The Ten Modes of Elevated Leadership, briefly
Leadership advice has a habit of telling you to be one thing. Be decisive. Be a servant. Be visionary. Be data-driven.
The trouble is that every one of those is right, and each is right at a different moment. The leader who is decisive when the situation calls for listening does damage. So does the listener who will not decide.
What a mode is
A mode is a way of operating that a situation calls for. Not a personality type, and not a strength you were born with. Something closer to a gear.
You already switch between them, mostly unconsciously and mostly badly, because nobody taught you the map. Modal Leadership is the map.
Agility beats mastery
Here is the part that surprises people.
The goal is not to become excellent at your favourite mode. Most leaders who plateau have already done that, which is precisely the problem. They have one superb gear and they drive everything in it.
The goal is modal agility: noticing which mode the situation in front of you actually requires, and being able to shift into it even when it is not your natural one.
That is a learnable skill. It is also uncomfortable, because the mode a situation needs is often the one you are worst at.
How this connects to faith
This is where Working With God differs from the general leadership literature.
If you believe God has something to say about your business, then the question "which mode does this need?" has a place to be asked. You are not guessing alone. The dialogue about the mode is itself the practice.
That is what I mean by real-time conversation with the Creator about spreadsheets, budgets, teams, and opportunities. Not being holier at the office. Being in conversation about the actual work.
Trying it once
Take a decision you are sitting on right now.
Ask yourself what mode you have been operating in on it, and be honest, because it is almost certainly your default. Then ask what mode the situation itself is asking for.
If those two answers are different, you have just found the reason the decision has been stuck.
The full framework, with stories from CEOs and concrete steps, is in the book. But the question above works on its own, today.