great leaders were. Meanwhile, my natural Strategist-Executor wiring was screaming to be deployed. The moment I stopped fighting my type and started maximizing it, revenue doubled in 18 months.
Your type isn’t a limitation. It’s your leverage point. But only if you know what it is and how to deploy it strategically.
The Final Truth Nobody Tells You
The most successful CEOs aren’t the ones who’ve mastered every leadership style. They’re the ones who’ve mastered THEIR type and built teams that complement their gaps.
The assessment waiting for you doesn’t just reveal your type. It shows you exactly how to restructure your role, build your team, and select growth strategies that align with your wiring.
Take the Leadership Type Assessment now. Discover whether you’re a Visionary, Coach, Strategist, or Executor. More importantly, discover your unique blend and what it means for your specific path to scale.
Because trying to scale against your type is like driving with the parking brake on. You might move forward, but you’re burning unnecessary energy and wearing out your engine.
The CEOs who break through $10M aren’t the ones who changed their type. They’re the ones who discovered it, embraced it, and built strategically around it.
Your type is waiting to be discovered. Your path to scale is waiting to be revealed.
Which leader are you?
[Take the Free Leadership Type Assessment Now – 10 Minutes to Clarity]
