The Death of the Alpha Male Leader

I'd like to ship you a free copy of my book Habits of High Performers. If you come and join the 2026 goal setting workshop, I will ship you one of these today. The link is in the notes. Please come and join me to set up the very best 2026 you could imagine. If you've set up goals in the past or New Year's resolutions and they haven't substantiated, I'm here to help you across all the key pillars of your life nail your goals. I'll see you there. Welcome to Lead On Purpose. I'm James Laughlin, former seven time world champion musician and now executive coach to global leaders and high performers. Each week I'll publish a solo cast where I'll share my top high performance habits and methodologies to supercharge your life and career. If you enjoy the show, please take a short moment to subscribe and leave a rating and review. I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks for taking the time to connect today and investing in yourself. Enjoy the show.

The death of the Alpha male leader is imminent. Yes, you heard me right. I firmly know and believe that times are changing and changing very quickly. Diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging. These types of words, they weren't part of the vernacular in the business scene, in the corporate scene, in the sporting scene. If you go back 20, 30 years, that was not common to be talking about DEIB, but now it is. And I firmly believe in the work that I do with professional athletes, with teams, with leaders, with large organizations, that the Alpha male leader is running out quick, that it's disappearing, that the appearance of how they show up in their lack of collaboration, toxic masculinity, negative impact on others, ineffective communication, that's just not going to cut it. It really isn't. And I hope that you can also see that around you and maybe you listening right now are thinking, well, what kind of leader am I? Because I'll tell you what, there's also a concept of Alpha female leadership. That's a thing too. Let's not think it's just male, but it is a male dominated thing. Why? Because when we look at leadership positions, they're still leaders, largely male dominated. You know, recent research pieces are showing we're up closer to that 30% of female representation at that senior and executive leadership level. But males are still dominant in that and there's still some alpha males. I saw one in recent years here in New Zealand, running a large export company and it was really uncomfortable to be in his presence. It was really uncomfortable to be a witness to how he made his staff feel and see multiple people cry in his presence. He was always very defensive and aggressive at the same time. Look, I want you to think about this. When you think of an alpha male leader, who comes to mind for you? And I want you to ask yourself, do I see a lack of collaboration? Because alpha males and those who lead with alpha male tendencies, they often focus on individual dominance rather than fostering collaboration and teamwork. We've seen this at a political, a geopolitical level, on a global scale, you could probably name a couple of leaders in recent years who you would class as people who lacked collaboration. It simply won't work. If we want to save the planet, if we want to save the people, we have to collaborate. And look, an alpha male leader has a massively negative impact on culture. Their emphasis on competition and dominance really creates hostility and often it can be intimidating to work in that environment. Right now I look back at some of my younger years and I go, wow, it was very, very competitive focused. When I was running my team, getting ready for the world championship, it was always on competitive focus and at times that meant I lacked empathy for sure. If I go back to that time and think, hey, if I could go back and take what I know now, it would be a vastly different experience for myself, but more importantly for everyone around me. And in terms of communication, let's face it, alpha males are very poor communicators. Why? Because they do way more talking than they do listening. And look, I've been so fortunate over the last few years to connect with, work with coach and interview some of the world's greatest leaders, male and female. And the one thing I've noticed about the greatest of them all is they were curious, they were funny, they were light hearted, they were confident, they were decisive, but they listened a lot, asked questions a lot, admitted fault and failure a lot. And I want you to ask yourself, how do you lead? How are you leading yourself? How are you leading your team? How are you leading your family?

What does that look like? Do you lead it with empathy? Because I'll tell you what, empathy is the number one trait. And again, lots of research backs this up. The leaders who are doing the greatest and how do we judge great? Well, let's go back to the definition of high performance. Performing above the standard norms over the long term whilst maintaining positive relationships and well being. That's how we determine greatness. It's performance related. Whilst maintaining good relationships and well being. And to do that, empathy has to be front and center. When empathy is lacking. Well, people get cut off at the pass, people don't get listened to, people get treated a number. So I want to just ask you to think, you know, what is my style? Is it alpha or is it not? But more importantly, I do want to reinforce that the time has come for alpha male leadership and female leadership to end. We don't need any more alpha type leaders, we need collaborators. That's where the most powerful outcomes are created. You look at sports teams, doesn't matter if you've got a Michael Jordan on your team. You need more than a Michael Jordan to get the job done. You need collaboration.

When we refuse to collaborate, the results speak for themselves. They're usually short lived and the turnover is usually pretty high. Takes me back to something I shared recently actually at Festival for the Future, a really cool festival up in Wellington. Really about 1500 participants from all walks of life who are aspiring leaders, current leaders, political leaders, corporate leaders, sporting leaders, the lot. And I shared one thing with them and that was trick T, R I, C, K. And I've shared it with some of you before, but it's Esther Wojcicki's principle of how to create an amazing culture. That's one. You've got to start to build trust incrementally. That's what the T stands for. Follow that with respect. Respect follows trust. Then comes independence, then followed by collaboration, and last but not least, kindness. To me, great leaders don't even need to think of that philosophy. It's just a part of who they are. But I'm going to challenge you to think, hey, with the key people in your life that are in your family, that are in your work sphere, is the trick in place? Do you trust and respect them? Have they got independence to work autonomously? Is there collaboration where possible? And is there ongoing kindness? Now, the alpha male that's listening to this will have probably fast forwarded, deleted or unsubscribed from the podcast. They don't want to hear this, they don't want to be challenged. But if you're in a position to influence others, I want to ask you to start talking about leadership styles. I want to challenge you to talk to other people around you who are in a position of privilege, where they lead others and guide others and start talking about what's acceptable. What do we need stepping into this next phase of climate challenge, of economic uncertainty? We need collaboration. We need deeply empathic leaders, people who are in touch with their feelings and other people's feelings, people who are also deeply curious, people who are highly educated. Those things are important. As AI steps in. Hey, the empathic leader will thrive. You cannot replace an empathic leader with any version of AI. Simply isn't possible. The one thing that will never disappear is the requirement for great leadership. Please never forget that you have the opportunity to impact your own life, but many people's lives around you by choosing to be the leader. Yes, we can engage with AI and we must. But be the leader. Do not follow when it comes to AI. You've got to learn more, read more, see where you can apply it. See where it needs to have some constraints put in place. But be the leader. Because never forget this. Everything rises and falls on leadership. Think of one thing where that's not true anything. It just isn't. Everything rises and falls on leadership. All different types of leadership. But when there's good leadership present, the outcomes are generally very good and the opposite is true. So I want you to really think about that. And it's a strong message that I send today that I truly believe the death of the Alpha male leadership style is imminent. We will see the end of it. We will not see many positions available for that type of leader. People simply won't want to work for that type of leader. People have courage now. We no longer stay in roles for 30 years or 40 years. We do what feels right and what fulfills us and helps meet our needs. If you want to be the leader who helps meet other people's needs, first of all, learn what are the core human needs and then ask yourself, can an Alpha male leader help people meet those needs? The answer is a resounding no, Definitely not. So my challenge to you is get out there and really think about being a leader that leads with empathy. But for now, please get out there and lead your life on purpose.

Thanks for tuning in today and investing in your own personal leadership. Please hit that subscribe button and I'd love if you'd leave me a rating and review. I've got some amazing guests lined up for you in the coming weeks. And leaders, it's that time to get out there and lead your life on purpose.