Episode 3 - Literature and Leadership: A Conversation with the Oxford Future Leaders Programme Team

This week's episode is inspired by my experience as a participant in the University of Oxford's Future Leaders Programme where I have taken part in various character-based training sessions and cultivated my leadership skills. 

I am joined by the facilitators of the Programme: Angela Unsworth (the Director of Accommodation, Conferences and Catering at Jesus College), Neil Unsworth (Head of Resilience at Oxford), Anjali Sarkar (Senior Manager at the Oxford Character Project) and Edward Brookes (Associate Professor of Politics and International Relations). Together, we explore how literature and leadership intersect in many ways as one can often redefine, shape or even challenge the other. 

Our conversation explores the way that literature, including children's literature, can embody the key virtues that constitute good leadership and that we aim to emulate as readers. This leads us to consider how literature can equally complicate the image of a 'good leader' by presenting psychological complexity in ways that textbooks or guides on leadership cannot do. Inspired by The Arts of Leading: Perspectives from the Humanities and the Liberal Arts, we conceptualise the roles of writers and readers as one of leaders and followers. Building upon the concept of toxic charismatic leadership, as described in the book, literature reveals the complex behaviour of followers, too, when readers find themselves supporting Machiavellian leaders. Our discussion segues into an exploration of storytelling as a tool for leadership, uncovering the narratives that leaders tell themselves and their followers in pursuit of a shared goal. 

As stories continue to shape who we are and how we lead, this episode turns to literature in order to understand the very meaning of effective leadership. 

If you enjoyed this episode and want to stick around for the next one, do hit follow and review the show! 

Music credits go to Isobel (Issi) Marklew. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Welcome to Interwoven, a podcast where we follow the winding threads of literature as they weave together stories and voices across time and cultures. Hi everyone, welcome back to Interwoven. I'm your host, Asgarman, and today I'm joined by four extremely exciting guests, Angie, Neil, Angela, and Ed. And today we're going to be discussing the relationship between literature and leadership, which is something that I hadn't really considered before I started the Future Leaders program here at Oxford, where I've had the chance to really consider what my, well, big why or sense of purpose is, which feels extremely daunting. But I think across sort of the last term or so I've really started to dig deeper into that. And I think that this podcast is one of the products of that. So maybe we could start off with formal introductions. Anjali, would you like to start?

SPEAKER_05 1:23

Thanks, Asgar. Thanks for inviting us. My name is Anjolie, and I work as a senior manager at the Oxford Character Project.

SPEAKER_03 1:31

Thank you. My name's Neil. I'm head of resilience for the university and I'm a retired onficer.

SPEAKER_04 1:37

And I'm Angela. I am the director of accommodation and education conferences at Jesus College, and I'm a former level.

SPEAKER_02 1:46

I'm Ed, and I'm an associate professor in the Department of Politics and International Relations, where I work on leadership and particularly leadership and character, together with Anjali.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

Thank you so much for taking out the time from, I'm sure, what's what are really busy schedules to be here. And I guess we can just dive right into leadership and its relationship with literature. And I guess a good place to begin with would be to consider why it is that we'd bring something like literature or stories into conversation with leadership, which sometimes evokes this image of being quite modern, quite sort of sometimes corporate, even. So maybe Angela and Ed, what are your thoughts on how literature can sometimes be used as a model through which we can approach leadership?

SPEAKER_02 2:39

Yeah, well, it's a great question, and I love this way of exploring leadership from many different perspectives and disciplines. Often leadership questions have been taken up in the context of management education in the university. But there's so much to learn about leadership and so much to say about leadership from the humanities and the liberal arts. And I think when it comes to literature, not only is literature important but for you know understanding, giving us perspectives and ideas on who leaders are and what leadership means from characters within novels that particularly focus on leaders. Literature as a whole shapes us, shapes our moral imagination. And I think it's this shaping effect of literature which is really, really interesting in terms of the formation of leaders. And that works out, I think, in the way in which you see many incredible leaders around the world who are real readers as well, they're really devoted to literature.

SPEAKER_05 3:45

I think I'll touch a bit on the storytelling aspect of leadership. Humans have been telling stories from the beginning of civilization, and good leaders, you will see that they are extremely good storytellers. They tell stories to bring people together, they tell stories to show a vision for a world that's not there yet, but it's worth working towards. So I think stories are the glue that keeps us together as humans, and they allow us to work as a collective. So if you are thinking about leadership as something that's relational in nature, stories are a really important part of that.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

I think both of you brought up really interesting points in terms of sort of literature being something that's both read by leaders and then something that glues people together. And I think that that sometimes gets to the heart of leadership as a form of empathy and connection with I think both yourself and with the purpose and the people that you're you're leading. And I was wondering if Neil and Angela, if you had anything to add to that point.

