You have someone who kills it under pressure but disappears between projects. You have someone who's dependable every week but locks up when a fire starts. Both tell you: "That's just how I'm wired."
They're wrong. And if you manage them like they're right, you'll lose them both.
The Comfortable Lie
Here's what it looks like in the room.
A team member — high potential, smart, clear track record. But they show up inconsistently. Crushing it one month. Absent the next. You add structure. Weekly check-ins. An accountability framework. Performance gets worse.
Three desks away: someone else. Dependable. Consistent. Never lights the room on fire, but always there. Then a fire drill hits. You push them harder. You need a surge. They stall.
The conventional wisdom says these are two archetypes. Surge people and sustain people. Manage them differently. Accommodate the wiring.
I disagree.
What you're looking at isn't wiring. It's a gap. The person who can surge but can't sustain hasn't built discipline. The person who can sustain but can't surge hasn't built courage. Both are using a label — "that's just how I work" — as a reason not to grow.
And when you accept that label as a leader, you're not being empathetic. You're being complicit.
The Real Problem With Archetypes
A colleague and I were working through a client situation in February. He stopped mid-conversation and said this reframe was reshaping every coaching engagement he was running.
The insight isn't that there are two types. The insight is that every high performer needs both modes — and most have only developed one.
The person who thrives in chaos but can't hold a cadence? They haven't learned to build the habits, the systems, the daily discipline that compounds. They've made intensity their identity because consistency feels boring. But boring is where businesses actually grow. The person who can only surge is a liability dressed up as a star.
The person who runs smooth operations but freezes when everything breaks? They haven't learned to override their comfort, step into the unknown, and perform without a playbook. They've made predictability their identity because uncertainty feels threatening. But uncertainty is where growth lives. The person who can only sustain is dependable right up until dependable isn't enough.
Neither is a fixed archetype. Both are development gaps.
What This Actually Looks Like
I coach a founder — call him Marcus — who runs a $14M services company. His best operator, a woman who'd been with him six years, delivered like clockwork. Weekly reports, SOP adherence, team cadence that hummed. Then the company lost a major client and needed a pivot. Marcus needed her to lead the restructure.
She locked up. Couldn't make decisions without the playbook. Couldn't operate in ambiguity. Marcus almost moved her out of the role.
Instead, we reframed it. She didn't need a new role. She needed a new capability. We worked on decision-making under uncertainty — small reps, increasing stakes, explicit permission to be wrong. Within three months, she was leading the restructure. Not because she changed who she was. Because she built the muscle she'd been avoiding.
Different client — a VP of sales I'll call James. Electric in a deal room. Could close anything. But between deals, he went dark. Pipeline discipline was nonexistent. His team had no cadence because he had no cadence. The company was growing despite him, not because of him.
James didn't need a different management style. He needed to build the discipline he'd been calling unnecessary. Daily pipeline reviews. Weekly forecast cadence. The boring stuff. He hated it. He also doubled his team's output in a quarter once the sustain muscle held.
Dan Simmons talked about this on Episode 113 of my podcast. Special Forces selection, addiction recovery — both environments demanded pure surge capacity. All-in, survive, or don't. That wiring made him elite in high-consequence environments. But sustaining a business and a family requires something different. The surge instinct doesn't disappear — you build the other muscle alongside it. Dan's honesty about that tension is what makes the conversation worth having.
The Leadership Move That Actually Works
Stop diagnosing archetypes. Start developing the gap.
When someone tells you "I work best under pressure," hear what they're actually saying: I haven't built the discipline to sustain. Your job isn't to protect their recovery time. Your job is to help them build the habits that make recovery unnecessary — or at least shorter.
When someone tells you "I need structure to perform," hear what they're actually saying: I haven't built the confidence to improvise. Your job isn't to shield them from chaos. Your job is to expose them to it in doses they can grow through.
Four things to look for:
The excuse pattern. Does this person explain away a gap as identity? "I'm just not a details person." "I don't do well with ambiguity." "I need clear direction." Those are growth edges, not personality traits. When you hear them, you've found the development target.
The avoidance pattern. What do they consistently not do? The surge-only person avoids routine. The sustain-only person avoids risk. What they avoid is what they need to build. Not what you should design around.
The discomfort signal. Growth lives where discomfort lives. If someone is only comfortable, they're not developing. The question isn't "how do they do their best work?" It's "what kind of work makes them uncomfortable, and how do I help them get better at it?"
The willingness signal. Some people will grow. Some won't. The person who says "I only work well under pressure" with pride is telling you they've made their limitation their brand. The person who says it with frustration is telling you they want help. Invest accordingly.
The Conversation That Changes Everything
The simplest leadership move isn't telling someone what archetype they are. It's telling them what they haven't built yet.
"You're exceptional under pressure. But this company needs you between the pressures too. Let's build that muscle."
"You run the steadiest operation I've seen. But when things break, I need you in the room making calls. Let's work on that."
Those conversations are harder than "I see you can only surge, let me adjust your environment." They're harder because they ask something of the person. They demand growth, not accommodation.
But that's the job. Leadership isn't matching people to their comfort zones. It's building people past them.
Before you schedule the next performance conversation, ask this: am I diagnosing who this person is, or am I developing who they could be?
If you're accommodating the label, you're not leading. You're enabling. Name the gap. Build the muscle. Then watch what they become.
