Story-Making Leadership: A Guide

Story-Making Leadership: A Guide Nick Isbister and Jude Elliman

Story­Making Leadership

Nick Isbister & Jude Elliman www.listeningpartnership.com

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Copyright Š Nick Isbister and Jude Elliman 2020 Published by

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To get in touch with Nick Isbister or Jude Elliman email: info@listeningpartnership.com All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 978-1-912797-04-2 Typeset in Gill Sans Printed and bound in the UK Cover photograph: by philippe-d- from unspalsh.com Colour diagrams by Teresa Heaven, Heaven Virtual Resource Services www.heavenvirtualresourceservice.co.uk Typeset by WORDS BY DESIGN www.wordsbydesign.co.uk

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Introduction to this Guide This brief guide is a way for you to get a handle on how to be a leader in these times. A leader who knows how to keep steady and be confident in these times. One who can navigate the uncertainties, the ambiguities, the tensions and the paradoxes of a complex world. One who provides clarity and energy and hope to those around them.

The guide came into being in a set of crucibles – crucibles of experience. We make our living as executive coaches. In this role we serve our clients by being there for them in their many leadership responsibilities. We are always ‘in their corner’ as they face the near­ overwhelming challenges they have. We are often with them in the maelstrom of their business challenges. We are frequently their ‘first­responders’, their ‘pressure­valves’, their confidants at the midnight­hour, their ‘sounding­boards’, and their ‘trusted advisors’ at points of serious disruption and discontinuity.

can see the results of all their endeavours. It is our privilege to be with them in all circumstances – when it’s tough going and when in moments of fruition.

Our hope is that our reflections, our meta­ perspectives, our learning from all of these various leaders­in­situ, will prove to be useful to you as you step up in your particular circumstances.

Our thinking in this guide is distilled from our longer book Stories in the Making: Leadership and Narrative. Our first book, The Story So Far: Introduction to Transformational Narrative Coaching started us on this journey of seeing how stories work in people’s lives.

As leaders, you have stories to create, stories to tell, actions to take, and outcomes to secure.

These will come about because you became the story and made something happen. The world, more than ever, needs responsible, values­ driven, trust­engendering leaders who can re­imagine new possibilities, engage others in Of course we are also there for them in their making those new possibilities come to life and moments of success, at those points of time build new futures. Those new stories are when all the hard hours pay off, when they can waiting to happen... take a few brief moments to celebrate and they

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Introduction: Our Current Context Unprecedented is a much­overused word at this point in time. Momentous, world­shaping, world­re­shaping. Disrupting and disruptive, the plate­tectonics of our lives have been shaken and are shaking. Huge changes are happening and the shockwaves are reverberating around the world. 2020, the year when all the visible and invisible forces of radical ferment came together and firstly stopped the world in its tracks and then rebooted it differently.

Change was already in the air. Tarana Burke, dubbed one of the ‘silence breakers’ by Time Magazine, had started something big in 2006 that took off in 2017 when #MeToo hit the headlines – women wanted a better world. A system that abused and exploited and then ignored and silenced and curtailed the voices of half the population of the world had to change.

In evolutionary terms, viruses are hugely versatile life­forms for their opportunistic capacity to traverse the species barrier and jump from species to species. And in Wuhan, one did. It wasn’t the first, nor will it be the last.

COVID­19 surfaced itself and then spread in the blink of an eye around the world, ravaging country after country. No one was immune from its effects – biologically, socially, politically, economically, existentially. A virus that constricted breathing got us.

In May 2020, an African American, George Floyd was arrested in the City of Minneapolis for allegedly using counterfeit money, and a white police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes, and he died pleading, “I can’t breathe”.

