There's a story... an old Cherokee teaching... that goes like this.
An elder tells his grandson: "Inside me there's a fight happening. It's between two wolves. One wolf is angry, selfish, arrogant, fearful. The other is kind, purposeful, honest, brave."
The grandson thinks for a moment. "Which wolf wins, grandfather?"
The elder replies: "The one I feed."
I heard this story again when I sat down with Dr. John Blakey, executive coach and author of Force for Good, for episode six of Corey-osity Unleashed. A story I'd come across before. But hearing John talk about it in the context of leadership stopped me cold.
Because I knew, sitting there, I'd fed the wrong wolf more times than I wanted to admit.
The Two Forces Inside Every Leader
John's framework starts with a simple premise: every leader carries two competing forces. One is a force for good... driven by purpose, courage, and care for others. The other is something else entirely. Ego. Fear. The need to control outcomes at all costs.
Both wolves are always present. The question isn't which one you have. The question is which one you're feeding, every single day, through the decisions you make.
And here's the part that hit me hardest: the bad wolf doesn't feel like the bad wolf when you're feeding it. It feels like confidence. It feels like high standards. It feels like accountability. You tell yourself you're being direct. You tell yourself you're holding people responsible. You tell yourself you're protecting the team.
But when I look back at my lowest leadership moments... and I have plenty... what I was doing was feeding fear. My fear of being wrong. My fear of losing control. My fear of looking weak in front of people who looked up to me.
That's the bad wolf. And it wears a suit.
Three Ways Leaders Feed the Wrong Wolf
John Blakey breaks purpose-driven leaders into three archetypes based on his Force for Good framework. He calls them Zealots, Martyrs, and Pied Pipers. I've been all three at different points in my career.
The Zealot is strong on purpose and personal resilience but weak on bringing people along. Zealots are so fired up about the mission that they stop checking whether anyone is following. I was a Zealot early on. High energy, clear direction, absolutely convinced I was right... and completely baffled when people seemed disengaged or resistant. Relentless intensity isn't leadership. It's noise.
The Martyr is the opposite problem. Strong on purpose and caring for others, terrible at taking care of themselves. They give and give until there's nothing left, then burn out and wonder why. I've watched leaders run themselves into the ground protecting their teams from bad news, absorbing pressure from above, trying to shield everyone from reality. Noble. And completely unsustainable. The Martyr feeds everyone else's wolf but starves their own.
The Pied Piper is magnetic... people love working for them, and they create great energy. But they have no clear "true north." They're leading from charisma, not from conviction. Eventually the music stops and people realize they don't know where they were going.
Most leaders cycle through all three. The work is recognizing which wolf is driving at any given moment.
The Moment I Recognized My Own Bad Wolf
I was a few years into a leadership role I genuinely loved. The team was sharp. The work was meaningful. And I was slowly poisoning it.
Not dramatically. Not obviously. I was turning inward. Every setback felt personal. Every critical piece of feedback felt like an attack. I started leading from defense instead of from conviction.
I didn't notice it at first. The bad wolf is subtle. It disguises itself as high standards. As not suffering fools. As "I expect a lot."
What snapped me out of it was a peer who said something I didn't want to hear: "You used to ask us what we thought. Now you tell us."
That was it. That was the wolf showing its teeth.
The shift back wasn't dramatic either. It started with one question, asked before meetings: What am I trying to protect right now? And is that worth protecting?
Sometimes the answer was yes... protecting my team from a bad strategic decision is worth fighting for. Other times the honest answer was: I'm protecting my ego. And that's no reason to do anything.
Feeding the Right Wolf Is a Daily Practice
This is what took me longest to understand. Feeding the right wolf isn't a one-time decision. It's not something you sort out at an offsite or in a coaching session. It's a choice you make dozens of times a day.
When someone challenges your idea in a meeting: which wolf do you feed?
When a project fails and you need to account for it: which wolf do you feed?
When a team member pushes back on a direction you've set: which wolf do you feed?
John talks about building daily habits around this... mapping your calendar to your values, looking at where your time goes versus where your values say it should go. Most leaders, when they do this exercise honestly, are shocked by the gap.
I ran this once and found roughly 70 percent of my week was reactive. Responding to things landing in my lap rather than leading from any sense of purpose. You won't feed the right wolf accidentally. It needs to be fed on purpose... no pun intended.
Start small. Before your first meeting tomorrow, ask yourself one question: "What am I leading from today... purpose or fear?"
You'll know the answer. The wolf always does.
The Wolf You Feed Is the Leader You Become
Here's what John said that I keep coming back to: your team spots a purpose imposter from a mile away.
They know. People always know. They know when you're leading from conviction and when you're leading from fear. They know when your feedback is meant to help them and when it's meant to protect you. They know when the all-hands is honest and when it's a performance.
You don't need to announce which wolf you've been feeding. Your team sees it already.
The good news is the choice is always open. Right now. Today. Before the next conversation, the next decision, the next hard moment.
Which wolf are you feeding?
I talked through this in much more depth with John Blakey on Corey-osity Unleashed. His book, Force for Good, goes further if you want to take this seriously.