Leadership archetyping at Aitken Spence staff convention

The second Aitken Spence Staff Convention was held recently at Aitken Spence Towers. Deputy Chairman and Managing Director, J. M. S. Brito, Main Board Directors, Managing Directors and over 350 members of staff were present.

The guest speaker was Michel Nugawela, a brand development consultant who specialises in brand strategy and brand identity development with related specialisation in change strategies across newly rebranded or repositioned organisations.

Nugawela introduced the audience to leadership archetyping, a disruptive Jungian psychological approach to individuation and leadership, based on 12 archetypal dimensions of leadership that significantly enhance and transform executive and team performance by connecting cognitive functions with the unconscious mind.

The 12 archetypes - Innocent, Orphan, Warrior, Caregiver, Explorer, Lover, Destroyer, Creator, Ruler, Magician, Sage and Jester - reflect the various roles that leaders can play in organisations and put a human face to the attitudes, interactions and recurring patterns of behaviour that influence their effectiveness. Similarly, a lack of alignment between a leader's archetype and the organisation in which he or she operates is a main cause of team and organisational dysfunctionality and executive failure.

"The Warrior is the fundamental archetype for leadership," said Nugawela. "The basic needs of the Warrior leader in its positive pole are mental toughness, professional competence, emotional control, realistic decision-making and motivating others to the highest levels of achievement."

"But leaders who lack consciousness of the fullest potential of the Warrior archetype can also slide into its negative pole and see their role as a 'win at any cost' version of leadership. There is also a very real problem when leaders over-extend their stay in the Warrior. They then unconsciously suppress other archetypes that are just as critical to the leadership role," he said.