This was by no means unprecedented. The incident has provoked justified outrage and Climate­change was literally ‘in the air’. COP­26, protest around the world. planned for Glasgow in 2020 had focused many We live in an interconnected world. Our world on the real, tangible deliverables that COP­21 in is characterised by immediacy and constancy of Paris had promised – the talking had to stop. demands – the attention economy on steroids Greta Thunberg castigated the UN and Zero­ – and the interconnectedness of everyone and Carbon became the goal. The time for everything, the butterfly effect made ever­ pretending it would be alright was over – either present and ubiquitous. we changed our thinking and our behaviour or Our world is so rich in many ways, still full of we would all bake to death. such diverse potential, such a plenitude of When in December 2019 an invisible pathogen started causing the people of Wuhan in China to start getting ill, the world started to change.

possibilities, but still impoverished and impoverishing many. A world both never­more connected and never­more divided, never­more 5|

homogenised and yet never­more polarised, with never­more opportunities and yet never­ more stultification of the options of many.

Complex, chaotic, dynamic and stagnating, the backdrop to where leadership happens, where leaders lead, where leaders have to lead.

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Reality is different from what it was. This is important to acknowledge, for our understanding of leadership starts with the idea that leadership is an act, an act of ‘confronting reality’.

Narrating Leadership: Enriching the Picture If we could freeze­frame what leaders do, slow it down, and capture the essence of what is going on as leaders lead (although often they are in fact doing it in an instant), we would find a process, a process that has a flow to it. When you step in and start being the leader you need to be, this process is almost instinctive. It is a process that has you moving into it without skipping a beat, a process that seems natural, seems so obvious that the very act of slowing it down might seem counter­intuitive, even disrespectful.

Slowing it down, setting it out as a series of steps might make it seem mechanical – it’s

never that, it never can be seen as something you do to people. It’s more subtle than that.

Less a science, more an art. Certainly not as easy as a four­step process, or a minute­long formula to follow. not just a recipe to run by rote. It’s an ongoing dynamic that happens in the moment in a specific context with people and between people. Sure, there is a logic, there is a structure and a sequence, but there is a piece of chemistry, you might even call it alchemy, that happens as neurons fire, and brain pathways get kindled and built.

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The Why of Leadership: Setting the Scene Let’s set the scene for you about this way of thinking about leadership.

Of course, our reality includes our stakeholders.

We are always part of wider human systems, There are a couple of things of importance to communities, constituencies, beneficiaries, note in this representation of what leadership people with an interest in what we are doing.

People are all around us – our customers, our is: clients, our people, our shareholders, our ex­ 1. The first is the all­pervasive presence of employees, the generations to come, our reality. Leadership happens in a setting, in regulators, our government, the wider a context, at a time and in a moment – for institutions we are part of, and even our now we are just calling that ‘reality’. ancestors. So many entities with different 2. The second is the way in which a leader’s interests, all of whom want something from us capabilities, what are often referred to as and our enterprise, all of whom are looking on leadership competencies, and what many waiting for your leadership. Waiting to see how now call ‘superpowers’, are all in service you deal with reality. to the overarching purpose and the things It is our role, as leaders, to address these that matter (called in shorthand here, stakeholders, identify their interests, prioritise values). Leaders lead in a setting to deliver their demands and meet any legitimate needs something – the purpose they are called they have as best we can. Our role as leaders is to serve. to weave people together, to listen to them and Let’s just note what we are saying about ‘reality’. You will note that the all­pervading cloud is something no­one is exempt from, no­ one can escape from – it is the reality of our physical, social, emotional, spiritual, and commercial existence, our local setting and our global setting. We are here, now. This is where we are. This is our reality. And, this immediate and proximate circumstance is always part of a bigger, wider ocean of swirling currents and a grander ecosystem.

hear their concerns, to build deep trust with them, to speak to each of those stakeholders to reassure them, clarify and confirm any obligations we have to them, to rekindle hope for them, and to deliver certain distinctive outcomes to each of them.

We said earlier let’s just call it ‘reality’, but reality is multi­dimensional. Or, perhaps it is better to say all of us function, all of us exercise our leadership in the presence of what we might call multiple realities.

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Reality is immediate, pressing, intermediate, long­term, distant and global. Our ‘reality’ is in actuality a set of ‘multiple­realities’, often competing, often divergent, often disparate, often clashing, rarely obvious, rarely straightforward, rarely all beautifully aligned.

