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Using Leadership Metaphor Explorer

Leadership Metaphor Explorer can be used in any number of ways and with all kinds of people. Although it’s most commonly applied in small groups of leaders who use it to talk about their work and their future development, there are few limits to its use.

Later in this guide we present a number of applications and examples at societal, organizational, group, and individual levels. Before we go there, let’s review some of the possibilities when you consider the size of the group, the audience of which it’s composed, and the global reach of today’s working groups.

Group size. Leadership Metaphor Explorer can be used with a group of any size. It’s useful for individual self-reflection, for looking at one’s own leadership approach, or for trying to understand someone else’s perspective. As a one-on-one coaching tool, Leadership Metaphor Explorer can work as a conversation starter and help people open up with their intuitions and emotions. Leadership Metaphor Explorer can be used as a dialogue tool for small groups, in intact teams, in breakout groups at a conference, and in classroom groups. Leadership Metaphor Explorer can also be used with large groups at presentations, in auditoriums, and at conferences.

Audience. Leadership Metaphor Explorer is adaptable to almost any type of audience. The tool can be used in schools, programs, camps, and retreats to help young people thinking about the different ways that people work together and relate to others. The frame for using the cards doesn’t have to be explicitly about leadership. For a younger group, you might frame the session as People I Like to Be Around and then move into topics of responsibility, authority, trust, collaboration, and so on.

We’ve used Leadership Metaphor Explorer as a research tool in microfinance and small-business banking programs in India and Africa to understand the organizational cultures they want to create.

—Lyndon Rego, director, Leadership Beyond Boundaries, CCL

Designer’s Tip

Try these exercises if you use Leadership Metaphor Explorer with a large group.

1. For a Leadership Metaphor Explorer session at a conference, give each person an envelope with three random cards. Ask attendees to share cards with each other and respond to the session’s framing question. Follow up the responses by dividing attendees into pairs and asking them to talk to one another about their responses.

2. Randomly assign a card to each person in the session, and ask him or her to relate it to a question chosen from a list of general questions that you have prepared beforehand (for example, How does the card relate to your vision? When are you most creative? When are you at your best? When are you at your worst?). As an alternative to questions, you can ask the people in the session to respond to a simple statement or give them directions for making a response (for example, Use your assigned card to tell a story about leadership where you work).

3. Break the session group into small groups, and then gather the favorite images and themes of each small group into an overall profile. It often happens that different groups consistently choose the same cards in response to the framing question.

With a more traditional audience, Leadership Metaphor Explorer proves quite effective in helping people address issues of leadership culture and leadership talent in relation to business strategy, and we have used it in business contexts ranging from executive boardrooms to MBA classrooms to work teams. Leadership Metaphor Explorer has also been useful in exploring and crossing boundaries in organizations, including the boundaries between different leadership subcultures that one finds in different functions and geographical regions. Likewise, Leadership Metaphor Explorer has been successfully used in government and military leadership contexts (Hughes, Palus, Ernst, Houston, & McGuire, 2011).

We are often asked whether the cards are serious enough for serious people. Do the drawings, the card format, or the metaphors detract from their appeal? Our experience says no. Senior executives and military commanders tell us that they find the cards appealing or at least acceptable. After a serious and frank conversation gets under way and the cards are working, senior business and military leaders like them even more.

Figure 1. Leadership Metaphor Explorer was used in Iraq to help U.S. State Department and Defense Department leaders and staff to reach across the boundaries that define their missions and their work.

Global reach. Leadership Metaphor Explorer has been used successfully all around the world. The metaphors represent a range of global contexts, even though they are inescapably tilted toward American and English language origins and the metaphors those languages make available. It’s always a good idea for a manager who plans to use the Leadership Metaphor Explorer cards to scan the deck and remove (or be prepared to explain) any cards that might be confusing or controversial for a non-American audience. (See What Do the Metaphors Mean? on pages 79–85 for a brief description of each metaphor.) Managers should encourage participants to locate the discussion of the cards and metaphors in their own cultures. Participants should feel free to apply their own interpretations to the cards or even to make up their own metaphors by writing or drawing on a separate piece of paper.

Designer’s Tip

Many of the cards have been deliberately created to have a negative connotation. In some environments or cultures, they might get in the way of a productive conversation. Even those not deliberately created this way may feel negative to you. Feel free to remove cards from the deck.

