Leaders' Playground

7: Hero or Heroine? Which Journey Suits You?

• Irene Salter, PhD • Season 1 • Episode 7

Share episode

In this episode of the Leaders' Playground, we'll examine how the craft of storytelling can inspire the art of leading. We'll begin by comparing and contrasting two dramatic arcs used by bards from Homer to Steven Spielberg: the well-trodden hero's journey versus the often-overlooked heroine's journey.

We traverse through familiar tales and myths, pondering the archetype of the solitary superhero or Jedi knight and wondering whether the stories of community and collaboration found in Harry Potter and heist flicks might offer a different way to triumph, a different way to lead. This episode peels back the layers of these narrative arcs, revealing how they sculpt our understanding of leadership and champion the idea that strength can be collective, not just a lone conquest. What kind of leadership journey are you on?


Resources:

For complete show notes, transcript, and free downloadable resources go to: https://www.irenesalter.com/podcast

Speaker 1:

Welcome to another episode of the Leader's Playground. Today there's a little less science, but a whole lot more story. In fact, the entire episode breaks down two different types of narrative arcs and applies that to the work of leadership. You may have heard of Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey or the Monomyth, but have you heard about a heroine's journey? We're going to be talking about Star Wars, harry Potter, rom-coms and a whole lot more today. So buckle up. So glad you're here, hi. Thank you for listening to the Leader's Playground, the podcast for leaders who wish their work to feel more like play. Leadership can be lonely, overwhelming and just plain crazy-making. We are here to rekindle the spark. I'm Irene Salter, your host, and a PhD neuroscientist and science educator with a passion for helping people thrive, not just survive. Please click that follow button so you don't miss a single episode.

Speaker 1:

Some of you may know that I've been writing a book about the science of wanderlust, based on the year my family spent living, working and schooling abroad. Now I will freely admit that I was a travel-holic for much of my adult life. Like, oh, so many of us. I totally come alive while traveling. But I'm also a PhD neuroscientist and, despite hanging up my lab coat. Decades ago, I wanted to understand my own wanderlust scientifically. Somebody must have written a book about the science of why we travel, right? Well, I went to the library Nothing. I tried the bookstore Nada. I searched Google and it was a big black hole. Naturally, I searched Google and it was a big black hole, naturally. So I'm writing it.

Speaker 1:

But writing a book is hard. Oh my goodness, is it hard so far. I've been working on this thing for two years Two years. It's gone through countless drafts and revisions, at least six complete rewrites between when I first came up with the idea and when my wonderful agent, kimberly Cameron, sent my proposal to two publishers for early feedback. She did that just this year and even then only half the manuscript is polished. I still have half the thing to write. It's all in shitty first draft form that needs a lot of reworking.

Speaker 1:

Well, one thing I know about myself is that I am far more productive and far more accountable when I'm part of a team or when there's a teacher giving me assignments. I know I'm a teacher's pet. What can I say? It's really hard to hold myself to a deadline with just me and my laptop trying to get stuff done. But when I have a teacher to impress or when I have a team I can't let down, then I will go, go, go, go go.

Speaker 1:

So after both of those early publishers said yeah, no thanks, it was time to get help on yet another complete revision. So I signed up for something called Project Memoir, which is run by an absolute master of the craft. Her name is Alison K Williams. Her website is down in the show notes. I wholeheartedly recommend any program she offers, and she's not paying me to say that. On her website it said that Project Memoir would be an MFA in eight weeks with eight writers. Didn't that sound great? Editorial feedback, creative assignments, there'd be deadlines to help shape and finish and polish my memoir. I thought, yeah, this is going to kick my butt into gear. I will get at least three or four chapters written in those eight weeks. Sign me up.

Speaker 1:

Well, the first assignment comes, and it tore my book apart. The first assignment comes and it tore my book apart. Talk about making work feel like work. That first assignment was all about dramatic arc. Now, in storytelling, dramatic arc is the overall journey of the protagonist as told in a series of key, carefully chosen scenes. Allison shared five different kinds of dramatic arcs that are often found in memoir. She asked us to take our book and drop it into several of those arcs to try to discover which of those dramatic arcs our book belonged in. Well, when I did those exercises, I realized that my book followed what's called the discovery arc. It's called here's where I discover about myself as I discover this world.

