In this solo video, Peter Sorgenfrei explores how founders and CEOs can identify the leadership style that best fits their personality and organization. He argues that leaders should not try to emulate a style that contradicts their natural disposition; instead, they should play to their inherent strengths—whether extroverted and communicative or introverted and reserved. He outlines a practical onboarding approach where the leader is highly engaged with new hires for the first three months to build rapport, then gradually steps back while maintaining trust and availability. The talk emphasizes delegating decision‑making, treating mistakes as learning opportunities, and using structured conversations (weekly/bi‑weekly one‑on‑ones and quarterly deep‑dives) to stay aligned. He also warns against the extremes of micromanagement and the absent leader, offering guidance for quieter leaders on how to remain accessible without over‑communicating. The video concludes with a call for viewers to suggest future topics.
Chapters
What type of leader are you? There are many different leadership styles, right? Everybody talks about the micromanager as being a bad leader or the absent leader, the person who you don't know whether or not you can get in touch with or you don't know where they stand. And so between those 2 extremes, if you will, there's probably a leadership style that both suits you and suits the organization that you're running. So, when I talk to founders and CEOs who feel like they've gotten a little bit off the path of the kind of leader that they want to be, I start with asking them a very simple question, which is also a very big question, which is, who are you? And after spending a few hours thinking about that and talking about that together, we come down to The person you are is also the leader you're going to be, right? So, if you are a very communicative, open, extrovert person, well, that is the kind of leader you're going to be. If you're more introvert, quiet, not so expressive, not so communicative, that's the way you'll have to lead. So basically, you cannot be something you are not, or you— I believe you shouldn't try to be something you're not. But you should play to the strength of what you already are. So for me, because I am a very external, communicative, engaging, and engaged person, the way I lead is I start by letting people know that I always will have an opinion if they ask me. I will always engage if they ask me. And in the beginning, for the first 3 or so months that they work with me and work for me, I will be very active in all of our conversations. And it's not because I don't trust them. It's not because I don't respect their decision. It's because I want to be close to them so we get to know each other and understand how we will work together. And then over time, I become more of a, you know, if I don't hear from them, I assume everything is good. And I check in with them with our regular one-on-ones or with our quarterly deep dives. That's a video for another day. But how do you run your team and how do you run the meetings? That's something that we can also talk about. So that's the way I do it. I typically tell people, you're here because I trust you. You're here because you know how to do something that others did not. So we needed that capability. Now go do that thing. Trust your experience. If in doubt, you can always come and ask me. You can always discuss it with me. But But I implicitly trust your decisions. This is another thing that some leaders struggle with because when they have new people on their team, they're afraid they're going to make huge mistakes. But the fact of the matter is everybody does make mistakes and none of them are going to be huge. None of them are going to be so material that it'll derail your business. So the trick becomes to let people make decisions. When they've made a decision that's been executed that you disagree with, have a conversation about that. Ask them what was the logic that led to that? How did they arrive at that conclusion? Why did they want to do it this way? And once you've understood the background, talk to them saying, well, had I been in your shoes, I would have done this, this, and this. And then you guys can compare and contrast and say, okay, well, maybe next time we'll do it a third way. That's the way to kind of course correct when people, quote unquote, make mistakes or do things in other ways that you would have ideally liked them to do. So on the other side, we have the more absent leader, right? So he or she is the person who kind of leans back and just lets people do their thing and is not really engaging with them. That's never good because people tend to want to have or tend to know that they have a boss that they can go to whenever there's an issue, whether it's a personal issue, or professional issue. So, even if you are the quiet type that doesn't communicate a lot, that has a lot of faith and trust in your team's capability, you need to let them know that, of course, not my door is always open. Please let's get rid of that saying. But that you are available emotionally and physically if they need it, right? So, even though you're quiet, even though you're doing your own thing, or even though you're busy in other parts of the business, There's always a way for them to get in touch with you and you will always respond and react to what they're coming to you with. If they know this, most people are okay running along. Of course, married with a regular fixed check-in. I recommend one-on-ones weekly or biweekly. They don't have to be long. They can be structured. So it's fairly quick to execute. And then a quarterly deep dive where you really talk about how are you doing in the business? Colleague, direct report, what are some of the things that we want to work on for the next quarter? So those were some ideas and thoughts about leadership styles. I hope you found it helpful. As always, if you want me to talk about anything else, you can leave a comment down below or to the side or wherever you see this, or shoot me a note and I'd be happy to record it for you. Thank you.