And the leader’s task, or the leadership group’s task, is to listen… and listen… and listen… and then decide, and then choose, and then determine the priorities, and then mobilise those involved to serve their constituencies and deliver to them.

diverse tensions. Leaders are those who, knowing reality and knowing the constraints, still see beyond these and see new possibilities beyond what is evident in the current reality.

Leaders lead us out of our current reality into another reality, and so the process begins again.

To recap, for us, leaders function encompassed by reality; better yet, they swim in a sea of ‘multiple­realities’, not least in a vast cloud of demanding and pressing stakeholders. They juggle demands, they weigh competing priorities, they decide, they choose, they We all live in the real world, we all have optimise all these and they energise and constraints on us (resource constraints – time, mobilise those in their immediate care to deliver talent, money) that situate us, that hold us the purpose of their being there – the why of where we are. Leaders navigate all of those their leadership. And this is how they do it.

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Shaping and Confronting Reality

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1. Shaping and Confronting Reality

Reality is an all­encompassing cloud, both creating the possibilities for us and constraining our degrees of freedom. There are lots of ways of seeing this: •

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Reality is perceived and each of us sees the world around us differently. We are always dealing with multiple­realities – multiple­ realities that sometimes shout at a leader, and Reality is a dense fog enveloping us, sometimes only whisper and perhaps stay muffling our freedom, obscuring our hidden under the surface. sight, blunting our ability to see things Multi­faceted, multi­dimensional, multi­voiced clearly. with multiple players and multiple interests – Reality is a tight iron­band holding us and each of those multiple­realities is awash fast, constricting what we might want to with both momentary and deeper emotions.

They will be familiar and unfamiliar, with some do or can do. facets that are congruent and others that are Reality is a myriad set of voices, strident discordant. and softer, harmonious and discordant, loud and soft, all demanding our How we see reality is heavily influenced by our past experience – the messy, mixed blend of attention and focus. success and failure we each carry with us into Reality is the water we swim in – the very any new setting. medium that holds us up and sustains all Ambiguity, uncertainty, paradox and overlap – our activity. leadership is rarely straight­forward and simple.

Reality is a set of uncaring, unfeeling There is no rule that says everything needs to forces operating as an invisible hand on us. line up and harmonise. To use the motto Reality is a rich plenitude of opportunities adapted from the Search and Rescue Park Rangers of Mount Rainier, ‘It is what it is, it is in and openings for us. front of us and we have to deal with it’. In other Reality is the sum total of our lived words, leaders have to deal with their perceived experience too, the history of triumph and reality – whatever it is at that time. failure we each bring with us to our current The first task of a leader, or a leadership group, context and roles. is to confront the reality they find.

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Knowing Their Purpose and What Matters Most

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2. Knowing Their Purpose and What Matters Most

Leaders need to know their purpose – they need to know why they are here, why they are willing to step into the arena to engage in ‘leadership’.

from a set of personal narratives within and around them about how the world could, should or ought to be. A leader’s personal values may be very congruent with those of A leader’s purpose might be defined for them by their organisation, or they may differ in some virtue of their role. They are the team leader of significant way – in both instances, knowing the the marketing team, or they are the CFO. alignment and/or misalignment is key.

Leadership comes with the office. Other Typically, values are stable over time, although circumstances may not be as formal as that. they can and do change during different stages Leadership happens when an individual or group, of a person’s life, or at different phases of a knowing their purpose and values, steps into a team or organisation’s life. Deeply held values situation to lead. But note those important sets will therefore be infused with emotional of three words ‘knowing their purpose’ and attachment – we feel them. We certainly feel ‘knowing their values’. Leaders are those who them when they are ignored and ridden rough­ ‘know their purpose’ and who ‘know their values’. shod over. Leaders understand how their values Values are the deeply held commitments work and regulate their responses to serve the people feel and make to certain ideals, qualities bigger purpose. or concepts. They are intangibles with big Leaders know their ‘why’, and they know what tangible consequences. They are abstract ideas. is most important, what matters most – the Each value will be underpinned by a cluster of values they want to lead by and live by. beliefs, and these beliefs will have emerged