Speaker 1:

I never mapped out the dramatic arc of my book. I hadn't ever carefully selected key scenes to lead the reader through my journey. I hadn't sculpted the ebb and flow of tension and resolution across all the different chapters, which is probably why the book felt a little rough around the edges, like a pair of boots that hadn't been broken in, or maybe an ill-fitting pair of jeans. It didn't hold together, it didn't fit Poop. I wasn't going to be writing another three or four chapters. I was going to have to completely shape what I'd already written so far and capture the overall journey of me, the protagonist, making discoveries about myself as I uncover the science behind my wanderlust. Well, I did that and now that I'm on the other side, project Memoir is turned out to be a really really good thing and not just for my book turned out to be a really really good thing, and not just for my book.

Speaker 1:

Every draft of my book is definitely a huge improvement over the ones before. This one was completely transformative. It felt like leveling up a character in a video game with more power and more skills. It was better all around, a lot more fun to play with. It also opened up some insight about leadership. Now I've already been thinking about this for a while. I'm telling you this story about my book and the dramatic arc because it's a really great analogy for leveling up my own journey as a leader. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that the book is a memoir about my journey. So understanding my journey as a leader as a series of leveling up makes a lot of sense. But still, it felt like a really important connection to make and it's one that I really want to share with you.

Speaker 1:

Just like Alison Williams offers different dramatic arcs with which to map a book, I would like to offer you some different dramatic arcs that you to map a book. I would like to offer you some different dramatic arcs that you could use to understand your own leadership journey. Now, the first one is the hero's journey, which is based on Joseph Campbell's book the Hero with a Thousand Faces. This kind of dramatic arc is often known as the monomyth, because Joseph Campbell created his model based on analyzing hundreds of different myths and legends to look for common themes. From that analysis he described a hero's journey.

Speaker 1:

A solo warrior heads out to save the world. It's a story of self-discovery and transformation and overcoming huge obstacles. The classic example is Luke Skywalker. In fact, george Lucas, when he was creating the Star Wars series, he read the hero with a thousand faces and sculpted the Star Wars storyline with the hero's journey in mind. Here are the major parts of the hero's journey. First, there's the purpose of the journey, the purpose of the hero's journey. First, there's the purpose of the journey. The purpose of the hero's journey is to defeat an enemy or retrieve a claim to an ultimate boon. In Luke Skywalker's case, star Wars is all about defeating the dark side, particularly Darth Vader and the Emperor, and Luke learns the ways of the Force and becomes a Jedi. That's the Emperor, and Luke learns the ways of the Force and becomes a Jedi. That's the purpose. There's also an approach that's part of the hero's journey, and what I mean by approach is the strategic approach of the character. How does the character achieve this ultimate purpose. Well, in a hero's journey, the hero is on the offensive most of the time, and though he may shy away from adventure at first, he will ultimately answer that call to adventure.

Speaker 1:

Luke starts off on Tatooine. He's stuck and discontent, whining about going into town to buy some power converters. He's longing to follow all of his friends into the flight academy to become a pilot, but he's feeling so held back by his uncle at the farm. Ultimately, r2d2 and c-3po join him. There's this unexpected invitation to adventure in the form of a cry from help from princess leia, and luke answers. He races forward into battle and he goes through a whole series of trials Rescue the princess, blow up the Death Star, kill a wampa, rescue his friends, face his father, defeat the emperor. Throughout, luke rushes forward bravely into the face of danger. That's his strategic approach.

