Insight

Seven Kinds of Leadership

Tell a story, change the world

Leadership Style

Seven kinds of Leadership (pdf version)

Leadership as a trait

  • Great Man Theory
  • born leader – personality or character
  • no specific trait correlations have ever been demonstrated

Leadership as a skill

  • Competency-based
  • technical – subject matter of the organization
  • human – ability to relate to people
  • intellectual – ability to understand and analyze

Leadership as a Style

Leadership as situational

  • different methods for different circumstances
  • directive vs. supportive behaviors
    • delegating
    • supporting
    • coaching
    • directing

Situational Leadership

Leadership as motivation

  • enhance results through enhancing employee satisfaction and motivation
    • directive (tell what to do)
    • supportive (help get job done)
    • participative (invite subordinates to take part in decisions)
    • achievement-oriented (challenging subordinates to perform at high levels) and rewarding them

Leadership as transformation

  • focus on emotions, values, ethics, standards, and long-term goals
  • leader engages followers in vision by speaking to their values and emotions
  • transformational (values, vision) vs.
  • transactional (incentives, disincentives)

Leadership as interactive, storytelling, pathfinding

  • narrative or map or guide to the future
    • tell a story, you don’t tell people what do to – pathfinding
    • tell a story, you give perspective, open possibilities – empower
    • tell a story, you don’t judge, but focus thinking – align
    • tell a story, you set an example of how to communicate – model

Virtuous/Unvirtuous Storytellers

Example – Story of the World Bank

  • “Imagine if we could do that”    VP Stephen Denning (pp. 4, 77-79, “The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling”).
  • Starfish Story

Interactive Leadership

  • about persuasion and diffusion of ideas
  • Pathfinding – win people over to an idea so they find the path
  • Empowerment – feel they can do it
  • Align – work together and see the value in the idea
  • Model – engage others as needed in the same way

Armenian Narratives

  • What narratives and attitudes do Armenians tell about ourselves that affect the way we respond to situations?

Reframing Narratives

  • Assuming that the facts are true, what kinds of alternative explanations (reframing) would make it possible to find a path to more effective responses and greater freedom?

Stories We Tell About Ourselves

  1. Armenians are all leaders, no followers
  2. Armenians are individualistic – don’t work well in teams
  3. Solutions that work well elsewhere, won’t work in Armenia
  4. Armenians only look out for themselves, so impossible to address issues of common good
  5. Armenia is in danger of immediate annihilation by its enemies
  6. If it weren’t for the Russian deterrent, Turkey would annihilate Armenia.
  7. Armenia was the first Christian nation.
  8. Intelligent, modern people cannot be believers.

More Narratives

  1. If you are polite and reasonable, people will treat you like a chump.
  2. If it is not Armenian, it must be bad.
  3. If it is Armenian, it must be shoddy.
  4. Armenians don’t take care of their common areas.
  5. Armenians think short term.
  6. Leaders who have sated their appetite will rule better.
  7. If you did not fight in Karabagh, you don’t have a right to shape policy in Armenia.
  8. The law is good, the people are bad.
  9. The system is bad, the people are good.

More Narratives

  1. Things are bad because the leadership is bad.
  2. We get the leaders we deserve.
  3. If the leaders were exemplary, we’d behave better and things would be better.
  4. Armenians cannot govern themselves.   They need an outside power to rule them.
  5. This country needs a strong leader to establish order and keep everyone in his/her place.
  6. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
  7. When there are no good choices, you have to choose the lesser evil.

You may also like