The Lion and the Leopard

Business leaders often differ significantly in how they have been successful getting to the top of an organization. Some become experts in their craft and believe it to be the only path to success. Some believe there is more on the horizon and are comfortable seeking it out. In any case, at some point there is bound to be conflict with a “right way” versus a “wrong way.” It’s wise to be aware of those differences and design your leadership structure in accordance with where you want your business to go – before it’s too late.

On a brisk Alaskan morning, the dawn set down over the small lake’s edge like moonlight through the fog and frost. The air was still and peaceful. I walked out to sit with my coffee and wait while the eastern sun made its way slowly – quite slowly – into the bay. Front and center was a family of mallard ducks trolling through the water in a tight formation. I realized after a few minutes that I was not alone in watching them. I had company high above me on a branch leaning out over the water’s edge.

A magnificent bald eagle perched with purpose, watching the potential prey with interest and patience. Not afraid of me in the least, she kept her focus on the flock. The morning might become more eventful than me in my chair with my cup of coffee.

Yet she did not go unnoticed.

Out across the water suddenly darted another character. A belted Kingfisher. Beautiful, assertive, and swift, the Kingfisher darted lightly over the fog and glassy water. Kingfishers, remarkable birds, are the unrivaled predators of small fish, diving with precision to pluck small prey from beneath the water’s surface. He darted this way, then that. Then back again. He was patrolling his zone of the lake like a British policeman only an hour into his shift. Nothing was discreet about it. This was his bay and his domain, and the eagle was clearly not welcome.

Needing a better vantage point, the eagle lightly leapt off the branch and glided calmly to another tree opposite of the ducks along the bay’s edge. While now closer to the ducks, the eagle was still not afforded a clear line of sight. The Kingfisher doubled back to defend his territory, ducks or no ducks. While he was clearly not a fifth of the eagle’s size and imposing strength, that certainly didn’t deter him from making a defiant display. This was his corner of the lake and the fish therein were his. “Nothing to see here” was the message.

The eagle pivoted back to her original perch. The Kingfisher made his circle again – and again. The eagle persisted. Pivot. Defend. Pivot. Defend. As this process repeated, I sipped my coffee and wondered when the eagle would either tire of the charade or turn its sights to the Kingfisher himself. All the while, the ducks pressed together in the cool morning water and hoped for their lives the game would play in their favor.

Finally, a second eagle entered the scene and took position a ways down the bank from myself and the main character. It watched the situation playing out very briefly, and then took back to the sky heading away across the lake for bigger waters. The other eagle, my tired compatriot, followed suit and left the scene without an ounce of breakfast.

The Kingfisher was left alone with his small section of lake. No fish. And no ducks. And my coffee was cold.

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There was once a company looking to aggressively expand in certain area of their business. Corporate leadership, or at least the CEO and 3-4 partners, were very optimistic about the potential for growth and a more sustainable revenue stream than they’d had in prior years. They already had trophies and accolades across great client institutions in this area of interest, but focus over time was sporadic, and organizational memory about the successful approaches and relationships was holed away with certain stakeholders. With a great suite of products and services just needing a fresh go-to-market strategy, it seemed like a home-run change waiting to happen.

In the immediate weeks and months starting the journey toward activating a new growth strategy, however, it soon became clear why the organization wasn’t expanding and evolving in the direction of this area the way leadership thought they should. The other 80% of the partners were quite happy the way things were. They were masters of their own product domains and relationships. They had grown up in the organization in various ways, carved out a leadership niche for themselves, and grew each product area modestly in a balance that ensured they were appreciated by the workforce for putting food on the table and equally respected for the depth of knowledge in their area of the pond. They were kingfishers – masters of smaller ponds. 

Partnership was harder to find internally than hoped. In fact, it eventually became a chess game of Italian city-states making war against the new entrants. One partner said essentially, “we don’t do that here.” Another said “the key to succeeding here is to stay below the radar. Be too successful or outshine others and the system will turn on you.” Then finally, some tenured leaders even began to carve away resources and services that were meant to serve the entire company, including the growing division. Either the incoming leaders in the new area were to also become kingfishers…or they would unfortunately need to find entirely new waters.

While there were pockets of allies, no shortage of outward niceties, and certainly signs the tides were turning, a paradigm shift had to be made if goals were to be achieved. Executive leadership got together and walked through a “state of the union” for how the current dynamics were presenting challenges, and how the endeavor must either decidedly grow once and for all or shrink back to business as usual. They committed to growth and subsequently examined the best alternative to immediate wholesale change across all product areas. They would continue to implement the new strategy in just this one swim-lane, but also protect it against internal opposition.

In the ensuing months, they built a team and relaunched a holistic go-to-market strategy in the defined swim-lane. They struck out in new directions and hunted new bodies of water. Leadership encouraged the kingfishers be their best while also enabling the eagles to stretch their wings farther with the new strategy.

The results spoke for themselves.

The division tripled in revenue over 18 months. It created playbooks for growth. It saved jobs. The industry strategy became an enterprise template, and the kingfishers began to take note.

