Are you unintentionally holding your team back?

In this solo episode of the Happier at Work podcast, host Aoife O’Brien dives deep into her newly developed framework for understanding leadership blind spots through eight distinctive Leadership Archetypes. Drawing from years of leadership research and firsthand experience, Aoife explores how values alignment, needs satisfaction, and individual strengths impact team performance and engagement. Whether you’re a seasoned leader or new to managing teams, this episode offers a transformative guide to recognising your leadership patterns, overcoming hidden challenges, and creating an empowering work environment.

Curious about which leadership archetype you are? Take Aoife’s quick assessment at happieratwork.ie/archetype, and join the conversation on LinkedIn. What’s one thing you’ll do differently to become a happier, more effective leader?

In This Episode, You’ll Discover:

1. The Happier at Work Leadership Archetypes Assessment and its foundation in values, needs, and strengths.
2. A breakdown of the three core psychological needs at work: autonomy, relatedness, and competence, and why ignoring unmet needs leads to frustration and disengagement.
3. How to spot your blind spots and move beyond them to cultivate happier, more engaged teams.
4. The importance of aligning both your personal values and your team’s values with the organisation’s mission for greater engagement and retention.
5. Why leadership archetypes are dynamic and how you can evolve from one type to another as your self-awareness grows.

Related Topics Covered:

Leadership, Values at Work, Psychological Safety, Purpose at Work

Connect with Aoife O’Brien | Host of Happier at Work®:

1. Website
2. LinkedIn
3. YouTube

Related Episodes You’ll Love:

Episode 223: Imposter Syndrome The Invisible Barrier to Workplace Success.

Episode 235: Empowering your Career and Overcoming Hurdles with Aoife O’Brien

Episode 254: How to Progress your Career with Purpose with Rumana Shaikh

About Happier at Work®

Happier at Work® is the podcast for business leaders who want to create meaningful, human-centric workplaces. Hosted by Aoife O’Brien, the show explores leadership, career clarity, imposter syndrome, workplace culture, and employee engagement — helping you and your team thrive.

If you enjoy podcasts like WorkLife with Adam Grant, The Happiness Lab, or Squiggly Careers, you’ll love Happier at Work®.

Website: https://happieratwork.ie LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aoifemobrien/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@HappierAtWorkHQ

Mentioned in this episode:

Thriving Talent book

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Do you ever worry that you're the one holding your team back? And I'm not saying that this is intentional. Oftentimes we have blind spots and we don't necessarily know what, you know, what are we doing wrong or how can we improve. Most leaders that I speak to want to be a more effective leader. And so today's episode is all for you. You're listening to the Happier at Work podcast. I'm your host, Aoife o' Brien. This is the podcast that creates happier, more meaningful, more engaged workplaces, especially for those in global organizations. This episode is all about the eight leadership archetypes that I have created.

And before we get on to that, I want to share a little bit about where those archetypes actually came from. Because for a long time I was talking about my Happier at Work framework, but leaders weren't necessarily connecting with it. They didn't necessarily see themselves in it. I talked about my Happier at Work assessment that people could take, and again, it felt a little bit disconnected from what leaders were doing on a day to day basis. So I have redesigned the assessment and it's all based on leadership archetypes, but it's grounded in the Happier at Work framework. So for those who are not familiar with the framework, there are three core pillars to it. The first one is all about values and specifically values alignment. And from a leadership perspective, this means that, that you know what your core values are, that your values are closely aligned with the values of the organization and that you can make that direct link for your team members that they can see their values in the organization and that is the lived experience that they have on a day to day basis at work.

So that's all about values and values alignment. The next pillar then is about needs, specifically need satisfaction. And the more I look into this, the more I'm seeing that it's not about need satisfaction, but really understanding what our unmet needs are at work. So where are your needs not being met? Now, I could probably talk all day about this stuff because this is not something I see people talking about very often at work at all. And let me just break down a few of what. What does needs actually look like and how do we understand whether those are being met or not? So we have three core psychological needs. The need for autonomy, the need for relatedness, and the need for competence as well. Autonomy is all about our sense of choice and control about what we do and how we do it.

And relatedness is all about how we relate to one another, how we get along with our team. But also I've added in this extra bit of how we relate what we do on a day to day basis to the bigger picture of what the team is trying to achieve and what the organization as a whole is trying to achieve as well. And I think I cannot understate the importance of this. I cannot overstate the importance of making that connection for your team on what it is they're doing on a day to day basis and what it is that you're trying to achieve as an organization. So making that link direct and explicit for your team is so, so important. And then the third aspect of this is competence. And competence is feeling capable of what you're doing. And I want to break down just the two pieces, the autonomy and the competence piece for a second.

Because sometimes we think that if we just give our team a whole load of autonomy, for example, that they will just be able to get on with the job. But it's more complicated than that. It's finding that balance between giving them the autonomy that they need, but also giving them enough guidance so that they know what is expected. So setting those really clear expectations from the outset of like, what is it that I have to do here? So it's kind of like a balancing act. You want to not be micromanaging telling them every single thing that they need to do, but equally not just laissez faire and leaving them up to their own devices and trying to figure out what it is that they're expected to do here. And the same applies when it comes to competence as well. So on the one hand, you don't want them to feel like they're in over their head and like feeling like a total fraud imposter syndrome galore. And then equally on the other side, you don't want someone to feel like they are not challenged enough, that they're bored or feeling a little bit complacent.

