Abstract
In Leading Minds: An Anatomy of Leadership, Howard Gardner (1995) wrote: “Leaders achieve their effectiveness chiefly through the stories they relate” (p. 9). Leaders express stories in the way they live their own lives, and they aim to evoke stories in the lives of those they lead. “The artful creation and articulation of stories constitutes a fundamental part of the leadership vocation,” Gardner claimed. Further, “it is stories of identity—narratives that help individuals think about and feel who they are, where they come from, and where they are headed—that constitute the single most powerful weapon in the leader’s literary arsenal” (Gardner, 1995, p. 43).
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© 2014 George R. Goethals, Scott T. Allison, Roderick M. Kramer, and David M. Messick
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McAdams, D.P. (2014). Leaders and Their Life Stories: Obama, Bush, and Narratives of Redemption. In: Goethals, G.R., Allison, S.T., Kramer, R.M., Messick, D.M. (eds) Conceptions of Leadership. Jepson Studies in Leadership. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137472038_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137472038_9
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