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Sense­Making

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3. Sense­Making

Everyone sense­makes – if we didn’t, we couldn’t function in any meaningful way in any world we were in. We all process the world and make sense of it, and in the process we all generalise and distort what we see and delete what we don’t like. No­one has the whole picture – that’s why leaders always need the input and the collaboration of others.

them. Leaders make decisions. Leaders gather the widest range of data in order to make decisions.

Sense­making is the foundation for decision­ making – leaders, individually and as groups, step into situations, make themselves present and confront the reality of what they find. They quickly and thoroughly make sense of what they find. Leaders spot the signal through the noise. Leaders listen and notice, they notice the impending risks and they work to ameliorate

‘doing cycle’ – leaders get things done. They also pay attention to what is happening to them internally. They notice what they are feeling, intuiting, imagining in every situation. This is what we call the ‘being cycle’. Authentic leadership is built on this double awareness – what I’m sensing in my environment and what I’m picking up from my inner readings.

Leaders are super­sense­makers – leaders are open: they observe, notice, listen and gather data (hard and soft) about the world of their organisation and its wider setting. Often that attention is directed at problems facing the Leaders make themselves present – they organisation, or problems that it might face. So, observe, notice, listen, taste, touch, feel, pick up like researchers finding out more, or journalists the mood and take what they encounter afresh, getting to the heart of the story, or engineers attempting to assimilate it into their existing gathering information about some technical ‘mental and emotional representation’ of the problem, sense­making starts with curiosity. It world. That’s what everyone does as they starts when leaders stop and monitor their own navigate the constant bombardment of reactions and get curious and ask awkward stimulation, and the never­ending stream of questions. And sense­making drives decision­ data, emotions, signs and symbols that assault making. their senses. For the most part, everyone works Authentic leaders always sense­make in a out what is happening in the ‘here and now’ double way – externally to them – what is well. happening out there. This is what we call the

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Connection­Making

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4. Connection­Making

Leaders ‘connection­make’ – leaders join things up and they join­up with those involved. They join things up conceptually, and practically because they want things to happen, and they join people up. Leaders are weavers.

context, and understand the broader nexus of who else is involved – they both connect things up and connect up with the people involved.

They commit to those who will work with them and who will enact the actions needed to fulfil Weavers blend and synthesise – leaders their purpose and resolve the situation. purposefully step into situations and make Leaders are intentional at building meaningful sense of what they encounter. They start seeing relationships with those they are working with. the invisible threads that pervade the reality Leaders invest emotionally in those around they find. They join­the­dots. Some of those them to foster trust. This investment in the dots are intangible: How does what I’m picking people involved, this willingness to build up link to our business model? How does what relationships with the widest possible group of we are doing here link to our commitment to the key stakeholders, is a distinguishing feature enhancing our customers’ experience? And of leadership in our complex, inter­connected, some are very tangible: What’s our timeframe? global world. Leaders are looking to use their Where are our resources? What are the energy, in combination with others to make consequences of our immediate actions? things happen. Leadership is about creating Nothing is isolated, everything connects – all shared endeavour. Leaders know how to flex has a wider context. Leaders make sense of their message and their style to suit those they what is happening in the here and now and are trying to engage. At a deeper level, weaving anticipate and start seeing consequences. people together is the neurological bond of Leaders connect things over time and in time. affiliation and belonging. Trust happens through Leaders are natural systems­thinkers, inveterate the neurobiology of hormone­release and brain integrators, natural ‘linkers’ – they do the joined­ pathway creation. up thinking needed to set the story in its wider

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Story­Making

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5. Story­Making

Story­making is the essence of leadership – whether through observation, instinct, or analysis and cold logic, what they encounter as they sense­make becomes the basis of a perspective, an interpretation of the ‘world’ they see. This is the crucial step, this is the step upon which everything else is built – leaders create the story.