Because the cards are labeled in English, managers may find it more challenging to use Leadership Metaphor Explorer with non- or limited-English speakers. One solution is to ask those participants to ignore the labels and simply respond to the drawings.

How Does Leadership Metaphor Explorer Work?

Leadership Metaphor Explorer is beginner-friendly, and it’s usually not necessary to understand all of the theory and research behind it. In fact, the facilitator often needs to stay out of the way and let people engage with the tool and with each other. Leadership Metaphor Explorer works by putting something tangible—the cards—into the middle of what might otherwise be an abstract conversation (Palus & Drath, 2001). Simply asking people to talk using the cards as visual props helps the dynamics of the conversation. Using the cards reduces stress and increases engagement. The tone of these mediated conversations tends to be insightful and respectful rather than confrontational. Everyone gets to share his or her cards and comment on the other cards, leveling the power relations and relaxing the participants.

A CORE OF SELF-AWARENESS

Sarah Miller, a CCL colleague, used Leadership Metaphor Explorer in a conversation with Buddhist monks in Thailand.

The first time we talked, M. told us that monks are supposed to be leaders in the community and that he, particularly, was interested in social justice. During our second conversation, we brought out the Leadership Metaphor Explorer cards. M. chose two cards: one to answer the question of how a monk should be a leader in the community and one to answer the question of how he wished to be a leader. The two intersected at the theme of “know thyself.” For M., the most important part of leadership is knowing oneself because only then can one lead others. M. also chose other cards to represent the various aspects of leadership that a monk exhibits. But at the heart of his understanding lay self-awareness.

Figure 2. A young monk in a monastery contemplates Leadership Metaphor Explorer’s metaphors and their relation to self-awareness.

Humans depend heavily on their sense of sight. Humans are also highly communicative. Sometimes, when faced with a challenge, people will try to talk themselves through it. Leadership Metaphor Explorer opens up a different channel, granting insight and information that flows through visual, emotional, physical, and nonverbal channels.

Metaphor—the act of comparing the qualities of two different things as if they were the same—is at the root of human cognition and self-identity (Mair, 1977; McAdams, 1997), and perhaps of consciousness itself (Dennett, 1991; Jaynes, 1976). We know that metaphors can be a powerful aid to thinking and communicating when used with intention and discipline (Lakoff & Johnson, 2003). When Leadership Metaphor Explorer injects metaphors into strategic conversations, new insights and ideas emerge.

Part of the problem in thinking about leadership is that the topic is full of clichés and platitudes. Ideas about leadership run in predictable ruts. We miss opportunities to practice leadership because we have trouble thinking about options and alternatives. For example, people will focus on “the leader as hero” and miss the options inherent in “the leader as servant” or “the leader as coach.” Leadership Metaphor Explorer offers people new metaphors that can direct them to new opportunities.

Do we want people to model themselves literally as Dependable Repairmen (to quote one card)? No. We want them to explore metaphorical connotations such as dependable, loyal, service oriented, and problem solving as potentially helpful for their own situations.

How Does Leadership Metaphor Explorer Address Leadership Types?

Leadership Metaphor Explorer’s design accommodates three distinct types of leadership metaphors. In the first type, leadership is associated with authority, power, dominance, and control. CCL calls this dependent leadership. Leadership based in influence, expertise, heroic effort, and individual ambition comes next. CCL refers to this as independent leadership. Finally, there is a type of leadership based in collaboration, diverse perspectives, shared learning, and intentional boundary spanning. This is interdependent leadership (Drath, Palus, & McGuire, 2010). Each of Leadership Metaphor Explorer’s cards is coded according to these three types, with red labels for dependent, green labels for independent, and blue labels for interdependent. Because Leadership Metaphor Explorer is based on metaphor, the coding is open to interpretation, and many of the metaphors may fit more than one type.

Figure 3. Characteristics of leadership types.

Dependent leadership cultures are characterized by the belief that only people in positions of authority are responsible for leadership. This assumption may lead to organizations that emphasize top-down control and deference to authority. In general, dependent cultures can be thought of as conformer cultures.

Dependent leadership cultures and independent leadership cultures have limits to their capability to produce direction, alignment, and commitment. When the clients or customers demand fully integrated service across lines of business, the value of heroic, independent leadership can fall short of meeting that demand.

Independent leadership cultures are characterized by the belief that leadership emerges from individuals based on their knowledge and expertise. This assumption may lead to decentralized decision making, high demand for individual responsibility, and competition among types of experts. In general, independent cultures can be thought of as achiever cultures.

