A Synopsis of Select Leadership Theories
An extensive literature on leadership exists:
1. Historical writings, including philosophies of leadership; e.g., Machiavelli’s The Prince;
2. Biographies of great leaders and comparative works; e.g., Schlesinger’s 1000 Days,
Morris’ Theodore Rex, or Plutarch’s Lives; and
3. Formal (empirical) studies, written primarily after the emergence of the social sciences;
e.g., Stogdill (1974) and later Bass (1981) produced masterly overviews in The
Handbook of Leadership.
These studies have emerged from every discipline that has had some interest in the subject of
leadership: anthropology, history, politics, public administration, management, military science,
nursing administration, (higher) education administration, psychology, sociology, organizational
behavior, philosophy, and religious studies.
Yet, leading theorists (e.g., Rost, Burns, Bennis, & Mintzberg) have argued that most leadership
studies have been seriously flawed:
 First, few studies have satisfactorily defined or operationalized what leadership actually
is. Like art (and other things), we often seem to “know it only when we see it.”
 Second, social scientists usually approached the multifaceted leadership phenomenon
from unidisciplinary perspectives.
 Third, many studies have been prescriptive, descriptive, hortatory, or only primitively
empirical. Rigorous, comparative analysis has emerged only in the past several decades.
Reemergence of Trait Theories, circa 1940s-1950’s
During WWII, the question often asked was, “What traits do a nation’s (military) leaders need to
win the war?” Researchers began to view leadership as a set of facilitative “traits”:
Leadership is “…the process of arranging a situation so that various members of a group,
including the leader, can achieve common goals with maximum economy and a
minimum of time and work” (Bellows, 1949).
The U.S. government, through defense-research spending, began subsidizing study of leadership
effectiveness, which spawned interest throughout academe.
 Key Question: What universal traits are common to all leaders?
What We Think We Know About the Relationship between Traits and Leadership:
 Pure-trait (“Great Man”) theories of leadership have been laid to rest, but traits probably
do matter…
 …by how much, however, is unclear. Studies (I use this term loosely) conducted over 80
years have identified a wide array of traits said to influence leadership effectiveness.
 A few traits seem to find validation across widely ranging studies…
Major Surveys of Research on Leadership Traits and Characteristics, 1948-1991
Stogdill (1948)
Mann (1959)
Stogdill (1974)
Kirkpatrick(1986)
Lord (1991)
Intelligence
Insight
Alertness
Responsibility
Initiative
Persistence
Self-confidence
Sociability
Intelligence
Adjustment
Masculinity
Dominance
Extroversion
Conservatism
Achievement
Insight
Persistence
Initiative
Self-confidence
Responsibility
Cooperativeness
Tolerance
Influence
Sociability
Intelligence
Dominance
Masculinity
Drive
Integrity
Motivation
Confidence
Cognative ability
Task knowledge
Research Methods Used in Trait Research
1. Selection of persons occupying positions of leadership – leadership regarded as
synonymous with holding office.
2. Choice of associates – asked members of a group who they would prefer as leaders.
3. Nomination by qualified observers – leaders were named by those deemed to be in a
position to judge.
4. Analysis of biographical or case-history data.
5. Intelligence tests and experimental designs.
6. Beginning in the 1950s, increasing use of factorial & multivariate methods utilizing
questionnaire and surveys.
Some problematical features of trait research:
 Shifting populations of interest and study samples;
 Shifting study settings;
 Irregularities in the items contained in surveys;
 Lack of clarity in definitions or constructs;
 Lack of clarity in the dependent variable;
 Particularly early on, flawed designs or weak analytic methods;
Thus, since the 1960s, many scholars have come to believe that traits likely have little impact in
isolation of other factors.
That said, there is some evidence that individual traits matter; leadership effectiveness cannot be
wholly attributed to environmental conditions.
Rather, leadership effectiveness likely owes to a complex & nuanced interaction among traits
and situational variables.
The Advent of Behavioral Theories circa 1950s-1970’s
 A series of important studies conducted in the 1950s by researchers (e.g., Shartle,
Stogdill) at Ohio State began examining leader behavior, rather than traits alone. Thus, the
emphasis began shifting toward description of what leaders do (how they behave); i.e.,
leadership.