Speaker 1:

The third thing to know about a hero's journey is where does the hero find strength? Now, although a hero on a hero's journey will sometimes find a mentor, eventually he has to go it alone, and asking for help is a sign of weakness. Think about Luke. He gets first Obi-Wan Kenobi and then Yoda to offer advice and guidance, but ultimately both of those mentors die. Nearly all of the climactic moments are of Luke learning to embrace his Jedi powers and face Darth Vader alone. The message is super clear the hero wins through self-reliance, self-discovery and solitary achievement against overwhelming odds. It's a story of overcoming obstacles and strength. And finally, the last thing to note is what happens at the end. What happens at the end of a journey? Well, in a hero's journey, the hero changes and grows, but they can never go back to who they once were, and they wouldn't want to anyway. They end the adventure isolated because either they've sacrificed too much or because they've grown too powerful to ever fit back into the world they came from. Luke can never go back to Tatooine. He ends the movie series as the only Jedi in the galaxy. The only others who fully understand who he's become are Obi-Wan, yoda and his father, who are all dead.

Speaker 1:

And that hero's journey is one possible dramatic arc to think about for leadership. It is the classic, most archetypal, most stereotypical leadership arc we can imagine Solo warriors, scary odds, huge challenges, walking into the abyss, claiming power, personal transformation, ultimate success. But it comes at a huge cost, that of isolation. It's the dramatic arc of many, many stories. I mean that's what Joseph Campbell was studying. There's like super old tales like Odysseus and Jesus, buddha and Moses. But there's also all the new blockbusters Die Hard, james Bond, hunger Games pretty much every single superhero story known to man.

Speaker 1:

On the surface, the hero's journey seems to be the dramatic arc of many real world leaders too, both male and female. When you think about what leadership is, it's what you think of. It's Martin Luther King delivering the I have a Dream speech. It's Nelson Mandela. Or Malala Yousafzai, greta Thunberg, steve Jobs, tony Robbins, gloria Steinem, ruth Bader Ginsburg, abraham Lincoln, winston Churchill. It's these polished versions of individuals walking into the abyss, changing the world for the better and finding ultimate success. But it's also just the polished version we see portrayed in the media. There are other dramatic arcs to follow, and not all of those individuals are actually on a hero's journey. More on that later.

Speaker 1:

Honestly, for me personally, the hero's journey never felt right. Whenever I tried to see myself in that kind of dramatic arc, it was like wearing someone else's clothes it didn't fit, it wasn't comfortable. That wasn't me. I wasn't any of these great heroes. I wasn't this amazing orator or brilliant visionary. I didn't have the answer to all of mankind's problems. I didn't rally people to my cause. I wasn't a superhero with special powers. I sure as hell did not want to walk into any abyss. I wasn't called to adventure. I felt like leadership was thrust upon me because there's nobody else able or willing to do it. And all of this becoming a master of two worlds, becoming someone with special knowledge all of that felt so isolating and yucky. The hero's journey to me felt like all work and no play. That was not the dramatic arc for me, and even more than that.

Speaker 1:

I must say there is a masculine savior tone to the whole hero's journey thing. It feels a bit misogynistic and really stereotyped. There's even a secondhand report that Joseph Campbell once said quote women don't need to make the journey. In the whole mythological journey, the woman is there. All she has to do is realize that she's the place people are trying to get to. She's the place people are trying to get to Blah Ugh, yuck. What's very clear is that there is a bunch of hidden messages underneath the hero's journey. The hero's journey has many redeeming parts and some leaders definitely will find resonance with it. It doesn't mean that they have to be the solo hero and all isolated. There are ways to do the hero's journey. Make it yours and also feel connected.

Speaker 1:

But what I'd like to do is offer you a different kind of dramatic arc to consider for your own leadership journey. It's called the heroine's journey. It's originally based on the work of Maureen Murdoch. She was a student of Joseph Campbell's, a Jungian psychotherapist, and she published the Heroine's Journey Woman's Quest for Wholeness. It was an alternative to Joseph Campbell. There was another writer who took it to a different level. It was Gail Carragher. She's a writer and instead of taking this psychoanalytic approach, she takes a storytelling approach. She, like Joseph Campbell did, goes through myths and legends, stories, blockbusters, and she tries to find stories that don't fit the hero's journey. What's special about them? What defines this alternative dramatic arc? Well, ultimately, the heroine's journey is about asking for help, finding community and leaning on other people. And I'm going to walk you through an example Harry Potter.

