What do we see in this scenes?

In this post we have actually two videos, showing two sides of the same die. Detective Ray Velcoro is a divorced father who may lose his visitations rights, and Frank Semyon is a businessman and former mobster who hopes one day to have his own son.

In the first scene Ray is recording a message for his son after a lot of bad stuff has happened. In the second scene Frank is visiting the son of someone who has been killed. The contexts in which both are taking place are different, yet the global picture is the same. We will therefore spend more time in differentiating their styles.

Father figure

Many people say that a leader should also be a coach and mentor to his people and within the different leadership styles we can recognize the father figure.

Parents are authority figures for children and represent leadership at home. As such, they have a deep and strong impact on the way children grow and relate to authority. This is where “Transference” comes into place.

“Basically, a manager is a father figure to 20 or 25 blokes.
It’s about trying to get the best out of them and creating team spirit.”

Alan Shearer

Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, was the first person to provide some explanation of how a follower’s unconscious motivations work. Freud was puzzled to find that his patients (both male and female) – who were, in a sense, his followers — kept falling in love with him. Freud realized that his patients’ idealization of him weren’t traced to his own personal qualities and concluded that people were relating to him as if he were some important person from their past — usually a parent.

There are many types of leadership and managerial styles and we can categorize them into 3 main styles: Autocratic, Paternalistic and Democratic. Paternalist leaders are those who resemble most to parents, hence the name. Some famous and less famous CEO’s nurture this style. Whether a leader or manager focuses on this style or not, they all are often on the receiving end of intense emotions from their employees and responding to it adequately is part of their job. Leaders are also human – they have their personal share of experiences accompanying them. Their style reflects their background and this is what we are going to learn from the two short movies.

Pain is part of life and it is inexhaustible. Ray has done terrible things he has to live with and his recordings reflect his dark side. While he tries to mentor his son, teach him about life and what to expect from it, he tends to do it in a passionate and very personal way. He’s not really good with words and in other parts of the series we see that son and father have a very awkward relationship. Ray is not really a leader (though he’s adept at gathering allies), but he tries to lead his life as well as he can.

Father to be

Frank Semyon has no children yet, which doesn’t mean he can’t be a good father. Frank is a very poised person. Smart and good with words Frank is an experienced business person and a capable leader. As Ray, he also has a dark past, but unlike Ray he has a more constructive and positive approach.

We’re talking here about fathers and yet we could find the same traits in managers and leaders.

Transference is where an individual transfer his emotions or lack of emotions to a person who he deems capable as an ideal to take over this role.

A person with authority or one that were granted a leadership position often experiences the effect of transference. His followers see him as a strong figure that will bring order and security and may endow him with the same magic powers they attributed during childhood to parents or other significant figures.

This means that from one side, strong figures have to be careful with the effect of transference and manage the perceptions of their followers. On the other hand, to become a respected leader, one should invest in actions that would favor transference from others.

In a sense it requires leaders to awaken the father in them, without necessarily have a paternalist approach to running a company or leading their people.

Why People Follow the Leader: The Power of Transference
Why we see bosses as parents
Transference
Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson announces retirement: David Beckham pays tribute to ‘father figure’
A Father to His Men
PRISONERS OF LEADERSHIP

What is it all about?

Game of Thrones is an amazing television series that everyone should watch (and read the books). As the story revolves around warlords and kings it is an obvious choice for leadership related scenes.

What do we see in this scene?

As the old saying goes ” The enemy of my enemy is my friend ” and Jon Snow, who is the Commander of the Night Watch, reflected deeply on that proverb. Facing an “undeadly” wall, he decided to request help from the enemy called the Free Folk (also known as Wildlings) to fight back an unavoidable war against a common foe – the Undead.

During his many skirmishes and battles, John managed to get acquainted with Wildling Chieftains and succeeded into rallying some. Now he faces with bravado all the remaining chieftains in the hope to sway their forces to his side. This part is a short part of a 4 minutes meeting.

