The Limits of Smart Leadership Roles

The level of enthusiasm and willingness of leaders to play different roles in different contexts depends on whether they operate from the blue or red zone. Leaders perform their role in very different emotional states and with very different expectations in each zone. Reflect on the zone in which you most often find yourself, and keep this in mind as you read the rest of the chapter so that you get personal clarity on what you could do to lead more from the front or more from behind—and do so without emotional attachment.

Leaders operating in the blue zone are generally challenged in the area of role clarity because they like to lead within their domain of control and leave bigger philosophical or ethical questions that cut across domains to their superiors. In other words, they focus on the “what” and “how” of their role rather than worrying about the “why.” For instance, at Barclays, when del Missier saw the note from Diamond about lowering LIBOR rates, he simply followed it without questioning—even though what he was doing was probably unethical and potentially illegal.

In addition, blue zone leaders tend to leave their personal emotions aside in favor of focusing on getting the job done and producing results. For example, when Tim Cook was chief operating officer of Apple, he focused primarily on boosting his company’s operational efficiencies and overlooked the poor working conditions of factory workers at Apple’s Chinese subcontractors. Only after he became CEO did he pay attention to the ethical concerns raised by the media about Apple’s supply chain. Cook went to China to inspect his subcontractor’s factories and then had Apple join the Fair Labor Association. Moreover, leaders in the blue zone tend to stick to the same role because over time they get proficient at it and feel comfortable to the point where they become reluctant to take on additional roles. They may even lose their identity in the process.

Leaders in the red zone often struggle with role clarity because their pride gets attached to the role they are playing. But unlike blue zone leaders, they still have a strong sense of ego boundaries and retain their identity even when they are fully immersed in a role. Also, their attachment to certain ego-based outcomes makes it difficult for them to give up the role and perks associated with a particular role. Bob Diamond, who is said to have ruled Barclays in an imperious way, was paid £30 million in salary in 2011. As the LIBOR scandal broke, a defiant Diamond refused to quit his CEO role. Eventually he was forced to resign under pressure from the British government, but then Barclays offered him a £20 million severance package. The resulting public outcry led him to forgo £20 million of that package and settle for £2 million.¹⁷

Furthermore, business smart leaders tend to believe that the end justifies all means: when they are performing a role, ethical and legal concerns take a back seat to what needs to be done to produce the desired outcome. Nearly a quarter of all Wall Street executives believe that “wrongdoing at the work place is key to success.”¹⁸ Even if red zone leaders have some doubts about the ethical basis of their planned action, they tend to override their inner voice, as Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen explains: “Unconsciously, we often employ the marginal cost doctrine in our personal lives when we choose between right and wrong. A voice in our head says, ‘Look, I know that as a general rule, most people shouldn’t do this. But in this particular extenuating circumstance, just this once, it’s ok.’ The marginal cost of doing something wrong ‘just this once’ always seems alluringly low.”¹⁹

Interestingly, in our research as well as consulting experience, we found that some leaders—those who operate sometimes from the red zone and other times from the blue—can display two different levels of engagement depending on what zone they are operating from. When they are in the red zone, they play their role with passionate attachment, and when they are in the blue zone, they can become disengaged from their role.