Speaker 1:

Now I'm going to pause here because I really want to emphasize the point that men, harry Potter, can go on a heroine's journey just as any woman could go on a hero's journey. These two dramatic arcs are very unfortunately named because they imply gender. There's one that's male the hero's journey. The other one female the heroine's journey. But I want to be entirely clear. These are dramatic arcs that are narratively different, but any protagonist of any sex or gender could go on either one of the journeys. It doesn't matter if you're male, female, bi, trans, asexual, whatever, it doesn't matter.

Speaker 1:

What I'm trying to say is that the traditional image of leadership could follow a narrative arc that's the hero's journey or a distinct and, might I add for myself, appealing alternative narrative arc. And when you look at the two different narrative arcs side by side, maybe you can find ways to broaden your vision of what leadership is. And all of that goes back to my central definition of leadership that there's no one way to be a leader, just as there's no one way to be a human. The best leaders use the best in themselves to bring out the best in others. And what I'm describing there is the heroine's journey.

Speaker 1:

So now let's look at the major parts of the heroine's journey as seen through Harry Potter's story. First, there's purpose. So, in contrast to the hero's journey, the heroine is looking to heal a broken family or network. Often the quest is to find or rescue someone who's been taken. She doesn't want to lead, she doesn't even want adventure. Adventure and leadership is forced upon her. So in the case of Harry Potter, his parents are dead and he's being raised by his aunt and uncle who despise him. His quest while outwardly it's about defeating Voldemort, inwardly, really, at the core, it's about finding family and healing the wizarding world that adopts him. While he may want to go to Hogwarts to escape the Dursleys, he's not looking to be a leader or a hero, he's just finding a place to belong. You can think about that scene when the Goblet of Fire chooses him. He doesn't want it, he doesn't want to compete. Yes, it's forced upon him.

Speaker 1:

Then there's the second part the strategy, the approach. What's the strategic approach for a heroine? Well, it's very different than a hero. A hero is a warrior, a conqueror, walking bravely into danger to fight the bad guys. The heroine is a team builder, she's a delegator, she sees the strengths and skills in those around her and deploys them in the best way possible. Harry knows he can't defeat Voldemort alone. So, first with Hermione and Ron, and then with his professors, and then the Weasleys, dumbledore's army and the Order of the Phoenix, harry gradually gathers more and more and more people around him and they take on the fight together. The next part is about the strengths. Where does a heroine get strength? Well, a hero sees asking for help as weakness. But that's the heroine's greatest strength looking for help. In fact, the more people she can convince to be on her team, the stronger she gets.

Speaker 1:

All the climactic scenes are going to be standing together with others in the end of every book. Harry is working with a team of others. More and more people in each book, until Voldemort and all his Death Eaters are defeated. Harry would never succeed without his friends. In fact, when he pushes his friends away like when he tries to go to the Ministry of Magic on his own, or when he tries to leave the Burrow in Book 7, his friends appear to tell him You're being daft, stop it, we're coming, whether you like it or not. And then Harry is always at his most vulnerable when he's separated from his friends, like that part where Mad-Eye Moody separates him from his friends at the end of the Goblet of Fire.

Speaker 1:

Then the last thing to know about a heroine's journey is about the ending. Where do you see the heroine at the end? The end of a heroine's journey is all about compromise, collaboration and healing. It's taking that broken family and knitting them back together again Instead of Luke the lone Jedi, what we have with Harry Potter is the ultimate wizarding world is full of allies standing together and working to rebuild. At the very, very end of the last book and spoiler alert, so skip 15 seconds ahead if you haven't read the last book and you want to Harry goes on in the last book to fix his own broken wand and he ends taking a nap in his old bed in Gryffindor Tower rather than trying to reunite the three deathly hallows or to try to keep the Elder Wand for himself.

