Leadership Metaphor Explorer Facilitator's Guide. David Horth M.

       Figure 4. Four levels of leadership.

      Each leadership level provides leverage for development. All four levels can be identified as vital in any scenario in which direction, alignment, and commitment are produced. Our research and experience suggest that attention to processes and outcomes at all four levels are necessary for developing more collaborative, interdependent leadership.

When Should Leadership Metaphor Explorer Be Used?

      Leadership Metaphor Explorer should be used with individuals or groups when they need fresh insight about their leadership and its development. Typically, that need arises in the face of complex challenges, or what Bob Johansen (2012) calls VUCA: conditions of increasing volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. Those conditions pervade contemporary life. Leadership Metaphor Explorer offers a means to achieve direction, alignment, and commitment in response to the VUCA world, no matter where you are. You can use Leadership Metaphor Explorer on the bus, at the dinner table, in a class, or in a team meeting. It’s portable enough for impromptu meetings. It supports great conversations in a serious and formal atmosphere, and it supports great conversations when humor and levity are welcome.

      Leadership Metaphor Explorer is a wonderful tool that lends itself to a wide range of leadership, cultural, and community-building explorations at an individual or group level, and those explorations are a valuable reflection and discussion tool for leadership coaches.

      —Jim Myracle, cofounder and partner, TMT Associates, Inc.

Why Should Leadership Metaphor Explorer Be Used?

      Leadership Metaphor Explorer helps you see your present leadership approach more clearly, and it helps you imagine the leadership approach needed in the future. Related benefits include the following:

      • Creates shared understanding about the challenges at hand

      • Creates fresh, memorable metaphors and stories about a complex challenge that engage people in finding solutions

      • Builds safety for self-disclosure and vulnerability

      • Improves interpersonal understanding and trust

      • Promotes self-reflection

      • Elicits new questions and alternatives

      • Helps people envision a better future

      • Helps people see their environment and their organization with fresh eyes

      • Legitimizes intuition and emotion

      • Generates alternative futures for wiser planning

      • Encourages fun, playful, yet serious dialogue

      • Taps into personal experiences and passions

      • Makes abstract conversations tangible

      • Frames and illustrates thoughts so they can be shared

      • Surfaces individual and group assumptions

      • Spans boundaries, contexts, and cultures

      • Helps people move from ineffective positions

      • Produces tangible images that can be reused in paper and digital forms

Who Can Conduct a Leadership Metaphor Explorer Session?

      Most people can facilitate a basic Leadership Metaphor Explorer session. In most cases, it’s sufficient to follow the instructions in this guide and to provide some basic directions to the participants. The facilitator’s job is simple and unobtrusive: to support a good conversation among the group members. That job usually requires only a beginner’s level of facilitation skill. Beyond this, the facilitator needs only the skills that match the goals of any specific Leadership Metaphor Explorer session. For example, to conduct strategic planning, the group needs a facilitator with some experience in strategic planning. For sessions that may surface conflict, a facilitator should be able to handle tough, emotional situations. Experienced hands at organizational change are needed when Leadership Metaphor Explorer is used in a long-term transformation initiative.