Different Kind of Leadership – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1152

Different Kind of Leadership – Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1152

Dear Colleagues! This is Asrar Qureshi’s Blog Post #1152 for Pharma Veterans. Pharma Veterans Blogs are published by Asrar Qureshi on its dedicated site https://pharmaveterans.com. Please email to pharmaveterans2017@gmail.com  for publishing your contributions here.

Credit: Miguel A. Padrinan

Credit: Pavel Danilyuk

Preamble – How to Lead Like No One Has Led Before: Lessons from Marginal Leaders

This blog post takes insights from a recent INSEAD article. Link at the end.

The concepts embedded in this rather high-end article are alien to organizations in our part of the world. We are still stuck with the classic, conventional leadership style, where the end justifies the means. Nevertheless, these are interesting, intriguing, and refreshing.

In most organizations, leadership is associated with clear metrics, performance goals, and hierarchical authority. Yet, a growing cadre of “marginal leaders”, those tasked with building ethics, diversity, wellbeing, sustainability, and learning, are redefining what leadership means. Gianpiero Petriglieri and Annie Peshkam from INSEAD studied these “leaders of learning” and found they don’t fit conventional molds. Their journeys offer powerful lessons on leading not just to deliver results, but to cultivate growth, resilience, and long-term adaptation in uncertain times.

The Marginal Leaders: Dual Aims, Dual Realities

Marginal leaders inhabit an ambiguous space. They are part of the leadership team, yet often not embraced by the traditional performance-oriented culture. Organizations expect immediate results, but these leaders also carry the responsibility of enhancing the people and culture that fuel long-term success.

This tension creates a dual mission, in which:

Instrumental imperatives are productivity, efficiency, and short-term outcomes.

Humanistic imperatives are employee development, meaning, future capability, and organizational health.

Those leading learning must reconcile these conflicting demands, ensuring the organization performs today while being prepared for tomorrow.

Crafting Leadership Identity: Structures, Stances, and Spaces

Drawing from a study of senior learning leaders in 69 multinationals, INSEAD identifies a three-step journey these leaders take to define themselves:

Finding One’s Place

Marginal leaders must position themselves within systems not designed for them. They navigate structural ambiguity, defining how their function relates to traditional leadership and speaks to organizational priorities.

Taking a Stance

Each leader chooses where they stand on the spectrum between instrumental (performance-driven) and humanistic (development-driven). This intentional stance shapes internal clarity and external perception.

Building Spaces for Learning

Two kinds of developmental environments emerge:

Incorporation spaces: Aligned with organizational efficiency, like business-relevant training and skill standardization.

Individuation spaces: Personalized, experimental environments, such as coaching circles, field experiences, and rotational assignments.

These steps help marginal leaders lead not by replicating traditional leadership but by creating new, purpose-driven pathways.

Three Identity Paths for Marginal Leaders

INSEAD’s study uncovers three distinct approaches that “leaders of learning” adopt:

Custodians

These leaders gradually integrate into the organizational core. By aligning learning programs with measurable results, they gain credibility and gradually shift perceptions, elevating culture without rocking the boat.

Challengers

In contrast, challengers embrace their outsider status. They question the status quo and push the idea that learning and growth are strategic, not supplementary. Their leadership is disruptive, designed to spark transformative change.

Connectors

Connectors gracefully balance instrumental and humanistic aims. Acting as bridges, they unite multiple stakeholders, helping the organization and individuals grow more cohesively.

These archetypes show that effective learning leaders don’t follow a blueprint, they craft one through strategy, stance, and relationships.

Why Marginality Can Be Strength

Being marginal does not equate to being powerless. In fact, marginal positions often bring creative leadership. INSEAD’s research highlights how such leaders leverage their position to co-create, disrupt complacency, and reframe what “success” means.

Co-creation with a collaborative spirit: They build solutions with stakeholders rather than dictating from above.

Passionate advocacy: They bring energy to ideas that the core might overlook.

Challenging short-termism: They push for developmental objectives alongside performance metrics.

Their marginality often becomes a source of agility, authenticity, and long-term orientation.

What This Means for Leadership Development

As modern organizations evolve amid disruption and complexity, leadership must also transform. Here are practical implications:

Redefine “Success” Beyond Metrics

Leaders should be evaluated not just on short-term outcomes but on how they develop organizational capacity, for example, through retention, adaptability, or innovation.

Create Roles with Ambiguous Mandates

Learning, development, or sustainability roles should come with latitude to craft both their identity and strategy, recognizing that ambiguity can be generative.

Create Dual Spaces for Learning

Provide formal, aligned training (incorporation) alongside experimental pathways (individuation), such as rotational assignments or peer-coaching circles.

Support Multiple Leadership Styles

Organizations benefit from custodians, challengers, and connectors. Value all three and let them operate in their strengths.

Normalize Leadership as Mode, Not Title

Encourage leadership from across the hierarchy. Many people without formal authority exhibit learning leadership through mentorship, modelling behaviors, or shaping culture.

Sum Up

Marginal leaders often begin with uncertainty, not knowing how they fit or how their work matters. Yet through stance-taking and strategy, they become architects of organizational learning and culture. Their journey teaches us that leadership isn't about controlling outcomes; it’s about designing futures. In a world marked by rapid change, where innovation, resilience, and ethical purpose must coexist, organizations need leaders who lead like no one has led before, shaping culture, nurturing growth, and redefining performance in deeper, more enduring ways.

Concluded.

Disclaimers: Pictures in these blogs are taken from free resources at Pexels, Pixabay, Unsplash, and Google. Credit is given where available. If a copyright claim is lodged, we shall remove the picture with appropriate regrets.

For most blogs, I research from several sources which are open to public. Their links are mentioned under references. There is no intent to infringe upon anyone’s copyrights. If, any claim is lodged, it will be acknowledged and recognized duly.

Reference:

https://knowledge.insead.edu/leadership-organisations/how-lead-no-one-has-led