Speaker 1:

He gets rid of all of the success that he's earned and all he wants is the comfort and safety of belonging. All right, now back To summarize. Here are the two narrative arcs, and I want to quote Gail Carriger, the author of the Heroine's Journey. Quote here's the heroine's journey in one pithy sentence. Increasingly networked protagonist strides around with good friends, prodding them and others onto victory together. Strides around with good friends, prodding them and others onto victory together. And here's the hero's journey in one pithy sentence. Increasingly isolated protagonist stomps around prodding evil with pointy bits, eventually fatally prods baddie, gains glory and honor.

Speaker 1:

So once you can distinguish these two different kinds of arts, you start seeing it everywhere. So I see it in heist stories like Ocean's Eleven or the Italian Job or even Lock Sock and Two Smoking Barrels. Heist stories are all about gathering all these misfit people with really weird, interesting skills, and all of them together can go steal the thing. And then there's sports stories, the ones where a team of people comes together. It's things like Boys in the Boat or Moneyball. And then I love the sci-fi stories, the ones where it's a whole group of people teaming up, like space operas, like Star Trek or Battlestar Galactica. There's also stories like the Martian. It's one of those amazing feel-good stories where it's every single person making their own contribution to save the day in the end. There's also some superhero stories that take on a heroine's journey, the ones that are about team, like the Incredibles or Guardians of the Galaxy, and then there's so many others. Once you start to look, you see it everywhere Sitcoms, pretty much every single rom-com in existence and a whole lot of young adult fiction. I particularly love Rick Riordan.

Speaker 1:

The question is, we can see it in all of these other places when we start looking for it. Why don't we see it in leadership? Well, the answer is we do, we can see it. It's just not the kind of leadership that's glorified in the media or in Western culture. It doesn't make a compelling soundbite.

Speaker 1:

So, like, imagine a leader gets a microphone hey, you just had a bunch of success. Why was that? What did you do? Well, you take the microphone and say well, it's not me who accomplished it, it's my team. Let me tell you about some of them. Yeah, see, not a great soundbite. Or maybe you'd say I couldn't have done it without a lot of help. See, that doesn't fit into the narrative. Or maybe I didn't want this leadership role in the first place and there was nobody else willing to take it on, so I had to.

Speaker 1:

None of those make compelling stories in that hero's journey sense and so therefore it's not forwarded that way. But when you take a look, when you slow down, you see that there's tons and tons of leaders who did follow a heroine's journey path. Recently I did a workshop where I put quotes from leaders all around the room. Here's my top 10 favorite ones, all of whom follow a heroine's journey path. There's Lao Tzu, who said a leader is best when people barely knows he exists. When his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say we did it ourselves. Oh, isn't that beautiful. There's Arnold Glasgow. A good leader takes a little more than his share of the blame, a little less than his share of the credit. Nelson Mandela A leader is like a shepherd he stays behind the flock letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind. Teddy Roosevelt had a beautiful one the best executive is the one with the sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done and the self-restraint to keep from meddling with them while they do it.

Speaker 1:

Mahatma Gandhi said Our ability to reach unity in diversity will be the beauty and the test of our civilization. Of course there's Brene Brown. I define a leader as anyone who takes responsibility for finding the potential in people and processes and who has the courage to develop that potential. Maria Lettel says, contrary to popular belief, the best way to climb to the top of the ladder is to take others up there with you. Jacinda Ardern said one of the criticisms I've faced over the years is that I'm not aggressive enough or assertive enough, or maybe somehow, because I'm empathetic, it means I'm weak. I totally rebel against that. I refuse to believe that you cannot be both compassionate and strong. Margaret Mead said Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, concerned citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. And number 10, ruth Bader Ginsburg Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.

