What are the three models of leadership?

I used to think leadership was a personality test. You are either the visionary who inspires, the taskmaster who gets things done, or the servant who clears roadblocks. Then I scaled a team across two countries, hit a wall during a messy product pivot, and learned the hard way that this is not a personality game. This is a systems decision. Early teams can survive your changing mood for a few weeks. They cannot survive a leadership model that changes every Monday. If you want your startup to move from founder energy to operating rhythm, you need three tools and you need to know when to use each one.

The truth is simple but not easy. There are three models of leadership that show up in most healthy early-stage companies. The first is transformational. The second is transactional. The third is servant leadership. None of them is the hero. The hero is timing and consistency. When you pull one at the wrong moment, you confuse people. When you pull one at the right moment, you unlock delivery without adding headcount or drama.

Let me start with a scene. We had just missed a quarter with a big enterprise client. Scope creep swallowed our timeline. The team felt stretched and a little ashamed. I stood in front of twelve tired faces on a Friday evening and told a story about why our product mattered to small business owners in Penang and Jeddah. People nodded. One engineer teared up. On Monday, nothing moved. That was my mistake. I used inspiration when the real problem was work sequencing and decision rights. I tried to fix misaligned process with a speech. The right model that week was transactional, not transformational.

Transformational leadership is the model that most founders love. It is the why. It is the story that turns hard work into meaning and fear into momentum. You draw a line from today’s bug fix to the future you promised the first hire. Done well, this model sets direction, aligns values, and raises the standard. The risk is that it can become a performance if you are not careful. When every standup becomes a rally, teams stop hearing the specifics. They feel inspired, then overwhelmed, then secretly lost. Use this model to open a chapter, to reset a broken narrative, or to carry the team through ambiguity while you learn. Do not use it to disguise the lack of a plan.

Transactional leadership sounds unfashionable, but it is the backbone of delivery. This is where you define outcomes, set clear expectations, enforce boundaries, and follow through on consequences and rewards. In early teams this is not bureaucracy. It is kindness. People cannot do their best work if they do not know what done means, who owns what, or what happens when priorities clash. The risk here is obvious. If you stay in transactional mode for too long, you will get compliant teams and timid thinking. People will wait for permission. Creativity will shrink to the size of your task list. Use this model when the company needs to land planes on time. Use it to repair trust after missed promises. Use it when you have clarity and you need coordination.

Servant leadership is the quiet model. You listen, remove blockers, and create conditions for others to lead. You do not rescue. You design an environment where the team can do the rescuing without you. This is the model that keeps talent. It creates psychological safety without creating dependency. The risk is that servant leadership can become a polite way to avoid hard calls. If you only ask how you can help, and never decide where you are going, you build a nice place to work that does not ship. Use this model to grow managers, to stabilize a stressed team, and to recover from founder centrality.

How do you know which model to use on a given week. Watch for three signals. First, narrative drift. If people cannot tell you why this sprint matters, you need a transformational reset. Keep it specific to the next block of work, not a generic purpose lecture. Second, execution fog. If tasks move but outcomes do not, you likely need transactional clarity. Tighten definitions, decision rights, and review rhythm. Third, ownership gaps. If everything still flows through you and people look nervous when you are out, shift to servant leadership. Remove two of your approvals. Give someone else the room to make a call and stand with them after.

Let me translate that into a lived example. We were expanding into Riyadh while keeping our Kuala Lumpur team focused on the core product. The new market needed belief and patience. The home market needed strict delivery. I split my calendar. Mondays opened with a short transformational briefing for the expansion team. We told one story that linked our first pilot to a problem our Saudi customers actually felt. Then we wrote down three non-negotiables so the story did not float. Tuesdays were transactional in KL. We wrote acceptance criteria like lawyers. We removed three parallel projects that were distracting the team. Thursdays I ran servant leadership rituals. I asked my ops lead to propose a change to onboarding and I promised to back the decision in front of the sales team. By the end of the quarter the energy in the expansion region stayed high enough to push through two rejections, and the home team shipped on time for the first time in months. The models did not compete. They supported the different jobs we were doing.