SPEAKER_03 4:53

I think that there's something about this picking up on what Angela you said about storytelling. Novels are enjoyable and accessible in a way that you know if you're reading reading a you know management journal, business review, or something like that, it doesn't have the same sort of memorable content. I think you're much more likely to remember lessons from Shakespeare's Henry V than you are from the Harvard Business Review.

SPEAKER_01 5:18

Yeah, um, I'd agree. That kind of leads on to um one of my uh other questions I was thinking of. And it was this idea that literature that is withstanding the passage of time is sometimes resting on this idea of shared human experience on things that um no matter sort of what time period you're in or what cultural context you're in, you feel connected to in some way. And I wanted to ask about sort of how leadership functions in a similar way. Is it something that's meant to stand the test of time, or do you think it's something that's very much hinged upon tests or trials of a specific time period?

SPEAKER_04 6:03

I don't think it really changes over time. Um I think that the uh the moral compass that Edgar referred to is is non it doesn't change. It's constant. And it's been constant and reflected in literature. All of the virtues that we look for, and the character traits, the character virtues we look for in leaders now, or the character traits that we look for in heroes in years gone by from the time of Beowulf onwards. And to have that understanding of what leaders are and what we're looking for, I think plays out in literature and has done for generations.

SPEAKER_01 6:46

I think that that really resonates with some of the reading I did, which very much inspired this podcast, which was The Arts of Leading, edited by many scholars, including yourself, Ed. Um, and chapter seven sort of explores this idea that Henry V and other Shakespearean heroes can be seen as ways through which you understand how leaders function as well as their sort of interior psychology. And one of the points that we were discussing in our one of the Future Leaders program sessions was this idea of trust and how sometimes you don't always want to show weakness to the people you're leading. But I feel like literature is quite interesting because in literature you get to see the interior psychology, the sort of complexities of leaders in a way that as a follower or even as a fellow leader, you can't always be privy to. And I think that this is very much following on from our session earlier. Um, and that is this question of how do you know when to conceal or reveal those those weaknesses.

SPEAKER_04 7:58

We've got um the development when authors are writing in novels, they they they give you the opportunity to see inside the workings, inside the mind, as you say, and the opportunity for us to uh learn how the character develops based on that. So um it yeah, it's interesting. What interesting also is that there has been so very little that I could find research on the leadership traits that are shown by uh authors in novels and in uh in literature. Um equally, it doesn't seem to be a lot of literature around that explores the values of leadership in itself.

SPEAKER_01 8:40

I think that that's an interesting point, bad literature not always sort of showing leadership values in itself. Maybe that highlights that leadership is sometimes not able to be extrapolated from its wider context or wider societies in which it belongs to, in a way. And Angeline, do you have any thoughts on on that?

SPEAKER_05 9:04

So it definitely depends on the context, but like you were saying, some virtues, I would say all virtues are timeless. We had to lead with empathy when back in the days people were still living in caves and people had to be there for each other. Even if we are in 2026 and humanity has progressed a lot, but we are still there for each other, otherwise, we cannot function as human beings. That's what I think makes us so different from other species. We are able to tell stories and we are able to use stories to bring very different people together and work for a common goal. So even if the context is changing and it will keep changing throughout the many years to come, but the virtues that helped us to become humans in the first place, they still hold true. We still need empathy, we still need compassion, we still need to exercise our resilience when things get difficult. And I don't think that will ever change. So, yes, context matters and how good leadership manifests, that might be different depending on which century it is or which, you know, which kind of you know context we are operating in. But the fundamentals, the core, the essential aspects of leadership, I don't think that will ever change.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