 The Leader Behavior Description Questionnaire (LBDQ) – consisting of some 150-items
– was administered to hundreds of individuals in industrial, military, and educational
organizations.*
 Typically the research involved having subordinates complete questionnaires about their
leaders – i.e., a rating of how frequently the leader engaged in a particular behavior.
 In 1963, Stogdill published a shorter version (LBDQ-XII) that became the most widely
used survey of its kind.
 Researchers found that subordinates’ responses on the Questionnaire clustered around
two types of leader behaviors: initiating structure and consideration.
o Initiating structure behaviors involved task behaviors (e.g., scheduling work
activities, defining role responsibilities, giving structure to the work context).
o Consideration involved behaviors such as building trust, respect, and camaraderie
between leaders and followers.
Researchers concluded that these two types of behaviors are central to what leaders do: leaders
provide structure for followers and they nurture them.
Despite high internal validity & reliability, these instruments suffered from several weaknesses:
 Social desirability bias
 Questionable external validity
 Concerns that respondents simply were attributing to leaders idealized characteristics
 Much of what leaders do probably not captured by survey items
The Michigan Leadership (U-M) Studies
1960s-era research at the U-M on the impact of leaders’ behaviors on small group performance
led Michigan researchers to identify two types of leadership behaviors: employee orientation and
production orientation.
 Employee orientation behaviors, similar to the “consideration” behaviors identified by
Ohio State researchers, describes the behavior of leaders who use a strong human-relations
orientation with subordinates.
 Production orientation refers to leadership behaviors that stress the technical and
production aspects of a job.
Initially, Michigan researchers (unlike the OSU studies) conceptualized employee orientation
and production orientations as opposite ends of a single continuum; i.e., leaders with strong
human-relations skills were less oriented toward production.
When more studies were completed, Michigan reconceptualized the dimensions as separate ones,
a la Ohio State.
The U-M and OSU Studies
Throughout the 1950s-1960, researchers at OSU and U-M conducted scores of studies on how
leaders combined task and relationship behaviors.
In effect, researchers were looking for a universal theory of leadership behavior that would
explain effective leadership in every situation.
The results that emerged from those studies were contradictory and unclear: although some
research suggested the proper combination was that of high-task and high-relationship
orientations in all situations, other studies provided different and sometimes conflicting findings.
Blake and Mouton’s Grid Theory
The work of Blake and Moutin (1964, 1978) drew heavily upon the early style research; i.e., they
sought to identify the proper integration of task- and relationship behaviors.
Their “management grid” conceived of two dimensions along which managers and leaders may
vary, with scores representing the manager’s propensity toward “concern for production” and
“concern for people” ranging from 1-9.
These measures, based on questionnaire responses, interacted to create a grid anchored by five
pure style types**:
 Leaders tend to have a dominant style, which may be backed up or supplemented by
other styles.
 Even in course of a single meeting, leaders may drift among styles.
 Opportunistic leaders can use several styles interchangeably, as suits their strategic
purposes.
Research studies by Blake & Mouton:
 The career-advancement study (1964)
o Single-firm study: Managers with 9-9 style found to advance further in their careers.
o Replication involving multiple settings provided confirmatory evidence.
 The matched-subsidiary study (1978)
o Pre-post comparisons over a ten-year period.
o Treatment firm received training program emphasizing 9-9 style; control firm not
involved in any comparable program.
o Treatment subsidiary increased its profitability 400% over matched group.
Strengths of the Style Models
 Signaled an important moment in leadership research: prior to the study of leadership
styles, researchers treated leadership exclusively as a personality trait. The style approach
broadened the field of leadership studies to include what leaders do, rather than merely who
they are.
 Easily applied: a nice heuristic.
 A wide range of studies give some credibility to the findings of style-researchers,
particularly regarding the effects on follower/subordinate satisfaction.
 The essential elements of the style approach – task and relationship – influenced
subsequent generations of leadership research (e.g., Situational Theory) and industry
practice.
Weaknesses of the Early Style Models
 Hasn’t adequately shown how leaders’ styles are associated with performance outcomes.
 There is no universal leadership style, nor a style that consistently works best in a given
setting.
 Implies that the most effective leadership style is the Team Management style (“9,9”),
when in fact there is little evidence overall in support.
Situational Leadership Theory
Previously unable to determine which particular behavior patterns consistently resulted in
effective leadership, researchers began attempting to identify behavior patterns that worked best
in specific contexts or situations.
