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Effective leadership isnt a one-size-fits-all endeavor. It requires adaptability, self-awareness, and a deep understanding of when to step in and when to step back. Leaders often struggle to find the right balance between empowering their teams and maintaining strategic oversight. But theres a way that you can do both. By adopting the practical 2×2 leadership framework that Ill get into in this article, leaders can assess their approach based on two critical dimensions: Degree of Empowerment and Degree of Strategic Altitude. The leadership quadrants When you map out leadership approaches across these two dimensions, four distinct quadrants emerge. Each quadrant represents a different leadership style, and understanding when and how to apply each can help leaders optimize their impact. Control hub (operational overreach) This quadrant is appropriate when employees lack the necessary skills, experience, or confidence to perform tasks independently. Its crucial in high-stakes situations that require precision and compliance, like crisis management or regulatory adherence. Leaders should adopt this approach when theyre training new employees or when they need to take immediate corrective action to prevent costly mistakes. Potential pitfalls Overindulgence in this quadrant can lead to micromanagement, which stifles employee creativity and autonomy. When leaders insist on controlling every aspect of a task, employees may feel disengaged and undervalued, leading to high turnover rates and low morale. However, avoiding this quadrant when you genuinely need it can result in poor quality control, increased errors, and project derailment due to a lack of oversight. Maria, a project manager at a fast-growing tech company Ive consulted with, is leading the rollout of a new software update for a major client. Given the complexity of the project and the tight deadlines, she feels the need to oversee every aspect, from development timelines to QA testing. Despite having a capable team, Maria conducts frequent check-ins, requests detailed reports, and personally reviews code before deployment. Initially, Maria’s approach ensures that the project stays on track and meets the client’s stringent quality standards. But as the project progresses, her team begins to feel micromanaged, leading to frustration and burnout. Experienced developers feel undervalued, and morale begins to decline. Maria realizes that while tight oversight was necessary at the project’s start, gradually transitioning to a more empowering leadership style could have built trust and improved team morale. She implements a phased approach, which allows senior developers to take ownership of specific modules while she shifts focus to higher-level strategic issues. Guided autonomy (empowered operators) This quadrant works best when employees have a solid foundation of skills but still require occasional guidance to refine their capabilities. Its effective for developing talent and allows employees to build confidence while benefiting from the leaders strategic input. Leaders should apply this approach when the team needs to complete moderately complex tasks that require periodic support. Potential pitfalls Overindulging in this quadrant can potentially make employees overly dependent on the leader, which slows down their growth and initiative. Leaders might also avoid this quadrant due to discomfort with providing critical feedback, which can allow performance issues to go unchecked. Jason, a sales director, is coaching a group of midlevel sales managers tasked with expanding into a new market. They have a good grasp of sales fundamentals but lack experience in handling high-stakes negotiations with enterprise clients. Jason decides to provide them with structured mentorship, offering periodic guidance while still giving them room to develop their negotiation skills. He schedules biweekly coaching sessions, where he reviews their progress, provides feedback on their approach, and shares best practices. However, Jason struggles to provide direct corrective feedback because he fears it might demotivate them. As a result, some managers continue to struggle with closing deals, leading to missed targets. Jason realizes that empowerment doesn’t mean avoiding difficult conversations. By balancing encouragement with constructive feedback, he can help his team refine their skills without undermining their confidence. He starts incorporating role-playing exercises and clear, actionable feedback into his coaching sessions. Strategic steering (visionary control) This approach is ideal when the organization or team needs clear strategic direction while requiring oversight to ensure alignment with long-term goals. Its particularly useful during times of change, such as mergers, expansions, or new strategic initiatives. Leaders should engage in strategic steering when they need to provide vision while maintaining control over key decision-making areas. Potential pitfalls Overindulgence in strategic thinking might disconnect leaders from ground-level realities, which leaves employees without practical guidance. Avoiding this quadrant may result in a lack of long-term vision, which leads to shortsighted operational decisions. Emily, the founder of a successful e-commerce startup Ive coached, wants to expand to international markets. She dedicates most of her time to crafting the company’s long-term strategy and forming partnerships with global distributors. However, in doing so, she becomes detached from day-to-day operations, assuming her management team can handle internal processes. Over time, operational inefficiencies emerge, with increasing customer complaints about delivry times and product quality. Employees feel directionless as their efforts are not aligned with the founder’s ambitious vision. Emily realizes the importance of balancing strategic oversight with operational involvement. She implements regular strategy check-ins with her leadership team to ensure alignment between the company’s long-term goals and daily operations, bridging the gap between vision and execution. Strategic empowerment (empowered governance) This quadrant works best for high-performing teams that demonstrate consistent results and align well with the organizations strategic goals. Leaders should utilize this approach when their primary focus is on shaping organizational culture and long-term planning while trusting their teams to handle daily operations effectively. This quadrant is particularly valuable for fostering innovation and employee ownership. Overreliance on delegation can lead to a lack of awareness of operational challenges, potentially causing misalignment with organizational goals. However, avoiding full delegation altogether might stifle innovation and growth. Alex, a regional President at a multinational corporation with whom Ive worked, has built a highly capable leadership team. Trusting their expertise, he adopts a hands-off approach, allowing them full autonomy over department operations. He shifts his focus to high-level industry trends and shapes the organizations long-term vision. Initially, this approach fosters a sense of ownership among his managers, and innovation flourishes. However, over time, small inefficiencies begin to accumulate. Without periodic oversight, teams start to work in silos, and communication gaps result in misalignment with company objectives. Alex learns that he needs to accompany empowerment with structured accountability. He starts to introduce quarterly strategic alignment meetings to ensure all departments remain connected to the broader organizational goals, while maintaining the autonomy that drives innovation. Great leadership requires a dynamic balance of empowerment and strategic altitude. By understanding and applying this quadrant framework, leaders can better align their leadership style to their teams needs, which drives both individual and organizational success. Whether on the dance floor or the balcony, the key is to know when to step in and when to step back.
