The Chess Master treats employees like chess pieces on a board. They believe that their employees have nothing of value to add to big team decisions about topics such as processes, goals, team formation, team membership, etc. They meet secretly with a trusted inner circle to decide the fates of their employees in these areas, and only after they have made up their minds do they announce the changes to the affected team(s). Chess Master leaders are usually quite surprised at the pushback and lackluster commitment they get from their employees over these new plans. They’re caught off guard when their teams don’t think of them as the legends they believe themselves to be. The morale and engagement on a Chess Master’s team are often quite low.

The Peacock is an expert at making certain their managers see them as the most amazing leader since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Meanwhile, their employees are mere peons whose sole job is to make them look good. The existence of this management style is just as much the fault of the Peacock’s manager because this style simply wouldn’t work if upper management didn’t allow it to. Peacocks have never heard a good idea that wasn’t worth claiming credit for. Conversely, they’re also very adept at shirking all accountability for anything that goes wrong.

Peacocks often claim that their top value is loyalty. Rather than viewing loyalty as something they need to give to receive, they view it as something that is owed to them.

The Ladder Climber is a sibling of the Peacock, but there is a distinction in that they are often much more transparent about their motives. They make no secret of the fact that their goal is to get promoted. This results in awkwardness as coworkers feel like the rungs of this person’s ladder are made up of their skulls. A Ladder Climber has difficulty creating trust as most employees feel like literal tools being used by this person to ascend a mountain.

The obsession with promotion is frustrating for everyone above, to the side, and below the Ladder Climber. Those above are constantly asked for the checklist of behaviors and accomplishments needed for promotion. Those to the side feel as if they’re in a competition they had no desire to be in and are in constant fear of being thrown under the feet of the Ladder Climber so they can get just a slight bit higher. Those below are usually neglected because, just like the Peacock, the Ladder Climber’s focus is always upward. If and when they are promoted, those they lead will rarely follow them.

The Micromanager is usually a perfectionist with trust issues. This is a leader who believes that they are the expert and their employees are the students. They pick apart their employees’ work and very quickly decide it can’t be trusted to be as perfect as their own. Soon, the micromanager goes full helicopter parent with their team—checking every detail, treating each employee as if they are a set of hands without a brain and, at the same time, complaining about how their employees never think on their own.

These types of leaders create their own self-fulfilling prophecy. When their employees are treated as if they are hands without a brain, those employees begin shutting down their brains—because, why bother? They’re just going to get second-guessed, made to feel inadequate, and told they are wrong and that their ideas won’t work.

Managers with this style try to make everyone happy but end up pissing everyone off in the process. Their milquetoast approach to management leaves their bosses and their employees yearning for more spine. Invertebrates don’t do conflict—so any bullying on the team will go unchallenged and the rest of the team will be left to fend for themselves. When they aren’t burying their heads in the sand in the face of danger, they’re usually making excuses for aggressors. They are everyone’s friend and no one’s leader.

The Drill Sergeant is on the opposite side of the spectrum of the Invertebrate. Drill Sergeants are no one’s friend and believe they are great leaders. Like Micromanagers and the Chess Masters, Drill Sergeants believe that employees are “less than” in some capacity . . . that people are inherently stupid, lazy, and only do what they’re instructed to do when they’re instructed to do it. They usually have short tempers, are quick to assign blame, and their motto is “yell first, ask questions later.” Drill Sergeants believe that anyone on the team can be correct as long as that person is them.

They’ve never met a problem that couldn’t be solved with a process. When faced with low morale, these managers usually begin witch hunts to find out who needs the attitude adjustment. Their motto is that old standard “the beatings will continue until morale improves.” They probably didn’t get enough hugs as kids.

Data Freaks don’t even get out of bed unless the data tells them it’s the right thing to do. These people have trust issues. If they could, they’d install identity sensors in bathrooms to measure the productivity loss. Data Freaks will proudly and repeatedly announce to everyone who will listen that they are “Data Driven.” This translates to “I don’t trust anything you say unless you can back it up with data.” By only making decisions that can be squared against the numbers, they protect their reputations. If a decision they make is unpopular or goes wrong, they can shrug and point to the data. If decisions are late, it’s not their fault because they were waiting for the data. You wouldn’t want them to rush into a decision without the data, would you?

In leadership roles, the Data Freak creates havoc in organizations by forcing employees to create measurements for obvious issues. Like an ER doctor who ignores the blood gushing out of your arm to ask someone to measure your blood pressure, bad things happen in the pursuit of certainty—or the illusion of certainty anyway. Employees often resort to just inventing numbers to satisfy the gatekeeping of their Data Freak manager to get things done.

In their pursuit of the almighty number, Data Freaks often jump over dollars to pick up dimes—and ignore that data in the process. They will gladly send their entire organization into a data collection frenzy—spending hundreds of person-hours gathering and analyzing data that will, in the end, likely be unable to save the company anywhere near the money it spent to collect all the information in the first place. But look at the pretty bar graphs!

The Bottom Liner can easily disregard any negative outcome for others if it will help the bottom line. This type differs from the Data Freak because rather than a general obsession with data, Bottom Liners are obsessed with one piece of data: profit. That means relentless cutting of expenses and growing revenue regardless of the long-term impact on the organization.

There is good data to show that Bottom Liners manage to get less productivity from employees—even employees who are also bottom line focused. Why would that be? Because Bottom Liners give off the vibe that employees don’t matter. The most important thing is the bottom line. Employees never trust that their own best interests are represented (and they are correct). As a result, they hold back performance. Why break your back for a boss who cares about profits more than they care about you?

The Squirrel is often quite brilliant and successful, but they are moving so fast that they cannot hear others who move slower than they do—i.e., most people. A common way that Squirrels are received by employees is that they appear to have zero patience—the speed Squirrels are moving at creates chaos and disengagement all over their organization.

One of the primary behaviors associated with Squirrels is what I like to call Seagull Leadership. They are moving so fast and are involved in so many things that teams are often working without them around. Then, suddenly, they swoop in, shit all over what the team has been doing, then fly off into the sunset. It only takes a few of these occurrences for employees to feel disempowered and start shutting down their brains. Team members will put the brakes on new ideas or directions by saying things like, “We need to check with Alex before we decide this.” Why? Because Alex has a reputation for being a Seagull. Congratulations Alex! You’ve created an approval gate for your teams, who will now pause and stare at their navels until you swoop in to make a decision about something you will frustratedly believe they should have decided without you.

A close associate of the Squirrel is the Graveyard Whistler. The term comes from the phrase “whistling past the graveyard,” which describes a person unable or unwilling to acknowledge their own fear. They nervously whistle to pretend there is nothing to be afraid of. Graveyard Whistlers are toxically positive and ignore/avoid negativity whenever possible—seeming to live in what appears to others as a fictional world.

The difference between a Squirrel and a Graveyard Whistler is that a Squirrel doesn’t have the time and/or attention span to learn about anything negative going on. A Graveyard Whistler is aware but avoidant of that negativity. Both types leave in their wakes burned out and frustrated employees who don’t feel heard. When employees are concerned about the difficulty of a problem they’re facing, Graveyard Whistlers tend to ignore or downplay that difficulty. This drives disconnection and damages credibility.