READ TIME: 4 MINUTES
Data Leadership is hard, ain’t it!?
Since I quit my job as Global Head of Data for Pizza Hut Digital 3 years ago, I’ve worked with a lot of data leaders. Like, close to 100 of them. They’ve been in different industries, different org sizes and at different levels of seniority. And while the context of the challenges we work on together varies enormously, the patterns that hold data people back are remarkably consistent across the board.
The relationship between data teams and the wider business is one of the most consistently troubled dynamics I encounter, regardless of sector or company size. And sitting at the centre of that tension is a data leader whose habits, instincts, and blind spots are holding back what is otherwise a genuinely talented leader. In my experience, struggling data leaders tend to fall into one of three archetypes:
The three archetypes are:
The Invisible Expert, The Stalled Strategist, and The Stretched Leader.
You will probably recognise yourself in one of them. Let’s take a closer look at them shall we? 👇🏻
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🫥 The Invisible Expert
The Invisible Expert is the most common type I encounter. They are technically strong, well regarded within their team, and committed to doing good work. The problem is that the people who matter most in their organisation have very little idea how good the work they do actually is.
This tends to happen because the Invisible Expert has built their identity around delivery outcomes. They are excellent at producing things but less comfortable talking about what those things mean or advocating for what they make possible. In their mind, the quality of their work should speak for itself. But in reality, it very rarely does.
The consequence is a data leader who is chronically underestimated. They are consulted late, provided with limited resources, and rarely invited into the strategic conversations where they could add the most value. Their influence is capped, and they often cannot quite work out why.
🐌 The Stalled Strategist
The Stalled Strategist thinks at the right level. They understand the business, they have a clear point of view, and they can articulate where data should be taking the organisation. The frustration is that none of that seems to translate into actual momentum with their stakeholders.
The pattern usually develops when a data leader has strong strategic instincts but has not yet learned how to land them in the conversations that matter. They can write a strategy, but struggle to build the executive alignment needed to move it forward. They know what needs to happen but find themselves repeatedly hitting walls they cannot explain.
The result is a leader who feels perpetually misunderstood.
😖 The Stretched Leader
The Stretched Leader is operating beyond their comfortable capacity, and they know it. They are pulled in too many directions, too involved in the detail of their team's work, and carrying more of the operational load than someone at their level should be. Their diary is full and their available thinking time is close to zero.
This often develops from an inability to let go as they rise through the ranks. The Stretched Leader was promoted through technical excellence and still finds it easier to do things themselves than to create the conditions for others to do them well. The team exists, but the leader has not yet fully made the shift from practitioner to leader.
The cost is significant. Strategic work gets squeezed out by urgent work. The team stops developing because the leader is always in the room doing most of the thinking. And the data function as a whole stays smaller than it should be, because its leader is too embedded in it to see it clearly.
❓ So which one are you?
Most data leaders I encounter sit firmly in one of these patterns.
If you are curious as to where you land across the five dimensions that underpin these archetypes, I have built a short assessment that will tell you. It takes around eight minutes, gives you a scored breakdown, and identifies which pattern fits your current situation most closely. It’s also free! (let me know what result you get)
Quick Poll
No Poll this week! Instead, take my free data leadership assessment to find out which data leadership archetype you are!
📨 Share this with the other data folks in your life!
Working with a data leadership coach
If you’re a senior data leader and something in this week’s newsletter resonated, I work 1:1 with people in exactly this position, on the specific challenges you're dealing with right now.
Free resources:
Data Leadership Playbook · Data Career Compass · Data Leader Assessment
Tristan Burns
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