I've learned to pay attention when someone says something 'looks good on paper.' 

Relationships can look good on paper. Roles can look good on paper. 

On paper the job got done - the project shipped, the numbers hit, the reviews came back positive. 

The paper doesn’t show, however, whether you're working out of the box in accomplishing it all.

That's a phrase we used early on when developing Trailblazers: working "out of the box." 

It means operating outside your natural leadership style. You can do it (you can even be good at it), but it costs more than it should. 

If you stay there too long, it wears you down.

My favorite example is Lyndon B. Johnson. By every account, the man was a Chief. He led with visibility, he read the room, he held the line. 

But during the civil rights era, he had to lead as a Disruptor. He had to completely change the tide of politics and history, and only he could have done it because he was one of them. 

It exhausted him. Johnson was used to constants, to a world where things were black and white, and the upheaval of the sixties pulled him into the gray. 

When you're working out of the box that hard for that long, it takes a real toll, even when you're succeeding.

I think about this whenever I'm putting people in positions on a team. 

If I work someone out of their natural habitat for too long, I'm going to wear them down like a number two pencil. They'll be a nub in a minute. 

And when they show up dull, it might not be because of anything external. It might be that the work itself is dulling them, that they're spending so much energy just staying in the game that there's nothing left over.

That's the real question to ask yourself when something feels off: not whether you're capable, whether you're in position.

The Trailblazers assessment identifies four core leadership styles, each with its own strengths, blind spots, and growth edges. 

If you haven't taken it yet, start here →

Once you know your style, check back on this section each week for tailored advice.

The Chief: You thrive when you can see the landscape and set direction. If you're stuck in execution mode with no line of sight to the bigger picture, you'll deliver, but it will cost you more than it should.

The Innovator: You thrive when there's something new to build or envision. If you're maintaining systems instead of creating them, you might succeed on paper while feeling like you're slowly going stale.

The Disruptor: You thrive when there's something broken to fix or a change to push forward. If everything's running smoothly and no one wants anything questioned, you'll feel restless, even if the results look fine.

The Expert: You thrive when you can go deep and build real mastery. If you're spread thin across too many things, never getting to develop true expertise in any of them, you'll feel like you're performing without growing.