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Context: contemporary leadership
What leadership behaviours improve engagement?
– Model the way
– Inspire a shared vision
– Challenge the process
– Enable others to act
– Encourage the heart
The Leadership Challenge (Kouzes and Posner)
– Showing genuine concern for others
Transformational Leadership Questionnaire (Alimo-Metcalfe)
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The leadership challenge
Communication is key
A majority of management / leadership time is spent in
‘communication’
Studies of organisational discourse tell us that:
– Organisations are constituted in and through discourses
– Leadership is achieved and reproduced in and through
discourses
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The case for stories and storytelling
Stories have a unique capacity to achieve sensemaking,
emotional activation and motivation
(Good) stories are:
– Engaging
– Moving
– Compelling
– Memorable
– Provocative
– Confronting
– Human
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Stories about ‘who we are’ – Identity
Steve Jobs
After Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997 he told an in-house meeting
of senior managers that Apple had to get back to basics and more
clearly define what the company really stood for.
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Stories about ‘who we are’ – Identity (Steve Jobs)
Steve Jobs introduced the now-famous ‘Think Different’ marketing
campaign, which featured famous identities who had changed the world.
For Jobs, this campaign highlighted Apple’s core belief that “the people
who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones
who do”.
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Stories about change and ‘turnaround’ – Strategic Vision
Jeff Clarke
Kodak filed for bankruptcy in 2012. But Jeff Clarke, who took on the job
of Kodak CEO in 2014 is busy telling a new story about the turnaround
at Kodak, with the company now turning a profit.
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Stories about ‘why we do what we do’ – Persuasive Communication 2
John Wood
John Wood was as a senior marketing executive for Microsoft in the
1990s.
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Stories about ‘why we do what we do’ – Persuasive Communication
A year after a holiday trek through the Himalayas and seeing the poor
conditions of one of Nepal’s most remote schools, John Wood returned
with 3000 donated school books. Wood then left Microsoft to establish
the global non-profit, Room to Read.
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Some classic techniques
Use characters so that listeners can identify and
personalise
Use rhetorical questions to engage and empower
Employ Two-Part Contrasts (TPCs) for impact
Refer to Lists of Three (LOTs)
Repeat key phrases at strategic points to build
momentum
Be flexible in the telling
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Some final tips
Think about telling a story
Practice your story
– Setting
– Characters
– Plot or intrigue
– Mood and tone
– Theme, values and ideas
The greatest leadership stories are about PURPOSE