Leaders craft narratives that make real sense of the situation and develop strategies that define success. This key step will sometimes have an ‘aha’ component. The perspective they create helps them to see patterns and themes that were obscured by the intensity of the immediate situation, although it does not have to. Insightful and unifying though the story will We call this ‘story­making’ – there is no more be, stories have a congruence with both the defining characteristic of leadership – individual purpose and the values of the setting, as well as and collective – than their capacity to step out a coherence brought by the very act of turning of the whirlwind of what’s going on. When they isolated incidents into a narrative. It will not be step out of the immediacy of everything that is monolithic and set in stone. happening and create perspective, they move Leadership stories always evolve, always into a leadership state. When they step out of remain provisional: they are open to new data, the dance and get on the balcony (to use Ron always open to feedback, and are capable of Heifetz’ phrase), they create sufficient distance being refreshed by new evidence – otherwise from the overwhelming detail to form the story. the leader is prone to the potential hubris of Being stuck in the detail keeps the focus on ‘holding on’ to an ‘old’ and ‘outdated’ story. what is immediate and what is just in front of Leadership involves creating stories that give those involved, leadership happens when an life, and releasing and amending any or all that individual, or a small group see past what is truncate and limit life. Leaders are continually there and obvious and begins to craft and shape monitoring reality, continually actively sense­ a narrative that puts what is present into a making, continually refining the story, bigger picture, a longer timeframe, and wider continually reading the signs. perspective. This sort of leadership involves When leaders shape the story and get it right, someone, or some group collectively: people around them immediately relax and imagining, envisaging, structuring, strategizing settle and have a way to orientate themselves and emplotting possibilities. to the future.

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Story­Telling

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6. Story­Telling

Story­making precedes story­telling – once a leader, or a group frames the story, steps out of the dizzying, demanding pressure of the immediacy of the current reality (stepping off the dancefloor and stepping onto the balcony), the leader (or the whole group) becomes an advocate for the story.

Leaders share new narratives that often disrupt the seemingly fixed nature of existing reality to usher in new possibilities, change the boundaries and to allow new, different realities to emerge.

Leadership is sharing compelling stories – helping others to make the story their own.

Leaders connect by drawing people into their place in the story. Leaders prepare others for action by connecting their actions to the purpose and to the plot of the story.

leadership is dialogical – leaders engage people in meaningful conversations.

Leaders relate to others by becoming ‘master’ story­tellers – translators of the ‘vision’ they Leadership makes the story real for others by saw when they created the story. They become living it. There is no more compelling way to tell conversation starters, conversation conveyors, the story than by living it – walking it trumps as they draw people into the larger story they telling it every time. But, actions need see and confirm their place in that new reality. interpreting, and so leadership is also about The conversational aspect of leadership is finding the words and images and emotions that important – Leaders create and sustain resonate with the various audiences to be conversations with others. Command and reached. Leadership is weaving these together as control used to be the most common story a living dynamic to involve, inspire and invigorate available, and whilst we know there are still others, and to move them to clear actions. some settings where this is necessary, we know

In telling the story, leaders enthral those who hear, engage those who need to be involved and empower others to act.

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Action­Making

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7. Action­Making

Leadership is getting things done – when leaders tell compelling stories – stories that clearly reflect the reality everyone experiences and stories that embody and encompass the things all hold dear – the possibility of committed and concerted action comes naturally. It feels like the energy of a jazz­ quintet; or the ease with which a perfectly honed rowing eight glides through the water; or the elegance and grace of the swans in a ballet; or the mesmerising magic of those great sports teams moving at pace and walking rings around their opponents.

Making things happen – those caught up in hearing the story and in seeing its compelling rationale and believing in its emotional truth begin to start making action happen.

Storytelling moves the people involved to be agents, active participants, and action­makers.

