The Archetypes of Inclusive Leadership

Leadership is hard, I don’t think anyone can deny that. Leaders are expected to deal with the challenge of balancing power and responsibility, with a constantly shifting world, with increasing scrutiny, with one of the most diverse workforce compositions, with expectations of both current and future relevance. It’s no surprise then that we have entire industries that have devoted themselves to trying to distill leadership down into lovely colour-coordinated titles or four-letter acronyms. But my issue with all of them is that I don’t think they’re quite right for what the future of work needs.

So, over the Christmas period, I was reading up on the Kets de Vries Institute’s Family of Leadership Development Instruments, and in particular their Leadership Archetype Questionnaire. It does the work of reassessing leadership from an individualistic endeavour to a more distributed, collective, and complementary form made up of many different types of leaders. Firstly, I want to be clear that I don’t think the KdVI’s archetypes stop being valid, they are 100% still needed, because they demonstrate the different styles of leadership, but I think we need an update from the Strategist, Change-catalyst, Transactor, Builder, Innovator, Processor, Coach, and the Communicator. 
What especially needs rethinking is the core attributes that every leader should possess. Leadership, both now and for the future, needs to be multidimensional. The most effective leaders are going to be the ones who are able to draw on multiple archetypes depending on the situation. We know that there will be traits we most naturally connect with because they align with our personalities, strengths and experience. But just like with KDVI, there will be some traits and behaviours that complement our primary styles and emerge based on the needs of their team, organisation or context. So allow me to introduce my proposal for what Leadership needs to look like to be ready for the Future of Work.

These 10 inclusive leadership archetypes represent a shift away from traditional leadership characteristics that often emphasise hierarchy, authority, and command-and-control approaches.

1. The Expert → The Learning
   Traditionally, leadership looked like expertise in a particular field, with confidence in their ability coming from the perception of infallibility. But that won’t cut it in the future. We need leaders who role model and relish the role of the relentless learner. They thrive on growth, embrace the process of continuous learning, and demonstrate curiosity and humility in seeking knowledge.
2. The All-Knowing → The Unknowing
   Gone are the days of the single “ultimate” decision-makers, who are expected to have all the answers on their own. We are now entering the age of the Unknowing leaders, those who admit when they don’t know something, and so build teams intentionally with diverse expertise to fill those gaps, and collaborate to make the most of that collective wisdom.
3. The Authoritarian → The Decisive
   Many of the leaders in the top roles today were brought up in cultures with unilateral decision makers. They reigned from on high, declaring edicts with little input from others. Now the ability to make decisions isn’t a bad thing, so that stays, but what we need is a Decisive Leader that balances the need to get input from others with the ability to take timely action to avoid stagnation. Listening shouldn’t mean indecision.
4. The Risk-Averse → The Brave
   Was there anything more terrifying in the before-times for leaders than instability, potential failure, or worst of all…uncertainty! dramatic sting Risk was the dirtiest word, so the default was familiarity and the relative safety it brought with it. But the reality is change is inevitable and accelerating, which means “safe” is an anchor trapping you in the past, and we need Brave Leaders who embrace uncertainty, accept that failure is a natural part of growth and actively encourage innovative thinking.
5. The Industry-Focused → The Inspired
   When searching for measures of success, or routes out of difficulty, the first port of call was typically locked in the narrow lens of any individual field. Leaders were chosen purely on those who knew the best practices specific to the history of their particular industry. In days like this when whole industries are floundering, and short of ideas (see: return to office mandates), the Inspired Leader needs to get ideas from a wide range of fields and perspectives, they need to nurture cross-disciplinary thinking and plant the seeds for real innovation.
6. The Rigid → The Adaptive
   “Why do we do this?...It’s just how we’ve always done it.” We keep the same processes and frameworks for our businesses even when the environment has changed, and everything is telling us that THEY DON’T WORK ANYMORE! That time is done, the future needs ambiguity navigators, strategic-pivoters and experimenters. Needs are changing, we need new approaches to meet those needs.
7. The Competitor → The Connector
   We all hate dysfunctional op models, whether it’s hierarchies for the sake of it, or inefficient and disruptive competition across teams and departments, so this is as good a time as ever to throw them out. We need leaders that build effective relationships across borders. Now is the time for collaboration, a strong sense of community and a shared purpose driving decisions.
8. The Distant → The Empathetic
   I remember just how far away the CEO felt from the people on the ground when I first started working. And it was a feature, not a flaw; distant by design. They didn’t have time to know what was affecting the lives of their staff, they were too busy getting results. The Empathetic Leader however recognises the value of emotional intelligence as much as traditional success measures. They strengthen trust, drive belonging and have equity as a core input into decision making by creating those psychologically safe environments that help everyone feel valued and understood.
9. The Blame-Shifter → The Accountable
   I’m sure many of us have either heard of, or worked with/for the type of leader who is the reason for all success, but not to blame when things go wrong. I don’t think the answer is in the absolute opposite either (I call them the martyr), because it’s absolutely important to role model celebrating ourselves (and in turn our contributions to team success). But accountability is more than just martyrdom, because it means leaders hold themselves and others responsible for delivering on commitments and creating the equitable systems that move inclusion from the domain of the aspirational to the operational.
10. The Incremental → The Visionary
    All the Incremental Leader does is talk about the “marginal” changes. Usually linked to their risk aversion, and rigidity, they only see progress in terms of the limitations of existing frameworks. The Visionary Leader is a storyteller able to paint the picture of a future with bold long-term goals that inspires others to work towards truly transformative change. Marginal gains can be means to operationalise the big vision, but they shouldn’t be the end goal in and of themselves.

But why does it matter whether leaders have just one archetype or can tap into multiple? For three simple reasons: adaptability, balance and growth. The best leaders need to be able to switch between archetypes depending on the situation. For example, they may need to be The Brave Leader during periods of high uncertainty but shift to The Empathetic Leader when supporting a struggling team. When it comes to balance, relying too heavily on one particular character trait or attribute is what leads to blind spots. But the key is while you need all of these archetypes, you don’t have to be the best at all of them. You build a team who all meet a consistent minimum standard across every archetype, but with expertise spread across all of them. An expert Visionary needs to lean on the expert Accountable Leader to ensure their big ideas are grounded in action. And for growth, you need leaders who evolve over time. As they develop new skills or face different challenges, different archetypes could become more prominent.

So what do we do with all of this? Is there a questionnaire to fill out? (not yet, but maybe eventually). Do we disregard everything we’ve learned to date about leadership styles? Obviously not. Ultimately, archetypes are tools for self-reflection and growth, not rigid categories. The most inclusive and effective leaders know when to embody different traits to meet the moment. So, in summary, my advice for developing future-ready inclusive leaders in 2025 is simple.

1. Invest in self-reflection. Use that self-awareness to help your leaders (both current and future) lean into their strengths while recognising areas for growth.
2. Cultivate those underdeveloped traits: By working on their weaker attributes, leaders can round out their abilities and prepare for new challenges.
3. Build complementary teams: Teams should include leaders with diverse archetypes to balance each other’s strengths and weaknesses.