Founders ask me when to become more inspirational or more process-driven or more people-first. That question hides a trap. You do not need to become more of one person. You need a small switchboard. The switchboard works if you keep three rules. First, declare the mode. Tell the room what game you are playing, for how long, and why. People can handle a stern week if they know it ends on Friday. Second, separate the rooms. Do not mix a transformational speech with a transactional review. Inspiration in a metrics meeting feels like a dodge. Third, close the loop. Servant leadership only feels real if you return to show what changed because of the feedback you asked for.

There is also a stage fit question. Pre-product market fit demands more transformational energy than you think, but in shorter bursts. Think of it as oxygen shots, not a permanent atmosphere. Each shot should power a test, not a vibe. Once the test ends, you move to transactional clarity. Did we get the signal we needed. What does the data say. What do we cut. Post-product market fit shifts the balance again. You need more servant leadership to scale managers and create surface area for ownership. At the same time you keep a sharp transactional core so that growth does not turn into chaos. Transformational moments still matter. Save them for new markets, new product lines, or culture resets after a painful miss.

Culture lives inside these choices. If the company sees you switch models without saying so, they will invent stories about who you are. That breeds politics and worry. If the company sees you name the model, explain the reason, and keep your promise on duration, they learn how to lead in the same way. Your managers will try the switchboard for their teams. That is how culture becomes a system, not a mood.

Let me add the mistakes that took me the longest to admit. I once stayed in transformational mode for an entire quarter because I was afraid of losing people during a compensation restructure. I told big stories and avoided small truths. It cost me more trust than any pay cut ever would. I once over-corrected into transactional checking after a production outage. I wrote a beautiful playbook and treated seniors like interns. Two resigned. I rebuilt by asking what they needed to own, then protecting that space. I also hid behind servant leadership when I did not want to choose between two product paths. I told the team to decide. They split into camps and we lost time. In the end I chose the path I knew we should have taken and took responsibility for the delay. The lesson was not to be tougher. The lesson was to be clearer about the job of each model and my job as the person switching them.

If you are reading this as a first-time founder, here is a simple rhythm to try for the next four weeks. Open the month with a transformational reset that links the next milestones to a concrete change for your users. Keep it short. Use one story. End with three measurable outcomes. For the next two weeks, stay in transactional mode. Define done. Clarify decision rights. Review weekly and remove work that does not feed the outcomes. In week three, run servant leadership with intent. Ask two leads what they need from you, then remove those blockers and report back. Close the month with a quiet transformational moment that shows how the outcomes moved the user story. Then start again. You will not do it perfectly. Perfect is not the goal. Rhythm is the goal.

The phrase three models of leadership sounds academic. Inside a small team it is not. It is the difference between a company that burns through talent and a company that talent grows inside. It is the difference between a founder who must always be in the room and a founder who can take a week off without fear. It is also the difference between progress and noise. When you learn to name the mode, commit to it for the right window, and switch with context, your team stops guessing and starts building.

I will leave you with one more story. A new manager once asked me if she could be transformational on Monday mornings, transactional on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and servant on Fridays. The plan was neat but mechanical. I told her to watch the team instead. On the Monday after a failed sprint, she opened with a transactional reset and skipped the pep talk. On the Friday after a tough client call, she sat with her sales lead, removed a reporting chore, and gave that time back to prospecting. Two months later her team was the most stable, least noisy part of the company. Nothing magical. Just the right model at the right time, stated clearly, and held long enough to work.

Leadership is not a style you discover and defend. It is a small set of tools you learn to use with care. Transformational sets the horizon and renews belief. Transactional protects delivery and restores trust. Servant leadership grows people and reduces founder centrality. Use each with intention. Name the switch. Respect the rhythm. Your team will feel the difference, and so will you.