Do you have any or do you know any characters in literature that you would say you're inspired by? And this is an open question, so. Have you had any personal experiences where you feel like you've seen a figure in literature or even in films who seems inspiring? I guess building off of that, the audience that's being targeted in certain forms of literature. Personally, I feel like children's literature that targets younger audiences gets to the heart of leadership as well because it's um I mean the program has kind of instilled this idea that leadership is built from what you've mentioned, Angela, um, ideas of empathy, of just general characteristics of of virtue and and collaboration. And I mean from personal experience, characters I've read as a child who've sort of stayed with me and who I often come back to, and I think that that's sometimes what makes literature really powerful. I've got a brother who's currently really into Percy Jackson, and I can sort of see him wanting to be more like Percy Jackson, and I feel like that idea of wanting to be like someone, um, finding a role model in life is something that I think for a lot of people comes from childhood. Um, I personally really enjoyed reading about the troubles of Liesel in the book Thief or Klaus in a series of unfortunate events as a kid. Um, and in in fictional worlds, especially children's literature, massive problems are boiled down into sort of just virtues or or um to your ability to create positive change, which isn't always easier to see as you grow older, I think. And I guess that's magic of simply being a good person is something that children's literature is.

SPEAKER_04 12:45

Interesting you say magic is that one of the main characters in modern literature for children that has captured that in in all all ages, all people, is Harry Potter.

SPEAKER_01 12:57

Yeah, I agree. Yeah, Harry Potter is really interesting to see as a leader impacting change and gaining followers as well, I feel like, is something you see over time. I mean, he's not extremely popular when he first arrives, and then I guess then that returns to that that idea of like leader, good leadership almost being magical. And Ed, do you have anything to add to that? I can see you're nodding.

SPEAKER_02 13:20

Well, I just I so I think the this aspect of children's literature and learning leadership, and you know, these books that we read or read to us in at the time and again. So I've got um three children, and certainly some of the books that we've got into together have been um had some amazing leadership lessons. I think of um you know the Michael Rosen book, we're going on a bear hunt, and it's got this family that go on a bear hunt and they come across all these obstacles, and they kind of repeated a phrase, you know, we can't go over it, can't go under it, but they go through it and off they go, and they're gonna keep going through. And the these kinds of things, there's there's an amazing just you know, lesson in perseverance, again and again, creatively told. It was striking. I was reading this week, I don't know if you've come across the story of the um family that got um um swept out to sea just off the coast of Australia in Perth. It was a mother and three uh children. The oldest was 13, and then two younger than that. And they were two miles out to sea, swept out and in the waves. And um the they didn't know what to do, they'd been there two hours, they couldn't get back. In the end, the mother said, Look, I'll stay here with these, I'll kind of cling on to the boats here with these two youngest, and and she said to her 13-year-old son, You you've got to s you've got to get back and you've got to raise the the alarm. If not, we're all going to um to perish out here. And he did, and he first kind of tried to paddle his canoe and that got sunk, and then he swam for four hours, two miles to get back. And they ran a mile to the to the village. And he said in the interview, it was really interesting, he said he had all these things going round his head, but one of the things that was there was Thomas the tank engine. And how you know that there it is. You know, he's learned that that came back to him right in that moment. Okay, a story of didn't say which one it was, but there are these great, you know, these moral tales, if you like, and it's there a story of um of perseverance and purpose, and that was the kind of motivating effect. And there's no wonderful example of um of leadership and courage, and he his action saved his family's life. So I think these stories from from childhood have kind of become you know kind of forming us, and then they they do they do come back in incredible ways. Fables maybe work in the in the in the same way, you know. There's a great one, the the the the the tortoise and the hare, and there's this lesson of you know of patience, which I think is another really important leadership quality. You know, it's so easy to think, okay, here's the thing, Russian do it. But actually, sometimes, you know, just what's going on here? How does this work? You know, okay, direction of travel, step, step, step, and we can we can get there. So I think lots of powerful children's literature really addresses these themes.

SPEAKER_03 15:42

I think on the sort of darker side, I was thinking about the flight approach. Yeah, where there's all kinds of natural aspects investigated. So you've got Ralph who um is charismatic, athletic, and natural leader, and he tries his best to get things organised. But he's still he's human and he's still sort of foul in the end and gets into the frenzy of killing and everybody else. Uh and I think that sort of reality of seeing the whole of the character is something you were touching on earlier on. Yeah, that's without going into the other the other characters and the different ways of uh of of leading and how people can be dragged into following bad leaders.

SPEAKER_01 16:24

Yeah, I think both points are interesting. It's that idea of like coming back to basic values that I guess are instilled when you are a child, and I guess as you grow older those values are put to the test, and I think when they are, it's it's sometimes easier to return to that point of origin of when when those values first came about. And for me, figures like Lisa in the Book Thief, who's this girl who teaches herself English and how to read and write, um, in the context of World War II, where she's a refugee. And I found her story really inspiring because her entire worldview is driven by this passion for for words and for literature, and I think that's carried through with me for a really long time. And I also wanted to ask if if literature like children's literature can provide good models. Is there sometimes this sense that you almost root for the villain or for the anti-hero?