What do we learn from Jon and Tormund

People rally around passionate leaders with a compelling vision and purpose. They also rally around one who can protect them and guarantee their well-being. When a person fights for a cause that touches many and shows passion, conviction and confidence, he can expect to have followers gathering around him.

This of course greatly relates to the cause and the tenor in gravity and urgency. For a person to deal and come to an agreement with a nemesis one can expect a strenuous and arduous path. There are many leadership styles and both Jon and Tormund differ in many ways.

There are two part to this scene:
1. Jon explaining the situation and reaching out requesting for help
2. Tormund vouching for Jon

There isn’t much to say about the first part. Jon’s speech is quite corny and preachy, yet we will see more about it later on. What is interesting is the way Tormund vouch for him. Tormund starts by saying that Jon is prettier than both his daughters which indicates two things:

1. Tormund doesn’t feel as an underling, which is important for his own credibility
2. Many leaders use their presence rather than action, and Wildlings do not care about this. They require capable leaders to help them survive and thrive. By denigrating Jon giving him this compliment, Tormund changes the atmosphere and starts with the worst about Jon. Then he goes on by using the word but to negate everything he said before; what is indeed important is than Jon, though young, knows how to fight and to lead. Tormund ends by saying without emotions and with true conviction that they need each other.

There’s a significant difference in the their verbal communication and body language which shows us that there are differences based on age, culture and experience and the two together make a winning team.

The key learning point resides however somewhere else. Jon could have gone by himself and meet with the Free Folk. However, without Tormund or another chieftain he would have probably been killed on sight. If he would have managed to have his meeting, the Free Folk might have given him little regard, and no trust. Tormund played the determining factor in these negotiations between leaders and chiefs.

In our daily life most of us don’t have to battle the Undead (or any other enemy). Our nemesis are often employees, colleagues, or top managers from other companies. So how does this scene relates to you as a modern day leader?

The right Right Hand

A leader can’t do everything and has to surround himself with the best people possible. The first one to be recruited is often the most important as he (she) will reflect the image of the leader. By rallying someone very different (or even opposite) to the cause, one can expect to reach a larger audience and gain in credibility.

The 3 R’s method

Respect, Recognition and Relatedness are essential in conflict resolution and yet there seems to be other useful R’s. Brian Uzzi and Shannon Dunlap wrote a very interesting post about how to sway enemies to your side based on a true story. Emotions and trust are key when dealing with an enemy or someone we have a conflict with and this scene from Game of Thrones is an excellent example to explain this concept. When in a conflict, people tend to use reason to explain the situation, yet animosity between people creates an emotional barrier which has to be first nullified. Negative emotions rushes blood to the Reptilian stem rather than to the cerebral cortex; which means that people use their primary emotions instead of thinking things through.

1. Redirection

Step 1 is to redirect your rival’s negative emotions so that they are channeled away from you. In this case Jon uses first their children survival and then their common foe the Undead. Yes, they’ve all suffered in their wars, but this common foe will decimate them all. Tormund also redirected the conversation using the “prettier” introduction in his speech.

Redirecting the negative emotions on something else helps to break the emotional barrier.

2. Reciprocity

The essential principle here is to give before you ask. This again helps to break the emotional barrier further. Jon offers all the Wildling to leave the cold North and grant them access to the South where women, the elders and children can reside. This is what the Free Folk ever wanted. The meeting is actually longer than the scene above and Jon offered that before this recorded part. Tormund’s people are already in the South and therefore he can confirm it is true. In our scene, Jon states that he lost 50 of his brothers, he personally already gave a lot in the last battle with the Wildlings.

By offering shelter to the Free Folk, Jon hopes to win them to his side and have access to their warriors. It is something he can easily grant and which benefits him too.

3. Rationality

Rationality establishes the expectations. Once the emotional barrier is diminished, Jon clearly indicates he needs their help to survive and Tormund confirms they will need his help if they want to have any hope of surviving what’s coming. It’s the cold truth. The Wildlings have then to decide if their trust in Jon can help them survive the upcoming ordeal or if the Night Watch is to remain an enemy too.

