Howard Gardner Defines Leadership

In Leading Minds: An Anatomy of Leadership, Howard Gardner defines leadership.

“A leader is an individual (or, rarely, a set of individuals) who significantly affects the thoughts, feelings, and/or behaviors of a significant number of individuals. Most acknowledged leaders are “direct.” They address their public face-to-face. But I have called attention to an unrecognized phenomenon: indirect leadership. In this variety of leading, individuals exert impact through the works that they create.

Whether direct or indirect, leaders fashion stories: principally stories of identity. It is important that a leader be a good storyteller, but equally crucial that the leader embody that story in his or her life. When a leader tells stories to experts, the stories can be quite sophisticated; but when the leader is dealing with a diverse, heterogeneous group, the story must be sufficiently elemental to be understood by the untutored, or ‘unschooled,’ mind.”

Via: New Horizons

Technorati Tags: Quote, Leadership, Story, Communication, Storytelling, Book

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Tagged as: Definitions