Leadership is stepping into situations in order to do whatever it takes to create the conditions for committed, connected, coherent and

concerted action – stories glue teams together and specify the grounds for action. Action­ making is the practical outworking of the story.

Storytelling connects people to an orientation to action – leaders connect people in order to do whatever it takes to mobilise people to ensure that the possibilities become realised and secure results for that team or organisation.

Action causes the story to evolve – actions start happening and two important feedback loops happen. Firstly, the action itself becomes iterative. Are we making progress? Are we being effective? When we act reality changes and our actions generate new data. The ‘world’ shifts a little and astute leaders register how that impacts the evolving story. Secondly, when action occurs boundaries change. Action creates new realities. Action takes the team or the organisation out of the constraint of reality (as was) and creates new realities that need to be faced.

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Response­Reading

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8. Response­Reading

Response­reading – actions start happening.

Actions change reality. The only way ‘out of’ current reality is to create new realities. New realities need to be read.

Action creates new realities – those new realities need to be read, need to be understood, all need to be fed back into what happens next. Leaders seek out feedback to Boundaries are changing – when leaders make make sense of where they are now – we call this things happen, the boundaries of ‘reality’ ‘response­reading’. change. Action always takes place ‘on the edge’ Often our first actions are hesitant, tentative – there is often an element of risk involved, as we feel our way forward. Often the best often a step into something unknown. But at strategy is to experiment, to try things out, to this point the story creates the path, the story commit and to hold something in reserve. builds the scaffolding, the story draws people Experiments may or may not work and our role forward in faith with confidence, the story holds as leaders is to stay open, see failure as the hope. feedback, listen and learn and adjust.

On the edge emotions are heightened – the emotional story of the group, the team or the whole organisation, is rarely straightforward.

Anxiety, fear and anger mix with release, hope and agency in a volatile cocktail. Leadership reads this, registers it, pays attention to it – emotions are just as much ‘data’ as numbers in this space.

Of course, ‘response­reading’ is just another way of saying that the loop continues – leaders return to the art of sense­making again. What does this mean? How does the feedback we are getting alter our story? What are we learning from what we have done? What new data does this give us? What does this new reality tell us?

How should we make sense of what we now find? What are we feeling now? If we listen harder what aren’t we hearing?

And so the cycle continues…

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Working a ‘Doing­Cycle’ and a ‘Being­Cycle’

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9. Working a ‘Doing­Cycle’ and a ‘Being­Cycle’

Leadership is an art not a science – in turning leadership into a series of repeating steps we are in danger of simplifying leadership and reducing it to a series of (mechanical) actions – first you do this, then you do that, then you do something else.

They stand alone at times, yet they never walk alone – they live their values in their behaviours and those with them know that, when push­ comes­to­shove, they have their backs and they will be there for them. The best leaders know what their limitations are and know when to ask for help.

Leaders make things happen – there is always an action­focus to leadership. The essence of leadership is that through it something happens and things get done. The result of leadership is delivery – the ‘why’ happens. Leadership has a purpose pervading it, and through it that purpose gets enacted and made real. We think of this as what we call ‘the doing cycle’.

Leaders embody and enact what matters to that group and/or the context – we call this ‘the being cycle’ – a pattern of reflective activities that mirror ‘the doing cycle’ and keep the would­ be leader focused, centred and grounded.

Authentic leaders, those most comfortable in their own shoes and at ease with who they are, don’t just ‘do leadership’, they ‘live leadership’ – they step into the narrative, own it, live the story with passion, commitment and determination.

Leaders who live their values are comfortable that they have vulnerabilities and they know that those vulnerabilities need to be handled with compassion and require an openness to the ideas and perspectives of others.

