Fairy tales leadership

It is difficult to imagine fairy tales and leadership in the same sentence. At the life stage when we usually enjoy fairy tales, we are unlikely to have known what leadership means, let alone know how to spell L-E-A-D-E-R-S-H-I-P, unless obviously your parents started coaching you to be a CEO of a Fortune 500 company or a founder of an Unicorn while you were still in womb. Even when we reach late childhood / early teens, when (hopefully) we stop believing in fairy tales, leadership is still an alien concept. Life is mostly about friends, peer group, influencers and celebrity icons. It is only when we start working as employees or begin voting in elections that the concept of leadership starts taking shape. However, we don’t always connect the dots between leadership and fairy tales.

Come to think of it, the corporate world and also politics, are full of Pinocchios who use their leadership position to whitewash lies without bothering about their ever increasing noses (~ lies). Corporate world and especially the start-up ecosystem are also full of Peter Pan leaders who refuse to grow up beyond their boyish / girlish charm to be in tune with changing and more mature reality.

We also come across Goldilocks leaders. A Goldilocks leader will interfere in someone else’s work (just the way our fairy tale Goldilocks enters the house owned by a family of 3 bears, without an invitation), criticise it (Our fairy tales Goldilocks rated bears’ possessions when not needed- this porridge is too hot, this bed is too soft, this chair is very uncomfortable) and then leave a trail of destruction (Goldilocks ate the porridge, sat in the chair, slept in the bed and then scooted from the bears’ house).

I would look at the Beanstalk Jack as a visionary leader who has the vision and guts to trade his family cows for a handful of magic beans, and sow them to grow a towering beanstalk. He then climbs it to enter the castle of an unfriendly giant (competitor? An unfriendly board?) and to bring home goodies to make his ‘corporate’ family happy.

You come across many Pied Piper leaders whose charm and charisma leads their organisation to a path of prosperity or disaster while everyone is mesmerised by their magical flute.?

Corporate literature is full of leadership models and wisdom. Hope you liked my addition of few leadership styles based on fairy tales.

Childhood fairy tales usually end with a moral. We forget these morals somewhere along the way as we grow up. At times, the best way to progress is to regress – take a step back to what we enjoyed as children and find new morals and new joys from these in today’s context. Even if you don’t learn something new, it may just bring back some fun memories from your childhood which may put a smile back on your face.

Something to think about….