Rethinking LeadershipKevin Morrell · companion site

Position three

Read the story

For employees, board members, investors, advisers and citizens: interrogating a leadership or strategy narrative rather than simply receiving it.

This is the position most books about leadership neglect, and the one nearly everyone occupies. The book treats the audience as active co-creators of a narrative rather than passive followers.

It is also the position with the most institutional weight behind it, since a board reads a story the executive team is constructing.

From Chapter Seven

The third is the position that most books of this kind neglect: that of the person being told the story, whether employee, board member, investor, advisor, or anyone who needs to hear or read an organisational narrative critically and from a sceptical distance.

Part Three: Interpreting the Story

Six sections, in the chapter's order:

  1. Differentiate between formal and informal narratives
  2. Strong plots, and how to recognise them
  3. What is being assumed or unsaid
  4. Digging deeper with archaeology
  5. Narrative resistance as narrative critique
  6. Interpreting the narrative from the position of the board

Work with it

Photograph of Barbara Czarniawska, in profile, wearing glasses and a leather jacket.
Barbara Czarniawska, whose work on strong plots — narrative templates so embedded in a culture that they function as anchors to reality rather than as choices — underpins this position. Photograph via Wikimedia Commons.

Start here: Critical Narrative Review · Enthymeme Analyser

Lenses: Naming · Figure-Ground · Method

Cases: The Darzi Review · Evidence-based management

Status: section headings are the chapter's own · framing is site-written · author review required