SPEAKER_04 17:23

And I guess what does that tell us about the complexities of following or for educate somebody that you grow recognize that you want to educate that it's not quite saying that it's it's quite it's quite telling. We always say um in future leaders and in all of our leadership experience that um we should be choosing our role models quite carefully because you can choose a role model for good and you can choose the role model that you don't want to be as well. So you can see that in the you know in the literature because the hero is always up against some sort of adversity. Sometimes um that is uh another person or another tribe. So I think that that element of literature also comes through in teaching you more about what leadership qualities you you want to have and those that you actually don't want to develop.

SPEAKER_01 18:22

I suppose in a lot of Shakespeare's tragic heroes like Macbeth and Hamlet, a part of you still sort of rooting for them, knowing that they're questionable people, and this idea of having someone uh you're faced with in in literary texts who's committed perhaps wrongdoings and yet there's something charismatic about them, and this I this juxtaposition was something that I encountered in The Arts of Leading, where it was this idea that toxic, charismatic leaders, which is a word that Kristen Bezio uses, um, and this idea that such leaders can sometimes plate our fears and our sense of of belonging by presenting themselves as the solution to certain problems. And I guess how have you experienced things like that in your own experiences of leadership or in your experiences of reading literature?

SPEAKER_05 19:17

Um so literature also helps us to see that leadership can take so many different forms. Take Harry Potter for an example. Who's the leader? Well, the book is titled Harry Potter, right? But throughout the series, I grew up reading Harry Potter, very big fan here. But throughout the series, you will get to see that so many people are assuming leadership roles, not being in the front line, not being the quote-unquote hero. I think my favorite is Neville Longbottom, who was a nobody. And then he he showed immense courage, right? When the time called for it, he became somebody. He he led in a way that was, I would say, unthinkable. And then there are so many other characters. So I think it allows you to see that it's not just the top that matters. It's not just the book cover or the title or the person whose names will be there on, you know, on buildings and walls and everywhere. You can you can act like a leader whenever the opportunity, you know, is right, whenever the moment calls for it. And I think that's a fantastic liberating thing for all of us to know and believe in and then act on it because not all of us will have the the kind of title all the time. Not all of us will have leadership position or the right designation. But if we look at leadership and ask ourselves, why do we really admire this person? What is attracting us? Then again, we will come back to the virtues. I admire Neville because he displayed courage. So it's not really about Neville, it's about the courage. Same thing goes for Harry Potter or or or Harboni or any other person. So it's if you think about this less of an individual rather than what is it that's attracting me so much, then I think you will again come back to the virtues that will serve you for a long time. It doesn't matter who you are.

SPEAKER_04 21:10

What you were saying about uh toxic leadership, toxic and charismatic leadership is also played out in the same book, isn't it, with Old Moore? And you can see why people would align themselves with him through fear. Ultimately, you know, this is this is classic in literature that um they become unstuck because they do not carry the character virtues that people naturally aspire to.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

Building off that my experience of reading Macbeth, I'm not sure if everyone's fully aware of the story, but sometimes literature com complicates that idea of toxic charisma because you do see the tragic hero or um the tragic leader in this situation as falling victim to things that are beyond his control. And when literature does that, I think it adds that com level of complexity to leadership. factors that um are beyond the the values that you yourself represent like you mentioned Angeli about courage being the thing that makes Neville admirable. Um but what about those sort of factors like I don't know I guess in Shakespeare it's usually something like fate or the supernatural but in in other leadership contexts it could be when things suddenly end up going in a direction where that you hadn't anticipated. How do you respond to that?

SPEAKER_03 22:29

I think it's interesting Macbeth to see who who who's the strongest leader actually. I mean you could you could easily argue that it's Lady Macbeth that's manipulated and has the stronger powers and is a more charismatic and and um effective leader but she's not leading for for good in that in that way.

SPEAKER_04 22:49

It's also um these these stories where you do have a tragic hero and things start to go wrong it to me shows that leadership is not linear. They're not linear it cycles back and it circles back um all the time and you get caught in processes that um are I mean very much as a as a result of there being nuances in human character that will come out and make the process much more convoluted than you would expect. I mean you could just go to a to from A to B but that rarely is is the case.