Hersey and Blanchard developed their situational leadership theory (a.k.a. life-cycle theory of
management) in the late 1960s by building on the work of the OSU and U-M teams.
In essence, the Situational Leadership approach asserts that different situations demand different
kinds of leadership. To be an effective leader, one must adapt one’s style to the demands of
different situations.
 Key Question: What leadership behaviors are most successful in specific situations?
This model emphasizes two components: leadership style and developmental level of followers.
 Leadership style may be defined as the behavior pattern of an individual who attempts to
influence others. It includes both directive (task) behaviors and supportive (relationship)
behaviors.
 Development level of subordinates refers to the degree to which employees/followers
have the competence and commitment necessary to accomplish a given task.
Employees are at higher levels of development if they are interested in their work and know how
to do their work; those with high commitment but low competence are said to be at lower levels
of development.
Effective leaders are those who exercise appropriate degree of task orientation and relationship
orientation relative to the maturity of followers. Specifically, as the level of follower maturity
increases, effective leader behavior involves less structuring and less social support.
Thus, the two dimensions – directive & supportive – must be applied appropriately in a given
situation.
How does a leader know what is needed in a particular situation? He or she must evaluate the
level of employees’ competence and commitment to perform a given task.
One assumption is that followers’ (employees’) skills (competency) and motivation
(commitment) vary over time.
Based on combinations of these two dimensions, leadership styles can be divided into four
distinct categories*:
 High directive-low supportive (S1) = “directing”
 High directive-high supportive (S2) = “coaching”
 High supportive-low directive (S3) = “supporting”
 Low supportive-low directive (S4) = “delegating”
Employees are conceptualized as moving backwards and forwards along the continuum of
development depending upon the task at hand.
 The job of leaders, therefore, is to diagnose where employees are in their development,
then adapt the leader’s style to match the needs of the follower.
 Leaders must be flexible in their leadership style.
Strengths & Weaknesses of the Situational Leadership Perspective
Strengths:
 Popular
 Practical
 Prescriptive
 Employee-specific
Weaknesses:
 Only a few studies have critically and
empirically assessed the model – and with
mixed results, at that.
 Ambiguous conceptualization of
subordinates’ development levels – e.g., no
clear explanation of how “competence” and
“commitment” are combined to create a
single construct, “development.”
 What does “commitment” mean?
 What to do with groups?
 Questionnaire construction – wording,
wording, wording.
Transactional Theories (Revived) circa 1970s
Origins of recent transactional perspectives lie in early 20th-century “management-sciences”
perspective, which subsequently (and somewhat pejoratively) became known as “transactional
theory.”
 In its original form, the perspective viewed management in economic terms – as
exchanges of rewards for good performance, punishments for poor performance.
 Heavily influenced by Frederick Taylor’s (1911) Five Principles of Scientific
Management:
o Shift all responsibility for the organization of work from the worker to the
manager.
o Use scientific methods to determine the most efficient way of doing work; design
the workers’ tasks accordingly, specifying the precise way in which it is to be
done.
o Select the best person to perform the job thus designed;
o Train the worker to do work efficiently;
o Monitor worker performance, intervening when exceptionally productive or
deficient.
In the early 1970s, theorists Jacobs (1970) & Hollander (1978) developed an updated
transactional theory of leadership. Their model:
 Brought followers into focus by highlighting power relations and the negotiations
necessary among people of unequal power and different agendas.
 Held that followers are significantly involved in negotiating any exchange or transaction
that results in a decision or a course of action.
 Acknowledged the fact that followers have minds of their own, and that their opinions
also influence the leader; i.e., leadership is a social system characterized by feedback
between leaders and followers.
Some political scientists also became interested in the exchange model of leadership because it:
1. appealed to the discipline’s interest in analysis of influence relationships,
2. reflected a certain “pluralistic” understanding of American democracy, and
3. implied a more powerful role for followers. In exchanging promises for votes, for
example, the transactional leader works within the framework of the self-interests of his
or her constituency, thus, followers are alleged to wield as much power as leaders.
The leader’s effectiveness, therefore, is defined as the extent to which he or she “delivers” on the
promises made to followers in exchange for their support; where delivery is achieved, reciprocal
support is presumed to grow, further enhancing the leader’s power, stature, and capability of
delivering on future promises made to followers.