Leaders who are ‘in tune’ with themselves know they are not perfect, know they have blind spots, know their strengths and their Leaders get things done and they are self­ limitations. They also know they hold and carry reflexive – the ‘doing cycle’ is only half the story, their own personal histories of success and because leaders who are leading well are also failure. And yet they know too that there is a very self­aware, self­reflexive and open to the place beyond failure that their courage and their ways in which their own limitations, blind spots resiliency can take them to. Such leaders get up and limiting­beliefs impact their ability to be again and keep going, strong in the knowledge leaders. Leaders do work ‘the doing cycle’, yes, that they are resourceful and that their inner and internally they repeatedly monitor what is strength will sustain them in their mission. going on inside to ensure a deep congruence Leaders who live ‘the being cycle’ know their with their values and with what really matters. strengths and they know their limitations.

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Delivering Three Narrative Arcs

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10. Delivering Three Narrative Arcs

Leaders make things happen and leaders are constantly monitoring their own reactions – leadership always involves two cycles – a ‘doing­ cycle’ and a ‘being cycle’ – intertwining – inside­outside, outside­inside sustaining movement. Weaving information, data, intuitions, insights and foresights together to create clarity for others.

higher purposes – economic, yes, of course, organisational, yes, but often philosophical, social, environmental, humanitarian even spiritual. Leaders need to connect where they are and who they are with, and what is at stake in the situation and what they should stand on (what matters most to them) to still bigger goals and aspirations. When they do then they lay the Authentic leaders don’t just tell, they live the foundations for and create the groundwork for story – the story then takes shape and lives in all co­creating better societies. the people involved, and all feel part of something Leadership can’t just be about ‘getting the job bigger than them, all feel a congruence between done’, it has to be about connecting to a more the collective story and their personal story. Story transcendent purpose and more ‘global creates collective belonging. concerns’ – all leaders need to embrace the But leadership is also often about a deeper Kairos of our times and factor­in to their story, a wider context – the ‘bigger story’. This thinking and being their wider responsibilities. bigger story always involves higher purposes.

The bigger story is always a story of what really matters, to each and every person involved, to the team and/or the organisation, and to the wider setting in which each of these are situated – our society, our world and to generations past and generations to come. The bigger story of the leadership task, and the purpose to be accomplished and the values to be enacted will usually involve something we can only describe as transcendent. Transcendent perspectives have a moral dimension – this activity furthers

In our interconnected, intertwined world, our leadership has to be mindful of the big issues of the day – climate change, sustainability, equality, diversity, inclusion, human dignity, social justice and injustice, society and the future of the human race. These bigger issues frame the smaller ones. When leaders are mindful of these concerns – this is responsible leadership – they can start incorporating these transcendent concerns into the way they ‘do business’ and our world will become a better place because of it.

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11. Always Agile, Dynamic and Flexible, Rarely Linear Leadership is never neat and tidy – leaders – individually and as leadership teams – get confronted with what they encounter. They are frequently pitched in at some random point on what we have described as a neat cycle. That’s the beauty of this way of thinking about leadership – it does not matter where you enter it, what matters is how you work it.

start to respond, they need to be aware that a wise response will always incorporate great sense­making, masterful blending of emotions and details, insightful joined­up meta­thinking, empathic relationship­building, powerful story­ making, compelling communication and clear actions going forward.

Story­making leadership happens in an instant in the moment – leaders can enter the cycle anywhere. Situations will always demand something of the leader – to do something, reassure people, decide, tell us etc. But as they

challenges each nation singly, and every nation collectively is facing. The world is looking for leaders who can find and then enact new more generative stories.

Leadership is not about following a recipe – Leadership often starts in ways that appear leaders notice, leaders observe, leaders listen haphazard, even messy – people get pitched in, and they step onto the balcony, and they and they find what they find. Leadership starts formulate compelling stories and make things in how they respond, and as they respond, so happen in an apt, timely way as the they need to be mindful of what other ‘bases’ circumstances and their mandate require. they might need to touch. To many leaders At this point in history, after the shock of a some of what we are saying here is just obvious, global pandemic and its dire economic this is what they know because they have done consequences, and in the face of an it a thousand times already in their life. For environmental challenge of such vast scale and others, knowing that there are some simple impact the world needs leaders who can steps will help. assume responsibility, embrace the common

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The Isbister Press Story-Making Leadership: A Guide is the second book we have published as The Isbister Press. As we suggested when we published The Story So Far our intention is to publish books about business that reflect our interests and concerns – narrative, leadership, coaching, organisational life.