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An Examination of Kingfishers and Eagles

In business, especially sales, many successful leaders fall more into the archetype of a Kingfisher or Eagle, either by nature or by years of earned success demonstrating certain behaviors that got them to where they are. Both are valuable, and neither is better in its own right as opposed to the function in which it is needed. As a leader of those leaders, you have to learn how to identify those behaviors and align them to the needs of your vision accordingly.

Here’s a simplified breakdown of the strengths, challenges, and needs of each.

The Kingfisher

Strengths and Habitat

• Master specialist
• An expert with a high success rate
• Can have a strong continuous improvement mindset and create standards
• Reliable for repeatable success in sales or delivery of a known approach
• Suitable leader for ownership of a “cash cow” product portfolio
• Great teachers and models for training behaviors with rising talent that will also specialize in a defined area not likely to change
• Excellent plug-and-play solutions for either long term or emergent needs in a recurring revenue stream
• Thrive in smaller teams and talent pools
• Feed on smaller fish and need less economic compensation as opposed to institutional admiration and recognition

Challenges

• Have difficulty adapting to new environments or dragging in prey larger than themselves
• Often create hierarchy even when it’s not necessary
• Consciously or unconsciously limit their tactics and behaviors to pursuits that show them as uber successful in a smaller body of water
• Very territorial, either openly or behind closed doors
• Easily deterred by failed experiences or experiments that don’t bear immediate fruit, or in other words result in “we tried that and it didn’t work that one time, so we’ll never try it again…”

Needs

• Visible recognition on a regular basis
• Ownership of a defined area
• People to teach and mint in their ways

The Eagle

Strengths and Habitat

• Master generalist
• An expert in finding or creating new opportunity
• Most often displays a growth mindset and can reimagine or reset the standards
• Reliable for creating new solutions and ways to enter a new market
• Suitable leader of a foundational or growth area
• Innovator and multi-terrain threat
• Seemingly comfortable or fearless in ambiguity
• Capable of flying solo or collaborating with others as long as resources aren’t scarce

Challenges

• Needs bigger problems to solve
• May not tend to consistent area or portfolio that needs acute attention regularly
• Has a harder time “staying put” in one area for a longer period of time
• Expects a bigger return on their investment as their hit rate may not be as high as the Kingfisher, but the input and output is inarguably larger

Needs

• Autonomy in practice as much as territory (I.e. less governance of the how, as well as the what and where)
• Greater line of sight across the business to know how they can best influence it with their part
• While greater resources are not required to support them, those investments may go farther in the eagle’s clutches
• Reward comparable to their accomplishment. Only feed them the same as a Kingfisher and they will leave for bigger waters.

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The Alaskan Verdict

As I got up from my chair to make good use of the day, I looked at the ducks now peacefully perusing the bank of the lake with less worry and care now that the eagles were gone. It had worked out well for them. But for the Kingfisher and Eagle? The Kingfisher had make a great display while garnering no more fish, and it had no use for the ducks. The eagle had eaten no ducks, and had no time for the smaller fish. All the “money” so to speak had been left on the table. 

The game was lose-lose. 

Were the Kingfisher and Eagle on the same corporate leadership team, the loss here would have been embarrassing and meaningful. Neither was able to do what they were uniquely good at. While the Kingfisher had no use for the ducks, the eagle did. And as the eagle couldn’t care less about the smaller fish under the surface, the Kingfisher should have been focused and hunting them. The collective “business” in this case would have needed the eagle to exact its masterful display of hunting prowess on the mallard ducks, and the Kingfisher could have equally collected countless fish. Yet they ended with nothing – literally.

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Reflection

If you are a CEO or a leader of diverse business functions, it’s crucial that you recognize your Kingfishers and your Eagles. Often these dynamics go unnoticed for years, even decades, as tenured leaders grow up in the business and rule by right versus fit. Are you asking Kingfishers to build out a new business? Good luck. Are you feeding your Eagles a variable bonus less than 5-15% of their base salary? They will leave. Are you grading both by the same metrics across different areas of the business, or are you promoting or assigning leadership roles based on identical criteria regardless of the business needs? These could be critical strategic errors.

Put into practice, imagine a small business that needs to consistently deliver well on their core offerings and needs only modest growth to achieve their goals. They need Kingfishers more than they need Eagles. On the other hand, imagine a publicly traded company governed by Kingfishers. They have to grow fast! Acquire! Innovate! They need Eagles just as much as they need Kingfishers. Unfortunately you can usually spot the decline of either one of these companies when their leaders resemble too much of the wrong balance.

Here are a few final questions to consider:

• Have you looked at your strategic priorities and aligned your leaders to those priorities based on their unique strengths (I.e. Kingfishers versus Eagles), or simply based on their function and the organizational structure? Don’t task your COO with operational innovation simply because they lead operations. And by the same token, don’t assign an eagle to redesign operations but still be beholden to a Kingfisher’s hierarchical dominance.
• Have you given leaders the runway needed to be successful, or did you grade them by the one and only time they tried something new?
• In the present chapter of your career, do you think your peers would describe you as a kingfisher or an eagle?