Patterns of leadership in troubled times Skills for leadership are natural, learned and require continual refinement. New skills are forged in times of crisis. Conversely leadership as a position starts at a point in time, often when something new is started. On the assumption that positional leadership starts when you start a company, division or something new, it is a truism that a leadership team will inevitably change over time, as the needs of the business change. Typically a founder will have a bias towards technology, science, innovation or marketing and will have created a new widget for someone who did not know they needed it. Such is the demand for growth that a founding skillset (innovation) has to quickly give way to finance, legal and management as scale is needed to satisfy stakeholder inquisitions. Leadership who leads knows that more (new) revenues are needed and will steer a team back towards skills that bring in creativity and innovation, leading