According to Niccolo Machiavelli, great leaders know how to prevail in difficult and extreme

situations, to expand and hold onto their territories, and to be competitive in their
environments. In the context of IT, the ideal leader should resemble the grey Wolf. The Wolf
is a symbol of both pack leadership and predatory courage, and blends skills from the light
and dark sides of the leadership spectrum.
Your Extreme Animal Profile describes how close you are to becoming a Wolf by displaying
your approach to the three Machiavellian disciplines: Power, Manipulation and Warfare.
Does it show that you are more comfortable on the light or dark side? As a CIO or IT leader,
its essential to master both.
TheExtremeAnimal Ecosystem
YourapproachtoPower: Wolf
CIOs with a Wolf power approach are willing to go to the dark side, using power to get
things done and gain respect, but they blend their tactics with lighter-side approaches
to ensure likability. They know that sometimes using power is necessary to gain
compliance, but they take care to avoid creating too much collateral damage when they
do so.
YourapproachtoManipulation: Snake
CIOs with Snake behaviors are driven by pragmatism and are willing to be highly
adaptable to achieve the greater good. They have a strong sense of goals and
objectives, but will make calculated ethical trade-offs to achieve them. They carefully
study situations to determine if the methods for achieving their goals require
adaptation, or if the goal itself needs changing.
Challenges include:
Others follow you because you get things done, although it is unclear to observers
exactly how you are doing it
You may seem untrustworthy to others, since your beliefs may appear malleable
YourapproachtoWarfare: Shark
'CIOs with Shark characteristics are aggressive in the extreme. Others follow them
because they know that in a battle these CIOs will win, and they fear being on the
losing side. Shark CIOs amass a wide arsenal of powerful weapons, and create a
fearsome reputation by taking down any competitors who get in their way. Sharks do
form alliances, but because of their fearsome nature, usually their alliances are only
with other Sharks.
Challenges include:
You will achieve results at almost any price to yourself or others
You may be viewed as vicious, destructive, non-collaborative or self-focused
YourExtremeAnimal Profile: Dark-SideCIO
You are a Dark-Side CIO. Dark-side behaviors are negative and inspire fear. You can
bring stray followers in line and prevent assaults on a CIOs territory or team by
ensuring that no potential enemy considers them an easy target. Dark-side tactics are
useful when a CIO needs simple compliance and obedience, or needs to send a strong
message but does not expect or require enthusiasm from others.
Few leadership guides focus on the dark side of leadership as Machiavelli did in his
works. This is often because of a false assumption that such tactics are unwarranted or
destructive and only serve the leader. And in fact, when a leader uses dark-side tactics
exclusively, he may eventually be viewed as self-serving or too powerful and frightening
to continue to exist. You should consider balancing your dark-side skill set with the
light-side extremes to evolve into a strongly balanced Wolf CIO.
Are you ready to be a Wolf?
Learn how to master the light- and dark-side tactics necessary to effectively lead IT.
Read the book.