We founded The Isbister Press in 2018 and the name has a story behind it. Here’s the backstory...

In 1973 when Nick Isbister went up to Cambridge, he arrived in a car, driven by his parents. His first room in college was at the top of four flights of stairs in Tree Court. His room was actually the room from which intrepid (aka foolish) students would jump when traversing the famous Senate House Leap.

Having trundled up and down the stairs a fair few times, the car disgorged its contents and his parents promptly left. With the room stacked full of boxes – books, papers etc., he went out into Trinity Street and across the road from his room was one of the many branches of Heffers, then the place to purchase books. He celebrated arriving in Cambridge by purchasing for himself Karl Popper’s The Logic of Scientific Discovery. He then wandered round the centre of Cambridge discovering its various nooks and crannies, past the entrance to the old Cavendish Labs where Ernest Rutherford had begun the work that led to the splitting of the atom, and past the pub where Watson and Crick drank

and determined the structure of DNA. After a while he discovered David’s Secondhand Bookshop in St. Edward’s Passage, there since 1896. It was to be a place he spent many hours browsing in. To his great delight and utter surprise there he found a book (a biography of John Bunyan) that had been produced by a publisher called William Isbister in 1896 – actually the same name as his own father. Here was an obscure nineteenth century publisher called ‘Isbister’. That was intriguing. Nick went in search of more books published by the Press and discovered Dante’s Divine Comedy, travel books, British India Committee pamphlets, theology books, commentaries on poets – a curious mix of subjects and topics.

This set him off on a lifetime quest for some understanding of where this company had come from and where it went. There were various incarnations, including William Isbister; Daldy, Isbister & Co; and Isbister & Co Ltd. Clearly, it started in the late nineteenth century, blossomed briefly around the turn of the twentieth century, and then was merged into another publisher and had disappeared by the early 1920s. The Isbister Press honours that heritage, and brings new life to the tradition in the Listening Partnership.

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Nick Isbister and Jude Elliman are Executive Coaches and Organisational Development Consultants. They have been in business together for over twenty­five years. They run an executive coaching consultancy called Listening Partnership Ltd. The bulk of their work is coaching business leaders. They have coached leaders in many circumstances from all sectors, on most continents.

They are also the creators of an innovative coaching process they call Transformational Narrative Coaching. This process is described in their book The Story so Far: Introduction to Transformational Narrative Coaching. Nick and Jude train experienced coaches how to use narratives to help people navigate significant transitions and master their roles and functions in organisations.

Story­making Leadership: A Guide is a brief introduction to their understanding of how leaders can work with narrative in their roles. This is covered in their next book, Stories in the Making: Leadership and Narrative which will be published in 2021.

With Story­Making Leadership, Jude and Nick bring decades of know­how to bear in a practical and insightful guide to leadership. By framing a novel and dynamic roadmap, the guide is a must for anyone who has the courage to lead in today’s world. A brilliant and meaningful way to fully appreciate how data, stories and people coalesce into a leaders way of being.'

Barry McNeill, CEO Sportsology The world is crying out for leadership now. Africa is desperately crying for servant leaders who have integrity and can lead with both vision, compassion and Ubuntu.

This is a great way to rekindle the conversation about leadership!

Dr Carmen Nibigira, Workplace Learning ­ Tourism Expert, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusam & Board Member of the Akilah Institute for Women We live in complex times. Times when we need leaders who can navigate the ambiguities and the opportunities, the paradoxes and the possibilities in our current context. We often get to see great leadership in our sporting heroes. Great leadership happens both on the field and behind the scenes. Nick and Jude's short guide, Story­making Leadership sets out some of the core ingredients for what great leadership should and could be all about. Read it and drink in its clarity, its wisdom, its practicality and learn how to make great stories happen.

John Murtough, Head of Development, Manchester United

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