Everyone is a leader. Maybe you weren’t ever class president, captain of the football team, or editor-in-chief of your school newspaper. Maybe you’re not a CEO or a manager, but to be a leader is to have influence and we all have influence over someone. You have the ability to influence others for good or bad when leading people towards a decision or common goal, and there are four different ways to do it. A leadership course taught me about the four styles: Tells, Sells, Consults, and Joins.
Its funny how after completing any course, you begin to notice all of the practical applications that apply to what you’ve learned.
It was a crisp and clear autumn night, the changing leaves were dimply illuminated by the full moon as they rained to the forest floor whenever a fierce wind would spin through the trees. In a small town on a Friday night there’s not much to do, so a group of us students decided to drive out to an old memorial and walk along the paths that surrounded it. While it was well after sundown, our paths were flooded with moonlight and so, we set off into the forest in search of adventure. At a fork in the pathway majority rule decided that we would hang a right, even though it didn’t seem like the smartest decision. After all, the path that would bring us in a circle around the memorial would be to the left. However, being in a mood of merriment, we decided to throw good judgment into the increasingly bitter autumn wind and plow forward down an arbitrary path.
After walking along the right (wrong) path for an hour we came out of the forest at a logging road. A sign nailed to a tree read Deerhurst and pointed towards the right. Great. Deerhurst? Where the heck were we? “Let’s go to the left!” Someone purposed without giving any reason— someone who had the Tells leadership style. They were taking charge, going left was the only way to go, and not only was it the only way… it was the superior way. There was no debate to be had. A few small voices murmured, “Let’s go back the way we came, at least we know where it leads. We don’t know where this road will take us,” but the voice of the Sells leaders was not heard as the Tells walked briskly up the road in a leftward direction. In the eyes of the Tells, the rest of us were incompetent and lacked the maturity to make such a decision.
As we walked up the road, the Sells began to do what they did best: they used whatever it took to appeal to what they thought group wanted, “Guys, we could be walking on this road forever—we have no idea where it goes. If we turn back now, at least we can be back at the van within the hour.”
Alas, the Sells’ cool logic and persuasion tactics did not work on the tired group. No one would heard of the benefits of turning back and going on the path we knew—the cry for adventure and walking through the woods full of hungry male bears was greater than the cry of reason.
Soon we reached a path that would take us through the forest. We had no idea where it went, but no matter! The Tells lead the rest of us ahead into the dark, confident that their choice was the best one. One of the Consults people in the group walked alongside two others and began to discuss his ideas with them as we drew closer to the heart of the forest and further away from the little logging road. “We can’t go back now—we’re too far into the forest to find our way back to the logging road, but look at the moon. We’ve been on the left side of it. I think if we take a right, we will end up looping back around to the memorial. What do you think?” A Consults would never step up and make a decision before checking with others around him or her; to try and win the support and cooperation of the group was more important than imposing their decision on everyone else.
While the Consults were still talking things over, the group was plowing forward through the forest and getting more lost as the night went on. After several times of stopping in the middle of knee-high brush and arguing about where to go, we were getting sick of listening to the Tells—their style of leadership often leads to frustration, antagonism, or rebellion and rebellion is what broke out as frustrated people began to split from the group and go in opposite directions.
One girl pleaded with the rest of us, “Ok guys, come back! We need to use the Joins style of leadership.” Our dark moods lightened as we laughed about what we had learned in class and saw it appear in our real lives. People took different turns voicing their opinions on what we should have done, and then we voted. Majority ruled. We would continue in the right direction. While those in the minority still weren’t happy about the groups’ decision we were now unified and moving in the same direction.
Our chosen path caused us to blaze a trail through ditches and fallen trees and eventually onto a man’s property where his dog barked at us, waking him up from his sleep. After we explained how long we had been lost for and where we had come from he offered us a ride back to our van.
We learned more about leadership styles from a night of being lost in the woods than we had in two days of classroom time and realized that we can influence each other and have to be mindful of the impacts that our influence can have on those around us. With great power comes great responsibility, right?