Will Beats Skill: The Six Types of Employees and the Two Leadership Styles I Use
Six employee types, two leadership styles and one rule: will matters more than skill.
For me, will beats skill every single time. Wanting to do the job matters more than knowing how to do it right now, as long as I see potential in the person.
That rule shapes how I manage people. At FRACTAL, a manager is simply someone who manages: processes, projects and people. This piece is about people. It’s for anyone who leads a team, a unit, a department, a functional area, a company or a group of companies.
My framework starts with a model I didn’t have to invent. Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard described it in 1969 in their work “Life Cycle Theory of Leadership” and called it situational leadership. It sorts people by skill and will. I kept its four employee types and added two of my own.
Six types of employees
Enthusiastic Beginner (D1): unable but willing. Low competency, high commitment. They want to work and learn but lack the skills for the task.
Disillusioned Employee (D2): unable and unwilling. They have built some competencies, but their enthusiasm faded and took their motivation with it. This can happen when a company throws a junior into the deep end with zero support, training or career growth.
Rookie Deadweight (D2.1): unable and fundamentally unwilling. My addition. These people have zero drive at work. That’s their default setting, perhaps for life in general. They need to fix their personal blockers on their own. Until they do, don’t hire them. A manager is not there to babysit anyone. Learn to tell them apart from a D2, and steer clear.
Capably Cautious Performer (D3): able but unwilling. High competency, inconsistent motivation. They have what it takes to crush bigger goals, but they don’t want to. They may struggle with confidence or psychological blockers. They are worth supporting.
Capable Deadweight (D3.1): able but fundamentally unwilling. My second addition. This isn’t caution or low confidence. It’s a total refusal to do anything at all. If you already hired one, you made a hiring mistake, and you’ll have to part ways. If the person slipped into this state only recently, treat them as a D3 and help them out of what is likely a temporary slump.
Self-Reliant Achiever (D4): able and willing. Competent and goal-driven. They trust their abilities and take full ownership of execution. This is the type we strive to bring every team member to.
Two styles instead of four
Hersey and Blanchard pair each employee type with its own leadership style, four in total. I use two.
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Directing for D1. The manager makes all decisions, and the team follows instructions. The leader calls the shots: who, what, how, why and where.
Delegating for D4. The team makes the vast majority of calls. The leader hands over authority, power and accountability, and focuses on strategy and vision.
Fix the drive
With D2 and D3, I don’t adapt to the missing drive. I try to cure it and throw everything in the leadership toolkit at the problem:
- Set crystal-clear goals if the employee has none.
- Walk them through the career ladder and show growth opportunities inside their current role. Hand them a competency matrix.
- Build or map out an incentive framework: working conditions, performance bonuses, pay raises and benefits. Show exactly what’s in it for them if they hit their goals.
- Hold a one-on-one meeting.
If these steps don’t flip “unwilling” into “willing,” make the call and let the person go. With D2.1 and D3.1, it’s cut-and-dried: part ways.
The path from D1 to D4
For a junior or midlevel manager, the ideal roadmap is a system that keeps growing people from “willing but unable” into “willing and able.” Train their hard skills. Give them chances to sharpen soft skills in practice.
Walk each person from Enthusiastic Beginner to Self-Reliant Achiever, and shift your own style from directing to delegating along the way. When someone temporarily slips into “unwilling,” lean on coaching or supporting.
Seasoned C-level executives can skip part of that road. Hire D4 talent from the start, if the budget backs it up.