Advocates of such an exchange theory of leadership have emphasized its normative nature, its
efficiency considerations, and its beneficial implications for followership.
Yet, there is little strong evidence in support of transactional perspectives.
Transformational Theory: Intellectual and Moral Dimensions Emerge
James MacGregor Burns, in Leadership (1978), advanced what he called transformational
leadership theory.
Burns: “[Transformational leadership] appeals to the moral values of followers…and
occurs when one or more persons engage with others in such a way that leaders and
followers raise one another to higher levels of motivation and morality” (p 20).
In effect, transformational leadership refers to the process whereby an individual engages with
others to create a bond which raises the level of motivation and morality in both the leader and
the follower – typically for the purpose of bringing substantial change to the organization.
Burns became famous among alternative leadership scholars because his model of
transformational leadership included an ethical/moral dimension that, prior to 1978, had not been
infused into any leadership theory.
Burns was one of the first scholars to assert that true leadership not only creates change and
achieves goals within the environment, but changes the people involved in the necessary actions
for the better as well: both followers and leaders are ennobled.
Drawing on Max Weber’s work, Burns viewed charismatic, heroic leaders as true leaders who,
after having changed the world, became overtaken by the unrelenting societal shift toward
bureaucracy, where transactional leadership tended to thrive.
The essence of transforming leadership, therefore, is best viewed in its juxtaposition with
transacting leadership.
 Transacting leadership motivates followers by appealing to their self-interest.
According to Burns, transactional perspectives rest on three notions:
(1) contingent rewards;
(2) active management by exception; &
(3) passive management by exception.
Together, these approaches may induce follower compliance, but is unlikely to generate
enthusiasm and commitment.
Capitalism yields society three types of leaders:
(1) charismatic,
(2) feudal, and
(3) bureaucratic.
The advent of the modern bureaucratic state institutionalized the bureaucratic leader, alienating
the hero, prince or superman/superwoman – modernism has tamed heroic leaders.
The herd abhors a non-bureaucratic leader. Departmentalization (division of labor), hierarchy,
and now teams have de-fanged the executive leader.
Global corporate society has drifted into the anonymity of the virtual corporate network,
subcontracting to factories, who subcontract to unknown producers.
As a result, leaders are alienated from their own will to power.
Leadership has been defined in ways that permit the organization to survive without risk.
“Initiating structure” and “consideration” are attempts to cage leadership within the
bureaucratic/human relations frame; powerful leadership is dead; “system” predominates.
In the bureaucratic model, people are selected, trained, and disciplined to no longer see
themselves as powerful. Leaders must alienate themselves from power and politics, the stuff of
feudal and charismatic organization, that which bureaucracy was intended to displace. In the
bureaucracy there is no room for powerful performances.
The leader must pretend to be impersonal and hide behind committees (teams), reports, charts
and numbers.
Burns’s Transformational Leadership
In contrast to the transactional or bureaucratic leader, the theory that Burns – and, later, Bass –
espoused argued that transformational leaders evoke from their followers feelings of trust,
admiration, loyalty and respect by:
(1) Making them aware of the importance of task outcomes;
(2) Inducing them to transcend their own self-interest for the sake of the group (“Leadership
is nothing if not linked with collective purpose”);
(3) Activating their higher-order needs.
In effect, the transforming leader focuses on ends, while the transacting leader negotiates and
bargains over the means.
Burns saw leadership as a structured interaction between leader and followers that permits
significant social processes of change.
Transformational changes within society embrace material, psychological, cultural, and
institutional dimensions.
When the transforming leader engages others by exploiting their higher-order needs, the
resulting collective act produces a relationship of mutual stimulation and elevation that converts
followers into leaders and may convert leaders into moral agents.
 “Power…is exercised when potential power wielders, motivated to achieve certain goals
of their own, marshal in their power base resources (economic, military, institutional, or
skill) that enable them to influence the behavior of respondents by activating motives of
respondents relevant to those resources and to those goals…Leaders are a particular kind of
power holder. Like power, leadership is relational, collective, and purposeful. Leadership
shares with power the central function of achieving purpose. …All leaders are actual or
potential power holders, but not all power holders are leaders” (p. 18).
 “Authority was…legitimated power. But it was legitimated by tradition, religious
sanction, rights of succession, and procedures…” (p. 24).