The 3 R’s can be used over a conversation to resolve a conflict and also to attract new people to a cause. We talked in the previous post about leadership and preaching – in this scene Jon is also preaching, which helps him extending his vision. By combining emotions with reason, using the right structure and the help of a 3rd person of calibre anyone of us can hope to succeed in rallying people to our cause. Next would be to find out how to use it in conjunction with social media.

How to Rally Your Team Around a New Strategy
The 3 Rs Respect Recognition Relatedness essentials in conflict resolution
Make Your Enemies Your Allies

What is it all about?

The Messengers is a television series about a group of ordinary humans chosen by God to prove if humanity is worth saving. Each one of them is gifted with a supernatural ability and together they have to stop the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. While the story if far from being great, I ended up watching it hoping to find something worthwhile.

What do we see in this scene?

There are two parts to this post. In the first video, we see Joshua, one of the messengers, who has the gift of Vision preaching in front of his followers. Joshua is a second-generation televangelist preacher and recovered addict who struggles to find his place in the world. He’s an important member of his father’s church and has now the opportunity to lead the congregation.

Charismatic and energetic, Joshua starts to talk about his vision when suddenly he changes pace and abruptly ends his story losing all credibility. Joshua realizes that this is not the path he has chosen.

In this second video, a couple of episodes later, we see Joshua talking with Koa who’s another messenger. Both have their personal issues and unique gift and during this long conversation, each learns something important.

What do we learn from Joshua and Koa

I’ve often been asking myself how preaching and lecturing relate to leadership. There are many leaders and people in a leading role who love to talk and sermon others. Is preaching actually what we think it is? Could we define it as a valuable skill? Or is it something we should live to men of faith and intellectuals?

While the word preaching seems to be originating from Christianity, sermons and other related words have been used by other faiths long before. Preaching is also not limited to religious views, but it extends to moral and social world-views as well. Even sales people are preaching the qualities of their company’s products. So how about leaders? Do they preach? Should they preach? Is it any different from lecturing?

After some reading, I found out it is actually more complex than expected. There is a major difference between preaching and lecturing. Lecturing is about informing people, whereas preaching aims at transformation and therefore inspire people to change their actions. At times, both can sound like criticizing our ways; this is probably the perception most people have when a boss, teacher, parent or friend lectures them.

In this second video, Joshua says he used to lead people and inspire them, but today nobody listens to him. This is exactly what we see in the first video, but can we call this leadership?

I like very much the following sentence I found on Preaching.com (which actually sounds like a sermon):
“Leadership is not about appearance or surveys; it’s about character, vision and wise choices. Anyone can grandstand for the cameras; whipping a partisan crowd into a frenzy is a piece of cake; but only a rare breed can make the gutsy calls during the lonely hours of leadership.”

See also this Ted presentation for more about the topic.

This validates the idea that while a good sermon can shake people and stir their hearts, words are not enough to be considered as leadership.

During the second film Koa quoted Lao Tzu with:

We often tend to say that one of the best ways to make people move is by giving them ownership and making them believe it was their idea. The leader is not the one who has to manage the monkey, nor should he take credit for it’s success.

Key learning points:

1. Preaching a vision is pointless if one doesn’t believe in it.
2. Preaching and lecturing are not the same and should be used based on the expected result: inform or transform.
3. Lecturing and sermoning in the negative sense (criticizing) is not an effective leadership tool.
4. Preaching is part of a leader’s role in order to extend his vision, however preaching alone is not leading. One has to walk the talk to actually lead others.
5. Leading people is not about oneself, but about the others.

I believe that in today’s post I only scratched the surface and will continue digging into the subject. I also have a feeling that point 5, though it seems common sense, has still much wisdom to provide.

The Difference Between Preaching And Teaching
Lecturing or Preaching?
The difference between a lecture and a sermon