The 5 Stages of Leadership
From taskmaster to visionary, discover how great leaders evolve.
What makes someone a great leader?
You might think it’s about managing bigger teams, getting fancier titles, or moving up the org chart.
I believe that true leadership is more internal than external. The best leaders I’ve worked with didn’t just get promoted, they outgrew their old ways of thinking. Their greatest transformation happened in their minds, not in their paycheck.
In this post, we’ll walk through the 5 Stages of Leadership, not as job levels, but as stages of how you show up as a leader.
As you go through these, ask yourself the question: Which stage am I in right now?
Stage 1: The Doer
If you are a doer, you don’t directly manage a team. You get things done fast, independently, and with a high bar. You’re the person who always delivers.
Your team trusts you to execute. And frankly, so do you.
There’s only one problem: you end up doing everything. You stay late. You take work home. You don’t delegate because it’s “faster if I just do it.” You over-own everything. Unfortunately, your strength becomes your greatest hurdle to growth.
True leadership isn’t about doing more. It’s about doing less of the right things.
👉🏼 Leadership starts when you stop over-owning and start letting go.
Stage 2: The Fixer
As a fixer, you’re managing people. Congratulations. Except… now you’re solving their problems, not just yours.
You become the “go-to” person. Every question and decision comes to you. Every fire needs your approval.
And let’s be honest: you love the attention. You feel needed and useful. And your dopamine hits every time you jump in and save the day. But here’s the thing no one tells you about this stage: you’re still doing, just doing it for others.
You’re not empowering people. You’re rescuing them. This makes you the bottleneck. And worse, your team starts outsourcing their thinking to you.
👉🏼 Fixing feels helpful, but it creates dependency and limits team growth.
Stage 3: The Enabler
As an enabler, this is where leadership begins. You stop solving, and start developing. Your job is no longer to be the smartest person in the room. Your job is to help others think, act, and grow.
You still care about outcomes. But now, you care about how they’re achieved, and who achieves them. You ask: “What do you think we should do here?” or “How would you approach this problem?” and “What’s your recommendation?”
This stage is powerful because you start to build real leverage. You also start to feel less “busy”, not because you’re working less, but because your team is working better.
👉🏼 Enabling others is the stepping stone from managing to leading.
Stage 4: The Multiplier
As a multiplier, you’re not just enabling individuals, you’re building systems that enable entire teams. You’re focused on scaling success, not just repeating it.
You start designing onboarding systems that ramp people quickly, creating playbooks for decisions, and building internal tools and rituals that create agility and autonomy.
You’re no longer needed for everything, and guess what, that’s exactly the point.
👉🏼 Multipliers scale their impact by building systems, not dependencies.
Stage 5: The Shaper
As a shaper, you’re shaping culture, direction, and long-term vision. You’re not running sprints anymore, you’re charting the marathon course.
You ask: “What kind of culture are we building?” “What kind of leaders are we creating?” “What kind of impact do we want to leave behind?”
You’re influencing how leadership happens in your organization. You’re focused on the future, and working to create a legacy.
👉🏼 Shapers define the culture and vision others want to follow.
Summary: The 5 Stages of Leadership
Leadership growth isn’t about titles. It’s deeper than that. It’s about how you think and show up.
We discussed the 5 Stages of Leadership:
The Doer – You deliver results by doing everything yourself.
The Fixer – You solve everyone else’s problems.
The Enabler – You empower others to solve problems and grow.
The Multiplier – You build systems that scale others' success.
The Shaper – You shape culture, vision, and the next generation of leaders.
So, what stage are you in today? Let me know in the comments. 👇
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Definitely a good read, provoked introspection. I fiddle between a 'Multiplier' & 'Shaper'.
I love the simplicity of this model for communicating mindset shifts. I’ve been studying vertical development, and one limitation I see in that theory is its complexity - you often need a coach to help you analyze your action logic. Whereas this model offers a simple enough classification to even use for “self-diagnosis”.