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If youve ever been to the Vatican or watched for a puff of white smoke on live TV, you probably noticed something colorful. Or rather, something wholly mind-blowing in the modern era of tactical military designa troop of tri-color pantalooned papal protectors wielding halberds, seemingly straight out of a Raphael painting. But these are not hired cosplayers. This is the Swiss Guard, the popes personal security teamand today theyre protecting the college of cardinals as they vote on the next Catholic leader, decked out in what Encyclopedia Britannica has dubbed among the oldest uniforms in continuous use. Its more Met Gala than military. Heres how this bold anachronism came to be. Pope Francis walks past a Swiss guard, June 1, 2024. [Photo: Tiziana Fabi/AFP/Getty Images] SWISS ARMY LIFE Of course, theres another anomaly at play here: Why the mini army is dubbed the Swiss Guard despite being located within the worlds smallest country (Vatican City), which is nestled within Rome. As it turns out, rather than being a false eponym, the name is quite literal. In the late Middle Ages, Swiss mercenary forces were revered for their highly effective (read: deadly/terrifying) tactical fighting. Other countries in the region hired them to great effectso in 1506, Pope Julius II brought 150 of them to the Vatican. It was a fortuitous decision, and one that would save Pope Clements VIIs life in 1527. On May 6the day in which new Swiss Guard members are now traditionally sworn in every year, though that has been postponed in 2025 due to the conclaveCharles Vs soldiers sacked Rome. Of the Guards 189 members, 147 were killed, and they saved the popes life by ferrying him to safety through a secret passage. Today, the Vatican has a police force, which handles general security and law enforcement in the city. But the Swiss Guard exclusively protects the pope and his residence, and also travels abroad with him, in addition to safeguarding conclaves. And they do it with more than just those halberdsall members of the Guard must be between 19 and 30, Catholic, unmarried, and have already completed basic training with the Swiss Army, giving the 135-strong force proficiency with military tactics and modern firearms, which they are indeed equipped with. Theres more than meets the eye in those pantaloons. And not everyone is wearing themsome guards are in plain clothes and may appear to be tourists walking next to you. A painting of a Swiss Guard by Hortense Haudebourt-Lescot, ca. 1810. [Image: Wiki Commons THE MOST PICTURESQUE UNIFORM OF ALL If you were to Google just what the heck, exactly, the Swiss Guard are wearing, youd quickly discover that the uniforms were designed by Michelangelo, who Julius II also commissioned to paint the Sistine Chapel. And that would be a myth, which everyone from The New York Times in the 19th century to Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown has perpetuated. Rather, as the Vatican has detailed, when the mercenaries first rolled into the city, they were dressed like any other soldier of the 1500s, donning doublets and stockings. Its believed that Julius II gifted them with the beginnings of their signature stylistic flair when he incorporated yellow and bluecolors from his family coat of armsinto their uniforms. According to the Vatican, clothing had become finer and more colorful during the Renaissance, and red was in vogue. So Julius IIs successor, Leo X, took the opportunity to incorporate it into the uniforms as a nod to the colors of his family, the powerful Medici, during his reign from 1513 to 1521. Tweaks and revisions were made over time, with history intervening at various points. For example, as the Vatican details, there was no money to make updates to the uniforms during Napoleons rule, but some years later, under Leo XII, various attempts were made to copy Napoleonic uniforms, but fortunately without success; otherwise the splendid old uniforms would have been lost forever. [Photo: Stefano Costantino/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images] The current incarnation of the uniforms came in the early 20th century when a man named Jules Repond refined their form as we know it today (and who the Vatican notes was gifted with an exceptionally fine taste for colors and shapes”). Pope Pius X appointed him as commander of the Swiss Guard in 1910and he immediately managed to rankle the ranks. The Swiss Guard had become largely ceremonial, so he brought back rigorous military exercises and rifle practice. He mandated that only true Swiss natives could enroll. And he studied Raphaels frescoes and refined the uniform, drawing inspiration from its Renaissance-era appearance. Over the years the uniforms had been variations on a theme, and by 1914, Repond brought them to their final form. Today, 11 years on, theyre nearly the exact same design. [Photo: Riccardo De Luca/Anadolu/Getty Images] TAILOR-MADE There are a medley of variations to the uniform for different occasions, and even a subdued blue exercise uniform that is worn by the Guard during night operations and when working, say, the gate at the St. Annes entrance. (The Guard politely declined to comment for this story, given, you know, the whole conclave at handbut as they detail on their website: The main roads are also located there, and the colorful Gala uniform would cause too much distraction for the motorists.) No matter which uniform a member of the Guard sports, theres a good chance it was made by Ety Cicioni, the Vaticans chief tailor since 1997. As the CBC reported, the biggest challenge is keeping the uniform the