There are moments when leadership is not decided by goals, but by a new reality. Not by the question of what should be built – but how you build once the tools change.
I want to tell a scene that has stuck with me because it pours the core of our time into a tangible form: A project is running, a team is working, budgets are allocated, progress is visible. And then it happens – a technological leap does not come slowly, but abruptly. Suddenly something is available that can dramatically accelerate the same work. But no one has learned it in depth. And because no one has learned it, it is both an opportunity and a risk.
The story: A construction site, a leap, five questions
Imagine there is a large construction project. Not a romantic one, but a real one: many people, many manual tasks, many dependencies. It is a machine of habits, processes, and responsibilities – trimmed for efficiency, but according to the rules of the old world.
And then, in the middle of the process, new tools appear. Not small improvements, but a leap: heavy machines that can turn hours into minutes. The problem: At the beginning, hardly anyone can operate them safely. And whoever operates them incorrectly can destroy more in a short time than a team can repair in weeks.
The narrator in this scene – let’s just call him the observer – asks five questions that you have to run through in your head when the rules of the game change:
First: What is the first thing you do as the person responsible – before you let anyone use the new tool?
Second: Do you let the work continue according to the old rules, even though you know that a new productivity class has just emerged?
Third: Do you see it as your duty to enable the new way of working – that is, to explain, to train, to finance, to organize?
Fourth: What changes in your role: What do you suddenly have to manage differently than before?
Fifth: Do you keep building until the new thing establishes itself organically – or do you consciously stop in order to gain time, to examine, and to reorder?
These are not academic questions. They are a kind of stress test: Every answer forces you to decide whether you define leadership as speed or as safety.
And then two leadership types answer – completely different, both plausible
In the scene, two people react who agree on the goal – but not on how to achieve it. I call them Boldness and Examination. Not as labels, but as two archetypal modes into which leadership tips in such moments.
Leadership type 1: Boldness
Boldness hears the questions and does not rely on debate first, but on action logic.
He starts with himself: Before he hands over responsibility to others, he wants to understand the new tool so well that he could operate it himself in case of doubt – not to do everything himself, but so as not to know reality second-hand.
Then a clear consequence follows: He does not let the old mode run for long. Not because he despises the past, but because he sees the opportunity costs: Every day in the old process is a day that is already outdated in the new world.
For him, the duty question is also clear: If you want to be at the front, you have to make the change possible. That means: not only paying for the project, but also for the transition – including learning curve, risk, and friction.
And he describes his role change like this: In the past you could scale via capacity – more hands, more speed. Now speed scales via mastery – you need few but very good operators who turn the tool into a reliable form of production.
On the last point he is the most uncompromising: He would not run “on two tracks” for months. He lets the old mode run until a minimal core truly masters the new way of working – and as soon as this core is in place, he switches over. Radically. Not halfway, but completely.
So Boldness leads like someone who says: Insight arises in deployment, and as soon as the track is viable, experiment becomes decision.
Leadership type 2: Examination
Examination hears the same questions – and sees the same opportunity. But he first emphasizes what many underestimate: Adoption is harder than acquisition.
He argues from experience: Even very strong teams find it hard to switch to new ways of working, because the problem is not intelligence, but habit, role logic, understanding of quality, and coordination. The changeover is not just a tool change, but an operating system change.
That is why his first recommendation is: Stop before you operate new tools with old logic. Not out of fear, but out of a desire to control. For him, stopping is not a retreat, but a control instrument.
His focus is on two touchstones:
1. Is the new already being used productively – not claimed, but visibly?
2. Does initiative come from the system itself – or does it have to be forced from the outside?
Especially the second point is an alarm signal for him: If part of the organization does not address the leap on its own, this indicates a lack of ownership or a lack of ability for self-correction – both increase the risk for money, quality, and time.
And he does something else that Boldness does less often: He clearly separates feeling and calculation. A cut can feel emotionally relieving – and still not go far enough rationally. For Examination, “less” is often not ascetic, but strategic: The lower the fixed costs, the more agile you are, the easier it is to accelerate later in the right direction.
So Examination leads like someone who says: Insight arises through clarity, and clarity arises through standards, responsibilities, and verifiable ways of working.
Why this scene is so important right now
The interesting thing is: Boldness and Examination are not arguing about the future. Both see the leap. Both see the new productivity class. Both see the risk of misuse.
They differ in their answer to a single fundamental question:
Does reliability come faster through determined action – or through deliberate pausing?
Boldness wants to force the transition through speed, because speed brings the new truth to light.
Examination wants to secure the transition through stop time, because stop time stabilizes the new truth.
In practice, this is rarely an either-or. It is more a question of which mode is currently leading.
• If you already see real, reproducible results, Boldness can be the right engine.
• If you sense that there is a lot of hope but little standard behind it, Examination is the right handrail.
A conclusion that does not reconcile – but sharpens
Perhaps the most honest insight of this story is that the new world not only brings new tools, but new character tests.
One type decides faster because he understands speed as a source of insight.
The other decides later because he understands clarity as a prerequisite.
And both – without saying it – ask you the same question as the builder:
Do you want to become faster first, or safely different first?