 Ultimately, the moral legitimacy of transformational leadership is grounded in conscious
choice among real alternatives” (p. 36).”
Burns’ Four Categories of Transformational Leader
 Intellectual
o An intellectual leader is devoted to seeing ideas and values that transcend
immediate practical needs and still change and transform their social milieu.
o The concept of intellectual leadership brings in the role of conscious purpose
drawn from values. The intellectual leader is out of step with their own time, in
conflict with the status quo. The intellectual leader is a person with a vision that
can transform society by raising social consciousness.
 Reform
o Leadership of reform movements requires participation of a large number of allies
with various reform and nonreform goals of their own, which means dealing with
endless divisions in the ranks, and a collective that is anti-leadership.
o Reform leadership by definition implies moral leadership, which means an
attention to matching the means to the ends. Reform leaders transform parts of
society to realize moral principles.
o Burns uses the example of Charles Grey who, in 1792, proposed a bill to reform
Parliament that would split the Whig party. He undertook the illegalization of the
slave trade, a poor act, the India Bill, and a factory act. Grey put together
coalitions and put through reforms that were selected instead of revolution. The
combined Reform Bill became law, after much posturing and debate, in 1832.
Grey displayed timing, steadiness of purpose, and mediation skills as a reform
leader.
 Revolutionary
o "In its broadest meaning revolution is a complete and pervasive transformation of
an entire social system" (p. 202). Such transformation means the creation of a
new ideology, the rise of a movement, and the zeal to overthrow the status quo,
and can result in the reconstruction of economy, education, law, and even social
class.
o Revolutionary leadership demands commitment, persistence, courage, perhaps
selflessness. Whereas, “the reformer” operates on the parts, the revolutionary
operates on the whole.
o Revolutionary leaders have strong sense of vision, mission, and end-values, the
transcendent purpose. A transcendent purpose and strong will is needed to
motivate masses of people to revolt in the service of revolution. A little
propaganda helps, too.
o Luther, Lenin, Mao and Fidel Castro
 Heroic
o For Burns, Moses is the epitome of charismatic heroic leadership. Moses led the
Hebrew people out of slavery in Egypt. He is depicted, in Exodus, as a vigorous
and decisive leader. And God revealed himself to Moses, which is proof of his
charisma.
o As leader, Moses is surrounded by an endless number of needs, people demands,
requests for decisions, and problems to solve, for the role of a leader in Israel is
not only to defend, redeem, preach and govern, but also, and primarily, to nurture.
o Moses is the savior of Israel and their teacher and legislator, but also their
"faithful shepherd" and "shepherd of faith" - meaning that he is the provider of
their needs, both materially and spiritually, feeding their bodies with manna and
feeding their souls with faith."
Bass’s Critique of Burns
Bass concluded that Burns' stories were too messy, too hard to interpret, and thus Bass
endeavored to construct instruments to convert “story” to factor analytic survey questions. Bass
accused Burns of three errors:
(1) Burns did not pay attention to the portfolio of followers' needs and wants,
(2) Burns restricted transformational leadership to moral ends, and,
(3) Burns set up a single continuum running from transactional to transformational leaderly
types.
Bass contends that "most leaders do both (transformation and transaction) in different amounts"
and that "transformational and transactional leadership are likely to be displayed by the same
individual in different amounts and intensities" (p. 26).
"The transactional leaders works within the organizational culture as it exists; the
transformational leader changes the organizational culture." The transformational leader even
"changes the social warp and woof of reality." In sum, transformational is hierarchically superior
to transactional leadership valuation, but all leaders practice some form or degree of transactional
leadership, too.
More Recent Elaborating on Transformational Leadership
Bennis and Nanus (1985) studied 90 top corporate leaders. Their list of newly discovered leader
traits include: logical thinking, persistence, empowerment, and self-control.
But, most of all they rediscovered transformational (leaders) as being different from transactional
(managers). The transformation is to make followers into self-empowered leaders and into
change agents. The leader's job is to articulate Vision and Values clearly so the new selfempowered leaders know where to go.
Bennis and Nanus’ “Traits of a Transformational Leader:”
 Idealized Influence (leader becomes a role model)
 Inspirational Motivation (team spirit, motivate, and provide meaning and challenge).
