Leadership, Listening "Learning and listening to people’s stories—in a company or a community—is a great way to bring people together."

Still from La Haine, 1995. Director Mathieu Kassovitz, Director of Photography Pierre Aïm

This week Ari Weinzweig of the Zingerman's Community of Businesses wrote about their companies' longtime reliance on Servant Leadership. He's been building on the idea with a corollary he's calling Folklorist Leadership. "...Our focus would be on the work of listening deeply and open-heartedly to the stories of the people we work with. To show them how much their stories matter. To help them to make those stories ever more effective, positive, and meaningful. Folklorist Leadership in this sense is not about just being a good listener when people start to talk, but rather making time to actively seek out their stories. To allow our conversations to go deeper than we would typically do in the course of a workday. To make time to really sit with the people we work with in ways that have them feeling confident enough to share the parts of their story they want to share. And, to more effectively include those stories in the “common humanity” of our company’s past, present, and future." Article: A Call for Folklorist Leadership