Narrative Leadership

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Upcoming Events and The USA Election

Upcoming Events and The USA Election

I haven’t written in a while. Been preparing for the first Leadership: Education And Development (L:EAD) seminar this November. I’ll be announcing it first to subscribers of this website. [Note: L:EAD is the organization that brings you Narrative Leadership.]

The US presidential election  is fascinating from a Narrative Leadership viewpoint. The two basic expressed narratives are:

Trump: “There…

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Soundbites & Marketing Literature

Soundbites & Marketing Literature

Soundbite – A short expressed narrative that hides the complexities of reality in favor of a simple and memorable meme.

Marketing literature is a series of soundbites connected together with words, phrases, pictures, and graphics. The complexities of real life are ignored for the sake of brevity and to not lose potential customers.

Good marketing literature ties together the soundbites into an…

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Sound Bites and The End of Democracy

Sound Bites and The End of Democracy

Dictionary.com defines democracy as:

[A] government by the people; a form of government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them or by their elected agents under a free electoral system. [Dictionary.com]

There are several aspects to this definition they can use  clarification. In Narrative Leadership terms:

Government– A decision-making body. That is, a…

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The Narratives of Power

The Narratives of Power

The narrative of power permeates modern society. Many politicians and managers orient their foundational narrative around power. But, what is it that they are seeking?

Google defines power as: “The capacity or ability to direct or influence the behavior of others or the course of events.” For the moment, let’s use this definition.

In general, there are four foundational narratives around power:

D…

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Business Plans

Lately, I have been hearing a lot of clamor about how to write a good business plan. Much of the noise comes from consultants who earn their living consulting about business plans.

Today’s blog is a Narrative Leadership view of these plans.

Business plans are expressed narratives for the organization. These plans try to:

state where the organization is at this time

communicate the dynamics of…

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Uncertainty

As a leader, one of the hardest things to handle is uncertainty. In terms of stress, it’s up there with personnel problems.

I’m in the process of building a new home for my wife and I, and for Narrative Leadership. The uncertainties range from finance to timeline, from readers who may come to visit and learn to having the right environment for learning, from taxes and permits to architecture that…

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Hiring Leaders

According to Gallup and the Harvard Business Review, 82% of people appointed to leadership positions are not the right candidate [https://hbr.org/2014/03/why-good-managers-are-so-rare/#]. Today’s post is about how to significantly increase your chances of hiring the right person for the right leadership job.

The greatest issue is understanding the narrative of the leadership position you wish to…

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Authoritarian Management

Recently, I was watching The West Wing, season 1 episode 14. In this episode they are dealing with capital punishment. The hero takes input from his senior staff until the point where he makes a decision.

Narrative Component #1 The hero makes the decision. This is a very frequent component of most authoritarian’s narrative.

Even if we, as outsiders, don’t see the authoritarian leader as a hero,…

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Forming Our Work Narratives

Forming Our Work Narratives

Just a quick note today.

As leaders, our own work narratives affect us greatly. According to some studies, our failures may be THE major creator of our foundational narrative.

So, when helping new employees develop their narrative about working in your organization, remember the power of negative feedback.

It is much more powerful than positive in creating a lasting impression. These negative…

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Model for Understanding People/Groups

Model for Understanding People/Groups

A Narrative Of Leadership

Today’s post is a view inside my mind. This is one way that I envision narratives and Narrative Leadership.

Think of your life as a string going from birth to death. As strings are wont to do when held tightly at the ends, the string of your life vibrates. It has its own special tune, a base vibration and an almost infinite array of harmonics.

Your life has this…

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Foundation of Narrative Leadership

Foundation of Narrative Leadership

Today’s post is an overview of what makes Narrative Leadership special. This is for the many new readers of this blog. Since I haven’t reorganized this website in a while, some readers may be uncertain as to what is Narrative Leadership.

There are four basic assumptions behind Narrative Leadership.

The more a leader knows about a situation and the people involved, the more efficient and effective…

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