The Leadership of Alice and Dorothy
These two legends of literature have many great pearls of wisdom, especially regarding leadership. Recently, I read both Alice in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz, and I find it interesting how much of each adventure has been left out of the popular movie adaptations. Still, and more importantly, I was surprised at the number of applicable life lessons to be learned from Alice and Dorothy.
The Leadership of Alice and Dorothy
As she navigated her new surroundings, Alice (self-leadership) kept a curious, open-minded, solution-oriented mindset. With every decision she makes, she accepts the consequences (drinking the potion and shrinking, eating the muffin and becoming a giant, etc.) and pauses to consider her new options. When her emotions overcome her, as they always do when we are young and frustrated, she allows herself to feel the weight of those emotions, stands up, dusts herself off, and moves ahead.
Curiosity: being interested in a subject without being tied to an outcome.
My favorite leadership trait Alice shows us is the power of curiosity and the importance of asking questions. With each obstacle she faces, Alice gathers information about her new surroundings, and instead of getting frustrated, she gets curious. Her curiosity and persistent questioning of anyone who would listen allowed her to quickly overcome whatever situation she was facing on her way through Wonderland.
Dorothy (team leadership) had one mission: to get home. Along the way, she met a scarecrow seeking a brain (knowledge), a tin man seeking a heart (faith), and a lion seeking courage (leadership). She admits she doesn’t know how to help each character, but Dorothy does an essential thing great leaders do: invites them to join her in her journey. Leadership can often be a lonely pursuit, but it does not have to be. Dorothy says, “Come with me,” With each new connection she makes, she accepts the person for their perceived flaws while strengthening her team and herself.
In the story, Dorothy is about 12 years old, but her age doesn’t stop her from leading these three grown-ups on a journey to Oz, fighting apple-throwing trees, the witch’s flying monkeys, and a drug-induced coma from the poppyseed field. Dorothy is sent on a mission to prove herself worthy of the attention and assistance of Oz, and with her team, she is successful. When Dorothy returns to Oz, the Wizard is ungrateful and sends her on a mission. Dorothy, now having proved to her team and, more importantly, to herself, stands up to the Wizard and announces she will not go on another mission. She demands the Wizard follow through with his promise, displaying the confidence that only comes from having gone on the journey from which she recently returned.
There are many more pearls of wisdom in these two books, and I highly suggest you grab them both and revisit them as an adult, especially if you are in a leadership position for young minds.
Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carol (1865)
The Wizard of Oz, Frank Baum (1900)
#leadershipdevelopment #character #fiction #literaturewisdom