SPEAKER_03 23:22

I think that there's a brilliance of literature over just reading factual content because as you said earlier on it you see the whole of the person, you see the whole of the character uh in a way that you don't tend to if you're just reading factual accounts but people reveal that about themselves.

SPEAKER_02 23:43

So leadership requires clarity in order to be able to frame a context well and to get people organised and to um forge a sense of direction. But that uh clarity is also in context of massive complexity. And there's some tension here. Like we've got to have clarity but there's this complexity how do we hold these things uh together this is why at this term at the future in the future leaders program we're thinking about how do you make decisions in these kinds of complex contexts where you need to do something don't know everything how do you understand it? I think literature is amazing at actually helping us to come to terms with that to live and embody that um if you like the kind of grey area in which leadership is really important where we don't have all of the answers but still need to do something to um get everybody moving forward to achieve the um to achieve the objective and I think something of the Chris in that chapter talks about toxic charismatic leadership is where maybe there's a sense of the kind of clarity overriding the complexity or it's all so simple people this is what we need to do and the personality um kind of becomes so um so big in that that there's no no place for the complexity that oh hang on a hang on a minute well what about this or or that and there's something in us I think as followers that always looking for kind of security and confidence and so I think actually it's it's a responsibility of leaders I think to both give real clarity but also to be open to the complexity to understand okay actually we're gonna need different voices uh coming in here and and to uh to understand different parts to how you think of these from your experience I think if if you look to go to Shakespeare and Henry V the you you've got a spectrum of different ways of approaching leadership.

SPEAKER_03 25:27

Most people hear about this famous Bounder Brothers speech but actually for me it's the night before when in when Henry V wanders round the camp disguised in a cloak amongst the common soldiers and and says we we are enough when he's trying to instill hope into the into the and they're all a bit worried about what might be happening they know they're a smaller force than the French you know then they're they're um really up against it but to me that that part is even more powerful than the than the great charismatic speech that he goes there. I think it's great that um I think Shakespeare really understands leadership you you can see in so many areas.

SPEAKER_01 26:10

I think that the sort of returns to literature is allowing you to um almost this was a phrase that was used in the book see behind the political curtain and I think literature allows you to see that complexity behind the scenes which you can always find in something um like biography and although they that may count as literature it's a very different kind of literature that's in this liminal space between fiction and and nonfiction. But sort of moving forward I think that literature can sometimes be a really interesting tool for leadership too how is it that leaders use stories or use words or or literature itself or certain texts to create some sort of influence.

SPEAKER_04 26:55

Just to throw something back at you if I may you know what are your thoughts on this?

SPEAKER_01 26:58

Because I think that um we see um uh literature sort of generate um broader discussions in so many areas in things like you know environmental issues and women's issues but we don't really see literature driving um a sort of literary literary genre about leadership why though perhaps the reason why we don't have a genre for leadership itself is because it is able to stand the test of time like we mentioned earlier um but it's also ever present. So the virtues that create leadership courage, empathy, collaboration and so on are things that constitute multiple types of characters and multiple genres of literature which is why I feel like almost having one genre for leadership inherently then becomes all forms of literature in a way um but if you see literature as a tool for leaders um I think that in terms of the political space the banning of books suggests that the way we approach characters the way we sometimes feel pity towards certain characters or the way we resonate with certain characters is not something that's just fictional or intangible. It has real life impact in terms of who we become and the ideas we have and the very fact that in places like America I read recently that almost 23,000 books have been banned across the past five to six years and the very fact that literature has this ability to create um personality to create certain viewpoints that may almost help us again see behind the political curtain or complexify our own thought processes is then also the same thing that's being monitored and controlled. I really enjoyed looking at the Aeneid in school and we kind of looked at how Augustus uses the Aeneid and he tells Virgil to put himself into the story so he tells Aeneid to portray Augustus as this ultimate emperor and he's the one who brings the golden age and so it's also a form of propaganda in certain certain contexts and again going back to the idea of whether literature can have a genre of leadership I guess it's first of all something that's seen in all literature or all genres but then it's also something that's then used and controlled as a media form almost too.