And so it's getting that balance right and understanding what that balance is. The more complicated thing on this is that it's going to change from person to person. And it's going to change at different points in our career, at different points in a role that we have. So if we're new to a role, we're going to need more direction. You know, there's all these little nuances to it as well. So that's needs in a nutshell, and specifically the unmet needs. And we can really identify what our unmet needs are as individuals when we feel really frustrated at work. And this is the kind of thing maybe we complain about.

And if we don't have psychological safety, it's something we might gossip about to our peers or our friends. If we do have psychological safety, it's something that we can raise to, to our managers or again to our peers as well. The third pillar then, within the Happier at Work framework is all about strengths. So understanding what your own strengths are, being able to utilize our strengths at work. And then from a leadership perspective, it's understanding the strengths within the team and creating a team where people with complementary strengths can work together, but recognizing people based on their strengths and what their unique capabilities are that they bring to the role. So that's the grounding for the assessment. I'm going to talk now about the eight leadership archetypes that I've identified based on those three pillars. Now, I didn't include a couple of the extra elements of the Happier at Work framework.

The base of the Happier at Work framework is all about psychological safety. And the capstone of the Happier at Work framework is all about leadership. So psychological safety is included for the purposes of this in the values and the culture piece of the organization. So do we have a psychologically safe culture, for example, and then the leadership piece, because we are assessing for leadership types, it's really understanding, well, which of these other elements do you need to leverage a little bit more strongly? And I want to also reiterate, there's no judgment here. It's, it's, we're not saying, oh, you're a terrible leader. It's more identifying what are the things that you can do differently that maybe you're currently blind to, that you can do to increase the performance, the productivity of your team and make sure that they're feeling really happy at work. So those eight leadership archetypes are as follows. And I'm going to say the name of each one of them and then I'm going to give a short description each.

If you want to find out which archetype you are, you can take the quiz on my website. So if you go to happieratwork, ie, Archetype, you will find the quiz there. And you can start the quiz and you can find out which one of these eight you are. And then you'll get a personalized report to say, well, what specific actions can you take to improve your leadership based on the Happier at Work framework? So definitely go and check that out. I'm going to talk you through the eight different types now. So number one is the disengaged doer. This leader is often operating on autopilot they are task focused, disconnected from purpose, people and personal growth. Maybe they've lost their spark or feel unsupported.

It's not laziness, it's usually burnout, misalignment or feeling unseen. Number two then is the well meaning micromanager. They do care and often have strong skills. But without a clear purpose, they default to control. Think of it as over relying on strengths without strategic direction. Their team might feel watched rather than trusted. Number three is the people pleaser manager. This leader focuses so much on keeping the peace or meeting others needs that they avoid necessary tension or fail to set boundaries.

It feels safe, but often leads to frustration, unclear expectations and even resentment on all sides. Number four is the values led operator. This leader has clear values and convictions, which is fantastic. But they may struggle to empower others or manage the emotional climate. They lead from the heart but might overlook nuance or team dynamics. Number five then is the responsive improviser. High energy, fast moving, adaptable, but easily pulled in different directions. They're resourceful in the moment, but lack long term alignment, which can be exhausting for them and their teams.

Number six is the culture fixer. These leaders are strong on values and strengths. They care deeply about workplace culture, but might overlook human needs like autonomy, challenge or recognition. Their passion is clear, but their approach may lack flexibility. Number seven, the purpose driven bottleneck. They're mission driven, deeply motivated, but without intentional systems. They unintentionally block growth, everything goes through them, slowing progress, often as a result of caring too much and struggling to delegate. Then number eight is the empowering architect.

This is the gold standard. A leader who is aligned with values, conscious of needs and intentional about strengths. They foster autonomy, psychological safety and growth. And the best part, this is not a fixed state. You can grow into it. So those are the eight different leadership archetypes that I have identified and I would love to know, do you see yourself in any of those? Does any of that ring a bell? Or maybe you recognize a team member or a manager or a former manager. I think we can all relate to some of these archetypes on some level. And I suppose the thing to reiterate here, as I said in the last one, it's not necessarily a fixed definition.

These are dynamic. You can change over time. You can move from leadership archetype to leadership archetype. You're not going to get fixed into this and you can most definitely grow into the empowering architect archetype. And as I mentioned also if you want to take the assessment and find out for sure, which one of these you are and what specific things you need to do to grow into your role to identify your blind spots to grow into your role to identify those blind spots that you have no idea that you have to be better at empowering your team. Then definitely go and check out the assessment. It's available through my website so go to happieratwork, ie archetype and you can check it out there. And do let me know.

I'd love to know which one you end up being. You know, is it in line with the one that you you associate most with? I would absolutely love to know. So do let me know. I always love to hear in the comments comment wherever you listen. Leave a rating, leave a review and don't forget to get involved in the conversation. I'm Most active on LinkedIn so you will absolutely find me there. And I'd love to know what's one thing that you're going to do differently as a result of listening to today's episode.