Speaker 1:

I love those. So when all you know is the hero's journey, you can force fit a lot of leader stories into a hero's journey mold. But now that you know about the heroine's journey too, now that you can slow down enough to get beneath that media spin which glorifies going it alone, doing it yourself, brave against all odds, when you can push back against that superhero nonsense, there's a very different that might fit you better. So take a pause. I want you to think about the hero's journey versus the heroine's journey, and I want you to think about your own self. What kind of journey are you on? Are you looking for greatness and success and achievement? If so, power to you. Absolutely, embrace that hero's journey. That is a wonderful model. But for everybody else, consider that there's a different model that might fit you better. That's the heroine's journey, one where it's not about going it alone, but it's about doing it in team, looking for ways to partner and collaborate and compromise, to delegate and find partnership, to look for belonging. Those two different narrative arcs offer different models, different dramatic arcs for leadership for life. Which one fits you? Which journey do you want to be on? Pick All right back to the show.

Speaker 1:

It's funny when I look back on my days as a faculty member at Chico State and the moment that the former department chair said that I was the right person to lead the department when he retires. I stood there in shock for a long time. Me, why me? I don't want this. I'm not some brave, bold hero to save the day. I wanted to go back to my classroom and just teach, please. I couldn't see myself like the other, mostly male department chairs fighting over closet space and hires and budgets. And in that system at that time, with the leadership that was in place, it was a hero's world. It wasn't the right fit for me, both because of the system that I was in, but also because I was trying to fit into a hero's journey which didn't fit me. It was the wrong narrative arc for me in the wrong institution that favored heroes.

Speaker 1:

But after that I became the principal superintendent of Chrysalis Charter School. It was a teacher-powered school, which means that the teachers actually run the school. They control the budget, they control the hires, they control salaries. It was a place which fully favored the Heroids journey. All about teamwork, collaboration and delegation, each person finding and leaning into their strengths and skills. And suddenly leadership felt natural to me At Chico. And suddenly leadership felt natural to me At Chico leadership was work. At Chrysalis it was play.

Speaker 1:

I didn't know about the heroine's journey then, but I was living it. And now, as a leadership coach, it's even better because I get to do things like create a women's leadership retreat among sea caves and towering trees. It's a place that intentionally creates a heroine's journey narrative arc over four days and it helps people for whom the hero's journey doesn't fit. It helps those women or people see the narrative arc of their own leadership history in a different light. And what do you know? My book's dramatic arc? Yes, it's a discovery arc, but it's also a heroine's journey arc. And once I realized that the writing got easier and the shape of my book made sense, I did have to rewrite huge big sections and reorder things and add in pieces that were missing. But now, settling into my book, it doesn't feel like putting on someone else's clothes. It feels like putting on a cozy pair of soft, well-fitting jeans.

Speaker 1:

And that's the episode. You know, I'm still adjusting to this whole podcasting thing. How was that? It was an episode with very little science and a lot, a lot of story. Would you please drop me a line at my website, irenesaltercom, on the contact page. I would really love to hear your feedback as I map out the next few months of episodes. Tell me what you want to hear, tell me what you like how much science, how much story, how much strategy. And with that, I'd love to thank the people who made this podcast possible Tyler Lockamy, who is my sound producer and editor. Robin Canfield, who did all of the web development. Tessa Borquez, who keeps my life in line.

Speaker 1:

In the show notes, you're going to find links to the books, movies and stories I mentioned, as well as the Women's Leadership Retreat that I co-facilitate with my best friend and fellow executive coach, tootie Tagerly.

Speaker 1:

If you would like to indulge in a four-day, three-night heroine's journey of your very own to discover your leadership identity and find a surrogate family to belong to, then please come join us in Mendocino. We'd love to have you. Finally, would you please do me two favors. First, do you know a leader or friend who's surviving, not thriving? Maybe they need to learn about the heroine's journey and see how that fits their narrative arc? If so, text them a link to the show. Share it on social media, because you never know who might find the answer they're looking for in this episode. And secondly, please click the follow button on Spotify, google, apple or wherever you get your podcasts. That will ensure you find out about the next episode. We're going to take a trip to Paris to learn about the neuroscience of beauty, and then I'm going to take you back home to find beauty in your work and in your life. Join me here next time at the Leaders Playground.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Irene Salter, PhD

Host