The companies that perform best under pressure have one thing in common: leadership range. We’re not talking about one individual here, but six:

• The Empathetic Leader
• The Growth Leader
• The Visionary Leader
• The Transformative Leader
• The Resilient Leader
• The Inclusive Leader

These are the leadership archetypes described in Hanover’s Leadership Code, and they reflect the breadth of qualities modern businesses need in their leadership teams. 

To explore how that comes to life, we created Renovah, a fictional but fully realised organisation that embodies the transformative impact of collective leadership capability. Six leaders sit on its Executive Committee, each one an expression of The Leadership Code’s archetypes. Let us introduce you to them.

Samir, the Empathetic Leader

Empathy is one of the most effective performance enablers in today’s hybrid, high-pressure workplaces. When employees feel understood, they stay. When they feel safe, they stretch.

But empathy without follow-through falls flat. Just 52% of employees say that their leaders back it with meaningful action, exposing a gap between what’s said and what’s felt. 

Samir, the Chief People & Culture Officer at Renovah, builds an empathetic culture not through grand statements, but by making emotional intelligence operational, and helping other leaders do the same.

Marina, the Growth Leader

As the shelf-life of expertise shrinks, 53% of L&D professionals are ramping up capability development. This should be an impetus for leaders to start modelling adaptability and continuous learning before the world outpaces them. 

Growth Leadership is embodied by people like Marina, Renovah’s Chief Strategy & Innovation Officer, who treats capability development as a strategic lever for people and business. Her goal is to embed a feedback-rich, curiosity-driven mindset that captures the zeitgeist of continuous learning and fuels the organisation’s ability to innovate.

Marina builds learning into the fabric of strategic execution to ensure capability grows in lockstep with the organisation’s ambitions. That’s how she makes “growth” both a cultural constant and a driver of competitive advantage.

Ellis, the Visionary Leader

When the path ahead is uncertain, visionary leaders connect the dots between today’s decisions and tomorrow’s purpose, creating a sense of forward motion.

That ability is a crucial cultural stabiliser for the next generation of workers, 90% of whom feel like “a cog in a wheel of a faceless organisation”. Vision gives these employees purpose, reminding them where and why they fit, which is why it’s a key lever for engagement and retention.

As CEO of Renovah, Ellis anchors the company’s vision in the decisions that matter most, ensuring it shapes how the organisation competes, communicates and grows. Their leadership keeps the long-term destination in sight while building the belief and alignment needed to get there.

Bryn, the Transformative Leader 

If Ellis charts the course and rallies the organisation around it, Bryn, Renovah’s Chief Transformation Officer, turns that shared ambition into tangible, scalable change by aligning structures, resources and culture around it.

It’s an essential capability at a time when transformation fatigue is rising. Over half of employees say there’s too much change happening at once, and 44% don’t understand the reason behind it. That’s a warning sign that top-down transformation is failing to bring people along.

Bryn treats transformation as a collective capability, coaching leaders and teams through uncertainty while building mechanisms that enable experimentation and keep momentum alive.

Farah, the Resilient Leader

Resilience is often mistaken for “toughing it out”. But in business, that mindset doesn’t just erode wellbeing , it creates risk. When 34% of employees with poor mental health at work plan to quit within a year, the impact on continuity, capability and cost is impossible to ignore.

As Renovah’s Chief Financial Officer, Farah views resilience as a human and financial imperative. She understands that protecting long-term value means safeguarding the capacity of the people who deliver it. That’s why she stress-tests budgets, aligns growth plans with financial and operational capacity, and directs investments in ways that protect both operational stability and workforce resilience.

By marrying risk awareness with care for her teams, she ensures the organisation can absorb shocks without losing the talent that keeps it moving forward.

Malik, the Inclusive Leader

Inclusion is a daily act that should play out in the conversations leaders allow, the perspectives they elevate, and the way they navigate tension.

These behaviours have never been more urgent. Between 2020-2024, there’s been a 25% drop in the number of people who feel safe bringing their “whole self” to work. Such a rapid decline in psychological safety and sense of belonging reveals something deeper about how leadership is showing up.

As Chief Operating Officer, Malik knows that inclusion is a driver of operational success. It ensures collaboration flows across functions, decisions reflect diverse perspectives, and execution benefits from the full breadth of talent. He listens actively, asks who’s missing from the table, and leads with presence. Crucially, Malik understands that inclusion doesn’t mean avoiding conflict, it means creating the safety for difference to thrive and for better solutions to emerge.

A balancing act: How Renovah’s leaders come together

These archetypes aren’t fixed roles, nor are they designed to operate in isolation. While individual leaders may naturally gravitate toward one or two based on their personality, experience or remit, organisations that rely too heavily on a single dominant style risk developing blind spots.

Complex challenges demand cognitive range, knowing when to shift perspective, balance competing inputs and draw on different strengths as the context evolves.

For example, on Renovah’s ExCo, Ellis sets the long-term vision, but without Bryn’s ability to embed it into structures, systems and culture, it risks staying aspirational; and without Malik’s inclusive oversight of operations, the execution could miss critical perspectives. Similarly, Marina drives strategic innovation and capability growth, but Farah’s risk-aware financial stewardship ensures that progress is sustainable, while Samir’s empathetic leadership keeps people engaged and willing to stretch.

The combinations are never static. Some challenges need all six archetypes dialled in. Others require only three, or a dominant two with quiet support from the rest. The point is never balance for balance’s sake. It’s precision. You and your leaders must know what’s required, when to adjust, and what layer of strengths are needed to get the right outcome.

The future isn’t calling for heroes, it’s asking for range

No organisation is successful because of a single leader or strategy. What sets the top players apart is the composition of who sits at the table and how their perspectives interplay. The Leadership Code is your blueprint for leveraging difference, showing you how to build a dynamic system of voices that multiplies performance. 

In the weeks ahead, you will get to know each of Renovah’s six leaders more intimately, through individual profiles that highlight their responsibilities, motivations, challenges and impact, as well as the development pathways that nurture that archetype.If you want to know more about translating The Leadership Code into impact, reach out to our Directors of Leadership Solutions, Brent Herman and Elle Robinson.