 Intellectual Stimulation (creativity & innovation)
 Individual Consideration (mentoring)
Some recent empirical evidence lends support to the Transformational perspective, but
several weakness exist:
 Conceptual muddling of wants and needs;
 Confusion surrounding elitist-egalitarian impulses;
 Questionable implications for democratic systems;
 Propensity toward psychological manipulation;
 Insufficient description of explanatory processes;
 Narrow focus on dyadic relationships;
 Insufficient attention to situational variables.
Sternberg’s “Tiarchic” Theory of Managerial Effectiveness”
(Also known as “Successful Intelligence Theory.”)
His theory (circa 1980s) challenges conventional conceptions regarding the adequacy of
memory-analytical intelligence in explaining managerial job performance.
Conventionally, many psychologists and psychometricians argue that memory-analytical
intelligence – typically measured by so-called “Model-I” intelligence tests [e.g., IQ tests, SAT,
GRE] and numerically estimated as ‘g’, or general intelligence – is the best predictor of future
job performance.
Instead, Sternberg argues that we need to broaden our conception of intelligence. He argues that
memory-analytical intelligence is necessary, but itself insufficient, to explain success in
managerial roles; rather he advances the following “Model II” conceptualization:
(g + p + c = mp), where
g = general intelligence
p = practical intelligence
c = creative intelligence
mp = managerial performance
Managerial performance is enhanced when leaders capitalize on all three dimensions of
intelligence, not just the analytical dimension.
Alternatively, successful intelligence derives from one’s ability to analyze, think creatively, and
apply practical insights in solving problems.
Practical intelligence, or “common sense”, refers to knowledge that is action-oriented, acquired
without help from others, and allows individuals to achieve goals they personally value.
It is tacit knowledge – knowledge that is practically useful to the attainment of workplace goals
and usually acquired on one’s own. According to Sternberg, such knowledge is “unspoken,
underemphasized, and typically poorly conveyed relative to its importance for practical success.”
Sternberg’s “Investment theory of creativity” refers to people who are willing and able to “buy
low and sell high” in the realm of ideas.
 Buying low means pursuing an idea that is unknown or out of favor, but has growth
potential. The creative individual peddles the idea even in the face of resistance, “selling”
and moving on to a new idea before interest in the original one peaks.
 In summary, Sternberg argues, the successfully intelligent person is one who has the
dynamic abilities to (1) figure out their strengths and capitalize on them, and (2) figure out
their weaknesses and compensate for them – tasks that require practical, creative, and
analytical intelligence.
Gardner’s Cognitive Perspective on Leadership
According to Gardner, a leader is one who significantly affects the thoughts, feeling and/or
behaviors of a significant number of individuals.
Drawing on cognitive psychology, Gardner argues that leadership resides in the narratives of the
human mind and in the leader’s embodiment of narrative.
In focusing on human cognition as the arena within which leadership occurs, Gardner moves
beyond other approaches that center exclusively on the traits leaders possess or on the behaviors
they perform.
By “cognition, Gardner also juxtaposes his view with that of behaviorism and psychoanalysis.
The cognitive theory fundamentally is about one’s relating of stories.
The cognitive development of the audience is critical. Three developmental phases:
1. The 5-Year-Old Mind is “Unschooled:”
 An avid consumer of stories
 Stories of identity
 Stories characterized by rigid dualities:
o Fairy tales
o Binary conflicts
o Good vs. Evil
o “Us” and “them”
2. The 10-Year-Old Mind is “Fair to a Fault”
3. The 15-Year-Old Mind “Revels in Relativism”
4. The Adult Mind Synthesizes
Leaders fashion stories of identity.
The leader must tell the story well, but must also embody the story. One without the other
neutralizes the relational dimension necessary for the key cognitive processes of identity
formation to occur.
“Leaders present a dynamic perspective to their followers; not just a headline or a snapshot but a
drama that unfolds over time, in which they – the leader and followers – are the principal
characters or heroes.”
Leaders tell stories, but stories may take different forms:
 Stories may be ordinary, whereby the narrative simply relates the conventional story as
effectively as possible;
 Stories may be innovative, whereby the narrative brings a new twist to latent
understandings in the population; or
 Stories may be visionary, whereby the narrative represents an altogether new story.
According to Gardner, the most effective leaders are those who:
 Convey a story that is both simplistic and complex, ranging across the developmental
lifespan;
 Have ties to the communities to whom they convey the story;
 Embody the story they tell.