Images of Leadership Development From the Inside Out

The Problem With the codification of leadership into frameworks, models, and theories that can be taught, leadership, an art that is essentially subjective, symbolic, and context-specific, is “translated into” an objective, pragmatic, and universal domain. Development can be elusive when approached from this universal perspective if external models distract leaders from exploring their own views and practices of leadership. The Solution This article explores the subjective and symbolic reality of those in leadership roles to discover what leaders can learn about their leadership and its development from awareness of their own mental models. These models are illuminated by an exploration of leaders’ naturally occurring metaphors and implicit leadership theories (ILTs) using clean language to acknowledge experience exactly as described while minimizing external influence or interpretation. The Stakeholders Leadership development practitioners can benefit from the innovative personalized approach to surfacing and exploring leaders’ own metaphors facilitated by clean language, offered in this article. Examples are given of the range of leadership metaphors surfaced with this method. Researchers can appreciate a novel approach to qualitative research interviewing and identify future research in surfacing ILTs through naturally occurring metaphor facilitated by clean language.