Centermost stem has been getting damaged - currently it looks the same as if it had been pruned back. Meanwhile largest side branches are well on their way to being co dominant - it could easily be too late to try and force the tree to have a narrower shape with a dominant leader.

Many trees grow like that. Perhaps a trim here or there is OK, but it is almost always unwise to try forcing your tree into some preconceived form. And lower branches would present some of its fruit lower down. I do cut some lowest branches off some of my trees, but only when they're a bit older than that, and NOT trim excessively (you can't put branches back on).

its a good time of year.. to look at all the dormant trees.. and notice that a vast majority of them do not have a single straight leader ....

those of mine i planted as babes .. and pruned/guided religiously ... seem to have lost such just above the height of my tallest ladder ... lol ... at which point.. i left them to God and ma nature ...

i think you hit the nail on the head when you said: just leave it alone and let it do it's thing

no need to ever fix that which isnt broken ... and this aint broken ... its just some aesthetic in your head that thinks its not perfect ...

ken

and this has nothing to do with what type of tree it is.. its just general tree thinking .... imo ... there really shouldnt be different rules for different types .. unless you have production reasons for doing otherwise ... e.g. opening the center for fruit production [which would remove a central leader ... go figure] .... or pollarding ....

ken

thanks everyone I guess I'll just let it do its thing. I think a late frost bit the main leader last spring and it responded by growing into a vase shape. I don't mind that shape I just was under the impression that impression that each species has a correct shape that it should be trained into. just as a side note since this is a fruitless Male I'm treating it as a shade tree. the fruiting female is much smaller but I'll be treating it as a more of a fruit tree.

There are trends, but there are also trees that buck the trend ;)

"Many trees grow like that. Perhaps a trim here or there is OK, but it is almost always unwise to try forcing your tree into some preconceived form."

I would disagree and say sometimes, not almost always.

There's widespread advice out there, for example, that it's a bad idea to prune magnolias, especially deciduous ones. When I planted my Phelan Bright 11 years ago it probably had a chance of turning into something like this: http://bigtree.cnre.vt.edu/detail.cfm?AutofieldforPrimaryKey=1879 if I hadn't done the 'forbidden magnolia pruning'.

Given that the progeny of such Gresham type magnolias may include X soulangeana, but also other things that look more like this: https://visit.caerhays.co.uk/UserFiles/Image/Champion_Trees/Delia_Williams_4.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmBfAJwgiuA

I am perfectly confident that early shaping of my Gresham magnolia was the right thing to do and helped it avoid the delayed apical dominance of cutting or grafted grown asexually propagated plant material. I will do the same to the other Magnolias I have with campbellii or sargentiana in their background, like 'Atlas'.

David, I think a lot of that is because we grew up seeing shrubbery tortured into sculptuary forms. I prefer to minimally prune most ornamental plants, though there are certainly exceptions (both species and individual growth patterns).
If you like that sort of thing, there's weirdos like Harry Lauder's Walking Stick, which would probably be made less appealing with more than minimal shaping.
I have a sweet bay magnolia (M. virginiana) which is in excess of 20 feet now and had never been shaped by man. I like it's natural shape and I find that true of most larger trees.

Shrubs like some of the viburnums definitely are improved by pruning to encourage density versus sparse branching. Or at least that's my opinion, which is all that pruning for shaping is...an opinion.