SPEAKER_03 29:45

I I think making a really good point about if you if you choose to put leadership as a genre for for novels then it restricts you I think as well as making it easier to ban. I think the better approach is to look for leadership across novels. And you'll find it in the most unexpected places. You look at leadership when we talked about it in the um in the future leaders programme about leadership within families and you can find that in Pride Prejudice Mr and Mrs Bennett doing pretty well with all their daughters and all the trials and tribulations they have and getting by financially you could look at it in little women and something like that in a character like Joe March where you've got the complexities you could say she's stubborn and got a fiery temper but actually that's the other side of being strong willed and independent and standing up your family so I think that there you've got the you've got the rich richness that you can get in a novel that you don't get reading an article on leadership.

SPEAKER_02 30:46

I can yeah I I can relate to that absolutely in a in a book I read recently which I thought was an amazing lesson on self-leadership even though it's you know in a sense got not much to to to do with leadership directly it was it was called Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Tells and the this figure Count Rostov is there I mean the just after the revolution and the uh Bolsheviks um prosecute him take away all his land and consign him to house arrest in this hotel the metropole in the middle of Moscow like for the rest of his life. And the hotel the uh the novel is about how he kind of come to comes to terms with his new world which is this hotel in the most incredible way with kind of absolute grace and composure you know makes inside this hotel this amazing world. And it's just an amazing lesson on okay well actually all these things outside but how do you come to that sense of um composure and centeredness I think that speaks massively to um to to leadership and to particularly aspects of of leading self which are you know not easily accessible in kind of more kind of technical forms of literature just building on its point books allow you to live multiple lives without even leaving your chair before traveling became a thing books allow people to know what what could be possible what's going on and when it opens your imagination to a thousand other possibilities if you want you can see leadership everywhere you can find it in the as Neil said in the most unexpected places and that will allow you to find a corner find a little corner for yourself things that you never could have even considered they become a reality because simply you can relate to the characters.

SPEAKER_05 32:40

If you see someone leading with courage you can also tell yourself I could do that that person did it in the middle of so many difficulties why not I even if you do not have a real life role model standing living you know within your vicinity you can read the book and you can relate to that character you know in a very deep manner. So it just helps people to as I said to it it exposes them to many different realities and make them real make them true.

SPEAKER_03 33:14

Linking to to to what Angela and Abjoli just just said it also gives you the chance to to live what you live live live through the experience of a character that maybe you would never want to do for real you so someone who you can experience the sort of thrill and danger of their poor behaviour to someone like Corelanus. And also just ultimately take away where they end up as a result of that behaviour but it allows you to just go and live it in in that particular fantasy and see what it might be like.

SPEAKER_04 33:49

It does allow us because we all have the propensity to do this to be the heroes in our own soap opera and for us to think about how we want to how we want to write the ending for that soap opera um from where we are now and the lessons that we that we're taking from looking at the virtues of the characters that we are taking to heart.

SPEAKER_01 34:14

I think then if sort of just the binary between reality or in literature self and characters becoming porous like you've mentioned I guess it's important to consider the stories we then tell ourselves how we tell ourselves narratives that then build almost sometimes build up from narratives that we've either read or you know relived through literature and through words. And this brings me to my next question about what role the narratives and stories that leaders tell their own selves plays in in their leadership.

SPEAKER_05 34:52

I mean that's a beautiful question if you think of yourself as a leader think of your time in Oxford as a chapter in your autobiography what would be the title of that chapter? Well that depends on you that depends on what you do how you live your life in Oxford where you spend your time we all have limited heartbeats on this planet so where exactly we are spending it how we are spending it all of that matters most people live their life in an autopilot mode we go with the flow but if you choose to be intentional if you choose to write your own autobiography give that chapter a very attractive title I'm not going to prescribe but you decide what will be the title of that chapter that gives the power back to you so you can actually write your own story. So that's the beauty of thinking about okay it's my story let me let me let me control it let me write it rather than let the world to write the story for yourself.

SPEAKER_01 35:48

And I think that if you have that internalized story or that internalized vision you then have a clearer purpose for leadership I feel um and I mean the starting of this podcast too was sort of this idea of what it is that I want to do after Oxford or what it is that I want to look back on after my limited time here and that then sort of reminded me of of purpose of why it is that I'm here in the first place why that chapter is being written and um yeah I think that that's that's really powerful.

SPEAKER_04 36:23

One of the things that we would always encourage is that um you make things happen. You don't just let things happen to you and that has got to be a basic tenant of leading self and leading others.

SPEAKER_03 36:35

It's not literature but it's a great speech that Theodore Roosevelt did with a man in the arena go and have a go, have shortcomings keep trying and you and you'll get there eventually or even if you don't at least you've tried.

