Eric Shaver

Human Factors Professional

Stories of Leadership

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Leader vs follower conceptRobert J. Sternberg published “The WICS approach to leadership: Stories of leadership and the structures and processes that support them” in a 2008 issue of The Leadership Quarterly.

In essence, successful leaders use stories with compelling messages to appeal to their followers.  Based on this idea, Dr. Sternberg, with the assistance of Christopher Rate, created the following taxonomy of leadership stories:

  • The Carpenter – the leader who can build a new organization or society
  • The CEO – the leader who can “get things done”
  • The Communicator – the leader who can communicate with diverse followers
  • The Conqueror – the leader who is going to conquer all enemies
  • The Conserver – the leader who will make sure things stay the wonderful way they are
  • The Cook – the leader who has the recipe to improve the life of his or her followers
  • The Deep Thinker – the leader who will make sense out of what is going on
  • The Defender – the leader who will save all followers from harm
  • The Deity – the leader who presents him or herself as savior
  • The Diplomat – the leader who can get everyone to work together
  • The Doctor – the leader who can cure what is wrong with the organization
  • The Ethicist – the leader who pledges to clean up the place
  • The Lifesaver – the leader who will rescue followers from otherwise certain death
  • The Organizer -the leaders who can create order out of chaos
  • The Plumber – the leader who can fix all the leaks
  • The Politician – the leader who understands how “the system” works
  • The Replicator – the leader who is going to be like some past individual
  • The Scout – the leader who can lead followers to new and uncharted territory
  • The Ship Captain – the captain of a ship navigating through turbulent times
  • The Turn-Around Specialist – the leader who can turn around a failing organization
  • The Warrior Chieftain – the leader who will lead followers to fight, defensively or offensively, enemies, seen or unseen
  • Based on this taxonomy, which leadership story(s) best fit you?  Would others in your organization agree with your assessment?

I hope Dr. Sternberg – or other leadership researchers – take the opportunity to further investigate and expand on this concept.

References

Sternberg, R.J. (2008).  The WICS approach to leadership: Stories of leadership and the structures and processes that support them.  The Leadership Quarterly, 19, 360-371.

Asking the Right Questions about Leadership

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The January 2007 issue of the American Psychologist was a Special Issue on Leadership featuring six articles on the topic. Robert J. Sternberg noted in the forward to the special issue that “…leadership has not been a leading topic in the field of psychology,” thus the special issue was created in an effort to begin addressing this issue (p. 1). He goes on to state:

“The purpose of this special issue is to introduce readers of the American Psychologist to recent theory and research on leadership. The articles are written by some of the leading theorists in the study of leadership and are intended to present an overview of much (although certainly not all) of the field as it exists today. The goal is not to present only the latest findings or cutting-edge research, but rather, to serve as a tutorial providing background that might whet readers’ appetites to read more.” (Sternberg, 2007, p. 1)

Prompted by concerns raised by Bennis (2007) about the need for leadership scholars to “… reframe the important questions about leadership,” Hackman and Wageman (2007) generated the following five questions:

Question 1: Not do leaders make a difference, but under what conditions does leadership matter?

Question 2: Not what are the traits of leaders, but how to leaders’ personal attribute interact with situational properties to shape outcomes?

Question 3: Not do there exist common dimensions on which all leaders can be arrayed, but are good and poor leadership qualitatively different phenomena?

Question 4: Not how do leaders and followers differ, but how can leadership models be reframed so they treat all system members as both leaders and followers?

Question 5: Not what should be taught in leadership courses, but how can leaders be helped to learn?

References

Bennis, W. (2007). The challenges of leadership in the modern world: Introduction to the special issue. American Psychologist, 62, 2–5.

Hackman, J.R., & Wageman, R. (2007). Asking the right questions about leadership: Discussion and conclusions. American Psychologist, 62, 43-47.

Sternberg, R.J. (2007). Forward to the special issue on leadership. American Psychologist, 62, 1.