Understanding employee leadership styles

Words by Philippa White

I watched The Neverending Story the other day with my little girls. I remember loving the 1984 fantasy spectacular filled with luckdragons and childlike empresses, rock eaters and sneezing giant turtles when I was little. But I don’t think I truly understood the messages of the film until I watched it again as an adult.

The first message that I took out of the film is to not underestimate the power of imagination.

Why?

Because we all need the imagination to achieve something. In fact, I would go as far as saying that one can’t happen without the other. Without a dream, it’s difficult to push ourselves for change.

By dreaming big, we can make the impossible, possible.

But the film has another lesson for us. It wants us to understand that before you know how to be a changemaker, you need to understand what type of changemaker you are.

When  Atreyu seeks out the Southern Oracle, he must pass through two gates. The first gate is a pair of yellow sphinxes that shoot lasers at anyone that tries to pass between them if they don’t believe in themselves. They must believe they are capable. The second gate is a magic mirror that reveals one’s true nature – their purpose.

Like in the film, we are living at a moment of profound disruption. Profound volatility. Uncertainty. And complexity. We are all trying to adjust to this disruption and looking for our role to respond.

To respond, we need to know who we are. What we are good at. Where our power comes from and where our strengths lie.

We all must be true to who we are – authenticity is everything. Knowing who you then gives you a tighter brief so that you know who you need around you, where you fit, and who you should have on your team. Self-awareness helps you choose the people who have all the virtues you don’t have, becoming the leader you can be.

Since 2006, The International Exchange (TIE) has been liberating the full power of leaders and teams through self-discovery and experiential learning in ways that also positively impacts communities around the world. 

We believe that to profoundly change the world, we need people to connect with their potential. Where we were is very different to where we are going, and by helping people discover more about themselves and what their distinctive power is, our aim is to help create better people, with better companies, in a better world.

Some people don’t know what they are great at. And it takes some self-reflection to work out what is the thing that they can uniquely do and the area they can most add value to. And that’s what we are all about.

To facilitate this discussion at the start of the TIE journey, we have created a fantastic leadership decoder which has been inspired by the cultural anthropologist Dr Angeles Arrien. She studied the ways that indigenous cultures throughout the world “support creative expression, health and adaptation to change” and it outlines the four archetypes.

Even though everyone will relate slightly to all archetypes, it’s unlikely that anyone is all of them - one archetype will often be stronger than the others. (You can find the decoder here if you would like to try the decoder yourself.

The four archetypes are:

The Achiever

Achievers are motivated by results. They want to do things their way with as much control as possible. They are competitive and like to “win”. They focus on the “bottom-line”. They expect people to get to the point and for the point to be communicated in a clear and forthright manner; they don’t like ambiguity or roundabout discussions. 

The Visionary

Visionaries are motivated by possibilities and “what ifs”. They can inspire others with options and a positive, abundant attitude. They get bored easily with routine and value “out of the box” thinking, brainstorming and creativity. They love to innovate and discover new ways to do things. They don’t enjoy discussing or focusing on details.