SPEAKER_01 36:48

And accept the consequences and change the consequences because every day is a school day it's all it's almost like these stories that we tell ourselves are both written by us but then they're also materializing into what we are becoming and I think that that's again returns to to literature as something that is always in a state of flux. It's never fixed. The stories we tell ourselves are never fixed and I feel like literature is also never fixed. It's always gaining new audiences new readerships and I think that this quote by John Miles in in the arts of leading is really really powerful and it begins with good leadership requires recognition of the value of your soldiers or followers or readers or users as your siblings in arms and that it demands you give them a stake in your collective success and I'm wondering what your sort of initial responses to that are.

SPEAKER_02 38:22

And that's yeah fully relational and involves yeah not just going ahead and doing it yourself saying come on hurry up you know but actually working with with others well in order to together go forward and see everyone grow and rise to the to the challenge.

SPEAKER_04 38:44

What's the goal um where are you going why um and who's coming because you can't lead if you are alone it's just you um you can't lead unless you've got a group of people around you that are like minded that have the same um the same hopes, the same aspirations the same end gain in mind.

SPEAKER_01 39:08

I think both of you have brought up the interesting implication which is leadership as a sometimes almost a service or something that you do in the benefit of others and is it helpful to see leadership especially within the context of literature or authorship as a as a kind of service to to readers is it is literature meant to always have a moral purpose is it meant to drive forward some kind of change as as a as a leader in itself?

SPEAKER_04 39:38

Authors have um they they have a an end point in mind. I think they do know where they want to go and I think we would always say that if you are if you're going to lead um you need to lead for for a purpose for an end point. The beauty I think about being an author being a leader and just living is that the next page actually isn't good. You can change it if you choose to change it and you choose collectively to change it.

SPEAKER_03 40:07

And that I think is what being a good lead is about or leading for good is about made me think about poetry actually and I think yeah we're not really touched on poetry but I think some of the most powerful advice on leadership, guidance on leadership, things like Kipling's If and these some amazing pieces of just encapsulating what what the character good character within leadership looks like in a really memorable way.

SPEAKER_02 40:37

I'd I'd wonder how you've you've come to this theme of leadership as because you as you mentioned it in the in the programme but how do you now reflect on your studies in literature and in literary fiction and poetry and these other mates you know what what it what are you seeing here as some of the key ways in which um I don't know academics who are working in these areas can get more interested in ideas around leadership or other things that you're you're seeing from your perspective?

SPEAKER_01 41:02

I think from my perspective lit leadership was quite an interesting lens to bring to literature because when the idea was brought up I initially thought it might be quite challenging but then I started to actually think about it and leadership is sometimes seen as something so abstract um something quite intangible and even sometimes something that's quite hard to define or to conceptualize which is why I feel like literature is the form through which we can actually understand leadership not just what makes up a good leader but what leadership even is I think and yeah it brought quite a different perspective to novels that I hadn't um really considered before because when I was thinking of of this podcast episode I was thinking of um one of my favorite novels Things Fall Apart by Shinoa Ashebe um it's a novel in which we have the protagonist Okonkuo who um until recently I realized is almost a model of of complex leadership I suppose because he struggles to balance this traditional um egbo or Nigerian background from which he comes and then the new colonial settle settlement which he's forced to reckon with and I hadn't really thought of that as a leadership response so I guess it opens up texts and novels in ways that I hadn't initially thought of before and I think it almost makes literature something a bit more applicable sometimes because then you can be like oh this is what this character has done does this actually resonate with my experience as a leader? It's made me think that I'm also a leader like them and they are a leader like me. So it's almost become like an empathetic bridge for at least me and and certain texts like things fall apart which seemed quite distant initially but yeah I think it brings you closer to what you're reading in a way I hadn't expected until I started really thinking about it. Yeah I think that that's why literature and even just metaphors are powerful. You mentioned the Rubik's Cube in one of the sessions which really resonated with me because I think starting this podcast and even starting the interdisciplinary society at Jesus College definitely feels a bit like trying to solve a Rubik's Cube because you don't actually know what to do next. You know there's certain pieces that need to be there but you don't actually know how to get there and I guess yeah metaphors, um literary forms and genres allow us to conceptualize in ways that I think other things don't always allow for.

SPEAKER_03 43:51

I think in in great writing you also get you can take the time for the author to to show you different facets of someone's leadership that