same as Reponds vision despite the passage of time, and its impact on materials and techniques. Still, he and a team of seven manage to churn out 120 a year using prized wool from the Italian city of Biella. Per the CBC, every outfit is made from 154 pieces of fabricand Cicioni has also designed costumes for Vatican-adjacent films, such as 2019’s The Two Popes and 2023’s The Popes Exorcist. [Photo: Vasily Krestyaninov/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images] The one thing that has changed in the overall design of the uniformthe Swiss Guard got a helmet glow-up in 2019 when their scorching metal morions were replaced with breathable 3D-printed PVC counterparts. Ultimately, being a guard isnt all halberds and Renaissance history. In their off-time, they play on the FC Guardia soccer team, and compete against museum attendants and other groups in the Vatican Championship. They can join the Vatican band. They get to dine on Swiss and Italian cuisine cooked by Albertine nuns from Poland. What they cant do is play fast and loose with those wild uniforms. Theyre allowed to keep them for five years after they leave the Guard, or they can be buried in them. But they are explicitly banned from selling them. Still, if youve got $47,500, you could always try eBay.
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Bible designs tend to be variations on a themetissue-thin paper and unforgiving font sizes, owing to the 783,000 words crammed into a single normal-sized book (the average novel, by comparison, clocks in at 70,000100,000 words). Cheap faux-leather covers. A bookmark ribbon, maybe. If youre a person of faith, its perhaps not the most fitting frame for what is defined as the literal word of God. If youre a design zealot, its heretical object quality. If youre both, wellprayers. The Bible is a book utterly ripe for a redesign. So Dylan Da Silva did just that with his Byble project, which released a bespoke hypermodern 11.5-pound edition of Genesis (the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament) last fall, and this week is launching its next volume, Matthew (the first book of the Christian New Testament). Our mission, I guess, is simplecraftsmanship beyond words, Da Silva says. Crafting products so beautiful, they elevate the experience of reading the most powerful book ever written. The Genesis Da Silva is not a designer, nor does he work in publishing. Rather, he comes from a property development background. Around 2022, the Sydney-based Da Silva was pondering how he could build a business around something of great meaning to him. He realized that while many people own a Bible, they generally dont display it. And given that we live in a consumer society driven by aesthetics, he saw an opportunity to craft something new in that blank space. While he lacks visual design creds, he has experience with architectural design, and the Bible is very much a structural design challenge owing to its system of numbered verses and chapters. Da Silva wanted to keep the focus exclusively on the text (here, the King James Versionthe word is beautiful enough as it is), so he decided not to feature any illustration or photography, and instead offer a solution that was purely typographic, which he developed with a partner in Greece over the course of two years. Another key goal was to design a system that would allow for a deeper reading of the Bible. To that end, he is breaking the Bibles many books out of the larger whole and into single volumes, starting, naturally, with Genesis, which dominates the spine and cover of the first release in a debossed Grotesk. Da Silva drew inspiration from the Gutenberg Bible, with its distinct columns and margins and occasional typographic flair, and also sought to home in on particular moments for readers in pull quotes, translucent overlays, and bold all-caps spreads (the brand dubs these yield moments, thus the Y in Byble). It has the effect of slowing the books down and allowing text to breathe in an otherwise daunting 783,000-word experience. We obsess over every detail, every page, every layout, he says. Ultimately, we are accessible to the reader. OPENING A DOOR In addition to the new text presentation, Da Silva went wild on the production specs for the 13×10-inch volumes. Rather than fragile gossamer pages, he brought in a hefty 220 gsm stock. Hardcovers with silkscreened fabric. Typographic edge painting. Each book is available in two colorwaysin the case of Genesis, black or green, the latter being a tip of the hat to the Garden of Eden. And for Matthew, white and red, the latter signifying the blood of Christ. All this production value comes at a cost: Currently the Byble costs $149, which has rankled some commenters on social media. Our cost to produce is quite expensive, Da Silva says. The margin is not massive; it’s a standard margin for a business. I think we’re reasonably priced. I knew there was always going to be a pushback. Following Matthew, Da Silva is focusing on eight of the other most popular books of the BiblePsalms, Proverbs, Exodus, Romans, Mark, Paul, John and Revelation. He wants to have five or six out by the end of the year, and then keep launching more from there, with special editions mixed in. His target audience? The devout, of course, but also design lovers and those who the Byble aesthetic could resonate with in new ways. The goal for us is really reaching that younger generation who might be curious to learn more, who might think that the Bible is boring, or religion is boring, Da Silva says. We’re trying to open up a door for them.
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