Interdependent leadership cultures are characterized by the belief that leadership is a collective activity that requires mutual inquiry and learning (McCauley et al., 2008). This assumption may lead to the widespread use of dialogue, collaboration, horizontal networks, the valuing of differences, and a focus on learning. In general, interdependent cultures can be thought of as collaborative cultures. As they develop from dependent to independent to interdependent, leadership cultures gain capacity to deal with complexity and ambiguity.

Interdependence isn’t an ideal. Only a small fraction of organizations meet the criteria of interdependence (Kegan, 1994; McCauley et al., 2008; Torbert, 2004). There are highly successful dependent and independent organizations in business, in communities, in governments, and in NGOs. Organizations may exhibit all three leadership types. For example, an organization that provides mental health services might exhibit a dependent culture in its support staff, an independent culture among its case workers, and an interdependent culture in its relations among these parts and with external stakeholders.

Levels of leadership. CCL defines leadership in terms of outcomes—direction, alignment, and commitment. Those outcomes can be observed at different levels of leadership action: society, organization, group, and individual.

The societal level includes relationships among organizations, across entire fields and industries, and among regional cultures (Ospina & Foldy, 2010; Quinn & Van Velsor, 2010). The organizational level includes multipart organizations and communities. The group level includes smaller organizational collectives such as divisions, functions, teams, work groups, and task forces. The individual level includes the qualities and subjective viewpoints of individual leaders, followers, and members.

Figure 4. Four levels of leadership.

Each leadership level provides leverage for development. All four levels can be identified as vital in any scenario in which direction, alignment, and commitment are produced. Our research and experience suggest that attention to processes and outcomes at all four levels are necessary for developing more collaborative, interdependent leadership.

When Should Leadership Metaphor Explorer Be Used?

Leadership Metaphor Explorer should be used with individuals or groups when they need fresh insight about their leadership and its development. Typically, that need arises in the face of complex challenges, or what Bob Johansen (2012) calls VUCA: conditions of increasing volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. Those conditions pervade contemporary life. Leadership Metaphor Explorer offers a means to achieve direction, alignment, and commitment in response to the VUCA world, no matter where you are. You can use Leadership Metaphor Explorer on the bus, at the dinner table, in a class, or in a team meeting. It’s portable enough for impromptu meetings. It supports great conversations in a serious and formal atmosphere, and it supports great conversations when humor and levity are welcome.

Leadership Metaphor Explorer is a wonderful tool that lends itself to a wide range of leadership, cultural, and community-building explorations at an individual or group level, and those explorations are a valuable reflection and discussion tool for leadership coaches.

—Jim Myracle, cofounder and partner, TMT Associates, Inc.

Why Should Leadership Metaphor Explorer Be Used?

Leadership Metaphor Explorer helps you see your present leadership approach more clearly, and it helps you imagine the leadership approach needed in the future. Related benefits include the following:

• Creates shared understanding about the challenges at hand

• Creates fresh, memorable metaphors and stories about a complex challenge that engage people in finding solutions

• Builds safety for self-disclosure and vulnerability

• Improves interpersonal understanding and trust

• Promotes self-reflection

• Elicits new questions and alternatives

• Helps people envision a better future

• Helps people see their environment and their organization with fresh eyes

• Legitimizes intuition and emotion

• Generates alternative futures for wiser planning

• Encourages fun, playful, yet serious dialogue

• Taps into personal experiences and passions

• Makes abstract conversations tangible

• Frames and illustrates thoughts so they can be shared

• Surfaces individual and group assumptions

• Spans boundaries, contexts, and cultures

• Helps people move from ineffective positions

• Produces tangible images that can be reused in paper and digital forms

Who Can Conduct a Leadership Metaphor Explorer Session?

Most people can facilitate a basic Leadership Metaphor Explorer session. In most cases, it’s sufficient to follow the instructions in this guide and to provide some basic directions to the participants. The facilitator’s job is simple and unobtrusive: to support a good conversation among the group members. That job usually requires only a beginner’s level of facilitation skill. Beyond this, the facilitator needs only the skills that match the goals of any specific Leadership Metaphor Explorer session. For example, to conduct strategic planning, the group needs a facilitator with some experience in strategic planning. For sessions that may surface conflict, a facilitator should be able to handle tough, emotional situations. Experienced hands at organizational change are needed when Leadership Metaphor Explorer is used in a long-term transformation initiative.