Showing Up As A Leader

What is it like to be a leader as opposed to a follower? Man readers of this newsletter are leaders in their organizations and community. Did you ever think about how you got to your position? Was it your plan? Or did it just happen? Read more below for some ideas.

Many people fear being a leader. When I think of that, I cringe. Not because I am making a judgment about that person’s fears. I cringe because I can’t imagine not being a leader. Except for my first job out of graduate school (Assistant City Manager) and a very brief sales career, I have always been in a leadership position.

Was I destined to be a leader? Did I have what it takes to be a leader? Was it born in me? Did “nature or nurture” get me to these leadership positions?

Organizing a business, heading up a workgroup, or establishing a committee requires knowledge of the “how” of leadership. Knowing the most productive and essential behaviors for leadership success can make or break a business, organization, or even a volunteer committee.

I have been in a leadership position or one step away for most of my career. Starting in high school, I served as the student council president for three of my four years, and at every step of my journey, I was voted, asked, or aspired to be in a leadership position. Sometimes, it occurred through acclimation (student council president), and sometimes, it was because I pursued it (CEO at five different economic development organizations).

But even if someone is appointed, elected, or hired as a leader, they are only sometimes successful. They sometimes need more knowledge, experience, or traction to succeed. Sometimes, there is a need for more personal or organizational awareness.

This is where archetypes come in. I have written about archetypes before in this blog. Still, I want to dive into the world of archetypes and how you, as a leader, can use them to be more effective and successful in your role.

Suppose you are the type of person who, whenever there is a challenge or problem to solve, you like to dive right in. During this deep dive, you need to lead a team of people with different work ethics, personalities, and ideas about how the challenge should be faced and solved.

If you know how you “show up,” interact in those situations, or respond to certain stimuli during a challenge, you can work effectively with others in the group to get the job done.

Failure may be looming if you have no awareness of your strengths and shortfalls and those of your team members.

An Archetype is a behavior or intuitive reaction that appears consistently. Many groups and people have defined their own sets and definitions of typical archetypes. Dr. Carol Pearson pioneered 20th-century psychologist Carl Jung’s idea of the collective consciousness into twelve distinct archetypes:

• The Innocent
• The Everyperson
• The Hero
• The Caregiver
• The Explorer
• The Lover
• The Revolutionary
• The Creator
• The Ruler
• The Magician
• The Sage
• The Jester

Archetypes represent a person’s collective ideas, ideals, characteristics, fears, and desires. In addition, archetypes are universally recognizable. For example, the “Revolutionary” archetype is the person who discards the rules, disdains the status quo, and is okay with breaking the rules. Think of historic revolutionaries like Che Guevara, Martin Luther King, Jr., or Mahatma Gandhi. They all presented themselves as revolutionaries, yet were all leaders.

It is important to remember that Archetypes are not stereotypes and shouldn’t be used for categorization. Instead, they are the repeated stories we tell about ourselves and each other.

An archetype can show up as a strength or a shadow. As a shadow, an archetype can be overdone. People who overdo the Revolutionary archetype can push so hard that they offend people by constantly breaking things, becoming arrogant, lacking concern for others, and proposing ideas too far outside the mainstream.

When I recently took an assessment to determine my most potent archetypes, the three strongest were (with their associated strengths and shadows):

Creator — Showing up strong as a Creator means originality, a vivid imagination, and a passion for making things out of nothing. Creator archetypes are innovative and trust the creative process to yield results. The shadow side shows up as a procrastinator, often a perfectionist. The Creator sometimes needs help to juggle too many projects and be impractical.

Magician — Showing up strong as a Magician means that you have a long-term vision, are transformative and influential, and make things look easy. It’s all about mind over matter. The shadow side shows up as someone who will overlook essential steps, use smoke and mirrors to get things done, and expect the impossible.

Lover — Showing up as a Lover means you seek harmony and consensus, are passionate, and exhibit emotional intelligence. Synergistic relationships drive a Lover. On the shadow side, the Lover is often drawn into drama, jealousy, and gossip and can be overindulgent.

How to use Archetypes

Once you have determined your archetypes, you can use this awareness to reflect on how you present yourself as a leader. It doesn’t hurt to know your team’s archetype, either. Knowing how you consistently show up may help you temper those times when your archetype is coming on too strong. Understanding your weaker archetypes will help you reach down and use them when needed.

While individuals have certain inherent archetypes, so do organizations, work groups, and business teams. Archetype assessments are being used to develop cultural blueprints and audits of organizations. An orgainzation can be seen as any of the twelve archetypes.

For example, Tesla looks like a Magician organization. The company and its leader, Elon Musk, can create something out of nothing. Virgin Companies, headed by Richard Branson, might be considered a strong Jester organization. It’s a company characterized by fun and frivolous. Patagonia could be identified as an explorer organization.

Knowing an organization’s archetype can enhance efforts to change the culture, merge cultures, or develop values and strategic plans. Often, a company or organization’s culture does not align with its desired values. For example, while a company’s public-facing communication of values might be one thing, actual practice and operations are another. Understanding an organization’s archetype can change that.

In today’s aggressive competition for talent, knowing the organizational culture becomes an asset. If your organization can identify its culture or archetype, it can attract talent and resources that align with that culture.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, things can go awry if your orgainzation has a toxic or dysfunctional culture. Here are some signs that your organization has a toxic culture:

• People are overworked (according to them) and feel burned out. In exit interviews, they indicate that burnout issues are the main reason they leave. Work-Life balance is out of wack.
• Leaders have a fixed mindset and aren’t willing to learn or try new things. They are unwilling to adjust to modern work situations, i.e., work from home, remote work, and stick to the past and the “way we’ve always done it.”
• Employees or team members are afraid to take risks and are encouraged not to. Failure is not seen as an option and is considered a sign of weakness. There is an unwillingness to learn from past mistakes.
• Hierarchical and paternalistic decision-making structure. Employees and teams are not trusted to make decisions. Important decisions and strategic moves are developed at the top and behind closed doors.
• There needs to be more transparency. Leaders do not communicate new strategic moves, protecting themselves in their silos.
• The orgainzation lacks a single unifying purpose and direction. Longtime employees are biding their time. Coming to work is seen as a “chore.”

All leaders show up with different archetypes. Because we are all capable of exhibiting any of the twelve archetypes and often do, no one archetype is responsible for generating the most leaders. However, a strong, talented, and effective leader knows how to use their archetype to their advantage and understands how to impact culture at the organizational level.

Many would agree that an effective leader must have hope and optimism, empathy, accomplish goals, be calm and reassuring, be curious, seek consensus, take risks, innovate, be accountable, provide vision, be clear thinking, and enjoy the work.

Each behavioral description above is a trait of each of the twelve archetypes. So, the answer to which archetypes make for the best leaders? The answer is all of them.

The honest answer to the question is to understand when to use them. An effective leader knows when to be optimistic and when to be skeptical, when to exhibit empathy and when to drive towards goals, the right time to be calm, when curiosity needs to show up, how and when to gain consensus, and when a calculated risk is necessary, when to innovate and how to show accountability (and ask for it), be visionary, clear thinking and above all by happy and enjoy the work.

Are you ready to learn your archetypes and become a better leader? The first step is to watch this video to understand how Culture is an asset. Then schedule a call with me to talk about how I can help you and your organization use assessment tools and a Culture Audit to help you be a more effective leader and have a more effective organization.

Take the first step by scheduling a meeting with me, a CultureTalk-certified practitioner.