Moving in Style: Physical Strategies for the Agile Work of Leadership

By Ginny Whitelaw

Originally published on Forbes.com on December 1st, 2024.

If there were ever a time calling for agility in leadership, we’re in it. As highlighted in Norma Wong’s powerful book, When No Thing Works, the sense we have of life becoming faster and more chaotic is accurate. We’re in a period of collective acceleration and collapse where earlier sources of stability are being pushed to breaking points—from the erosion of democracy to runaway tech to collapsing ecosystems—and what’s on the other side has not yet emerged. 

But the way a worthy future will emerge is through selfless leadership that is committed to adding value, not destroying it. It will emerge through leaders committed to lifting people up to the best within them, not dragging them down to their worst fears and grievances. It will emerge through leaders who envision a worthy future and bring others along to manifest it in the present. To do these things well calls for an agility in leadership style that, according to the research at Korn Ferry, most leaders don’t have. But from our work in Zen Leadership, developing agility in multiple leadership styles is entirely possible when one uses a physical strategy for accessing them. Fortunately, we’re equipped with four patterns in the nervous system that enable us to do just that.

These four patterns—Visionary, Collaborator, Organizer and Driver—are, at a physical level, patterns of movement. But they don’t stop there. They also give rise to different emotions, thought processes, behaviors, and factors of personality as established by our work with FEBI®*, which measures them. What’s more, these mind-body integrated patterns map to the different leadership styles that are needed for agility.

Entering the Patterns

Each of these patterns is not just a description, but an experience. Even while sitting and reading this article, you can get a sense of their range in the following movements:

• Starting with your thumbs touching each ear, extend your hands to both sides of your head, arms wide open, letting your vision likewise expand to 180 degrees. Feel your fingertips keep expanding and drift into the field of possibility that is the Visionary pattern.

• Bring your arms slightly inward and start making figure-8’s with each hand, letting the easy rhythm drop through your body until your whole torso is getting in the swing of things. You’ve entered the engaging pattern of Collaborator.

• Bring your arms in further to shoulder-width, palms facing one another, and demark the sides, front and back of a box in front of you. Move the sides of the box in three distinct steps from left to right a few times. Feel into the orderly, stepwise process of the Organizer.

• Press your palms together and site down your index fingers as if your life depended upon it. Notice the sharpness and urgency that comes into your focus, as you’ve entered the pattern of Driver.

Beyond these simple movements, there are countless ways to access and practice each pattern. In coaching people using FEBI, if they want to strengthen a pattern that is relatively weak for them, we help them design a practice that often uses a strength—perhaps their favorite pattern or a beloved hobby—to access the weaker pattern. For example, Susan was strong in Collaborator and Visionary but wanted to develop more Driver energy. She loved music and dance, so she built a practice around listening and dancing to rock music where she’d jab or stomp on the beat. Patrick had a million great Visionary ideas, but needed more Organizer to give any of them form. He built a practice of grounding an idea by taking a slow, meditative walk and, step-by-step, feeling into the next step to move the idea forward.

Moving into the Six Leadership Styles for Agility

More has been written in Forbes.com and elsewhere about the patterns and practice, but the point is that once you make something physical, you make it practice-able. Similarly, by mapping the patterns to the leadership styles needed for agility, we can make those practice-able, too. Here are the six leadership styles identified in Korn Ferry’s research and ways to move into them via the patterns.

Directive – tells people what to do. This style can be effective short term and in emergencies when the way forward is clear. But over time or overdone, it leads to disempowerment, disengagement and lower performance. This style centers on the Driver pattern and can be accessed through movements that are sharp, fast, intense and independently executed.

Pacesetting – focused on hitting targets. This style can also be useful short term and can degrade workplace climate and performance longer term by feeling like an endless treadmill. The results-orientation and sense of urgency of this style is the Driver pattern, while the process or “how” associated with reaching targets is the Organizer pattern. Good movements for accessing Driver-Organizer would include activities that keep score and raise the bar, build discipline and quickly put one foot ahead of the other—jog, don’t walk.

Visionary – articulates a shared mission and purposeful vision. This style takes a longer-term view and ignites the creativity and capacity of others with a common understanding of where we’re going and why. No surprise that this style maps to the pattern by the same name and can be accessed through expansive, floating, extending movements, especially out in nature.

Participative – gets consensus, invites ideas and builds commitment. This style also supports a more engaged climate and higher performance long term as people feel heard in decision making and ownership in direction. The Collaborator pattern is natural for moving into this style and can be accessed through movements that are rhythmic, playful, and go back and forth.

Coaching – fosters personal and career development. This up-close-and-personal style builds capacity in others over time. While coaching can be done in any pattern, the two patterns that particularly foster this style are Collaborator, which values relationships and readily engages with people, and Organizer, which listens deeply, asks good questions and can point toward next steps in development. Good activities for cultivating Collaborator-Organizer would involve playful, stepwise processes—like a game—and listening through one’s heart or entire body, not just ears.

Affiliative – create trust and harmony. This is the fourth of the long-term styles and is essential for individual and collective well-being and reducing fear and anxiety.  While trust has a component of competence that can come from any pattern, trust in character and consistency centers on the Organizer pattern. Harmony brings in the Visionary pattern, as it relates to a healthy resonance among people and between people and conditions. Ways to access this Organizer-Visionary style include slowing down and opening up, listening to nature, or moving slowly and stepwise, as in Tai Chi.

Korn Ferry’s research shows that most leaders use only one or two of the above leadership styles, creating gaps in their abilities and difficulties in the workplace climates they create. As Korn Ferry CEO Gary Burnison writes, it’s “about expanding our versatility and recognizing which one will have the greatest impact in a given situation. In other words, it’s a choice. We need to toggle—and don’t allow our leadership to get stuck in one style.” Just like throwing a toggle switch, that’s easier to do when you get your hands on it—i.e., make it physical—and that’s what the patterns enable.  

From our research with FEBI, we also see that most leaders have a preference for one or two of the patterns. Sometimes those preferences are very strong and it’s easy to get stuck in what’s comfortable. But all leaders have physical access to all four patterns, and practice makes, if not perfect, at least good enough access to any pattern so that we recognize when it’s needed and can use it when it’s called for.

As we face the confusion, collective acceleration and collapse of this time, our most effective and purposeful leadership arises from drawing on our full inner team of patterns for the agile work of settling fears, lifting people up and creating a future we want on the other side.

*FEBI is a registered trademark of the Institute for Zen Leadership

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About the author: Ginny Whitelaw is the Founder and CEO of the Institute for Zen Leadership..

This article has been kindly repurposed from the Institute of Zen Leadership and you can read the original here.