Are You Leading Your Readers Well?

One of the areas of specialization I work in is Leadership, in particular the fundamental skills one must have in order to interact effectively with their employees. This too is relevant as an author to the reader. Now don't get me wrong - I'm not saying an author IS a formal leader in the corporate sense - I am referring to the notion that we are leading our readers on a journey! So as a writer I struggle with the constant idea that someone might, hopefully, one day read (and enjoy) my work, and as I create I can't help but keep that in the back of my mind. So what are the essential skills of leadership that relate to writing, for me?

1) Basic social skills. 

I can hear you, "what is this chick smoking?" but seriously, how many people/managers have you worked with over the years who lack this?  As a writer, you greet your reader with your very first words. Hands up who has ever struggled with that first, crucial sentence? 

You introduce your reader to your characters, to the plot, to the feeling of your story. I’ve worked with a leader who does not greet her team. She does not say good morning upon arrival, she does not say good night - even in direct response to an employee's greeting. You speak when spoken to, are acknowledged only at her need. Imagine how this makes her employees feel? Would they want to go on a journey with her? So many people are promoted into leadership roles because they’re good at their current job. Unfortunately, those who can do, cannot always teach or lead. I’ve seen some steady, average performers make exceptional leaders, while outstanding performers have not had a clue. As a writer you need to acknowledge your reader, introduce them to your story, and be presently aware of the experience that you wish to give them. It's only polite.

2) Empathy.

Reflection of fact and feeling. How do you want your reader to feel? What is your objective? I find that it's much easier to write about things I have experienced myself (a challenge considering my passion is fantasy) because I have walked in the shoes of my character and experienced the fact and feeling I am describing. 

A leader needs empathy, or at worst, needs to know how to fake it. Recently I heard of a situation where a person had to inform their manager of the passing of a family member. Phone calls were not returned, text messages ignored, emails not responded to. Finally the poor sod had to contact another person in the organization just so they knew for sure that somebody was aware of their situation. In this case the leader didn't even make the effort to acknowledge the issue and fake sympathy, let alone go so far as to display empathy. Upon the employees return to work the death was not even acknowledged. So life goes on, a week later apparently, in this manager's eyes.

But what is my point? As a writer, we need to walk the emotions we want our reader to experience. If we want our reader to cry, then we too should be moved to tears. Walk the talk people, and if you can’t, fake it til you make it!

3) Listening skills.

A vital skill in leadership, and also in general! Ever tell someone something and know they're hearing you, but not understanding you? Frustrating, yeah? Many encounters with Call Centre staff often result in this phenomenon. Well, as a reader you need to know that the writer is LISTENING to you, and as a writer you need to be aware of your audience. It’s called showing each other mutual respect.

This is a subtle art form to master. I am always wondering about my reader: as they read my writing, what are they THINKING? How am I HEARING their thoughts and am I understanding them?

I'm probably not making sense, so let me try and explain.

I'm going to call on Wilbur Smith's Eqyptian series here, which I love dearly. In his first novel, River God, Smith paints a picture of main character Queen Lostris in such a way that the reader falls in love with her (as was his intention). She is an exotic, creamy skinned, green-eyed brunette who the lead character, Taita, loves unconditionally. We spend the entire novel reading of Lostris' exploits along with that of her family and kingdom. In a follow up novel, Warlock, Lostris is referred to repeatedly, and one of her descendants is described, again in reference to her great beauty, slanted green eyes and “dark, glossy tresses.”

Fast forward to the final novel in the series, The Quest, where we again meet the same character Lostris, reincarnated.

But her appearance is completely different, as is her name. In the earlier novels, Lostris’ “discarded” baby name was Lanata. This was repeatedly emphasized due to the fact that the love of her life chose to name his weapon Lanata also. In The Quest, Smith changes that name to Fenn, so now the character we’ve known and loved as Lanata, is now Fenn. What he then also does is change the characters appearance.

Now, imagine if in the fourth Harry Potter novel JKR suddenly decides that Harry James Potter is now Henry Scott Potter, with blond hair, blue eyes and a heart shaped scar on his chin. I mean, it caused enough of a scandal when she changed Hermione's middle name from Jane to Jean in HP7! Well, this is exactly what Smith chose to do. His changes were THAT drastic and also came accompanied with a huge amount of inconsistencies, errors and changes to the personalities of characters from previous novels. It was like both the author and the editor were asleep at the wheel – the Wilbur Smith forums EXPLODED after the novel was released, and not for the right reasons. So my point is instead of being taken on a journey, I found myself stuck in a pit-stop of confusion, and yes, with feelings of betrayal.

Smith did not listen to his readers, nor did he write with respect for them and the emotions they had invested in his characters.

Then we have the complete opposite happening elsewhere where authors are taking Listening to a WHOLE new level! Lauren Kate, author of the best selling Fallen series talked in a recent interview  (03/08/2011) about how she worked WITH her fan base to draw inspiration for the plot of her next novel, Rapture. She has woven their ideas and experiences into it, in homage to them and as a way of interacting with her readers in a way that she normally wouldn’t get to. This is quite extreme to me, and a concept I'm not entirely comfortable with, but I'm prepared to wait and read, before judging.

4) Finally, the ability to motivate, inspire and get people to act on your instructions because they WANT to, not because you force them to.

As a writer, you need to inspire and motivate your reader to want to drink in every last word. Has anyone had the pleasure of wading through Justin Cronin's The Passage, or Christopher Paolini's Inheritance series?

In both situations I found myself skipping ENTIRE PAGES of prose in an attempt to get to a place where something ACTUALLY HAPPENED. The Passage is a novel that really split reviewers. I saw a lot of 1 star reviews interspersed with 5 star reviews. Cronin had a good story on his hands and for some parts of the novel I couldn’t put it down, but his execution was flawed. He went off on huge tangents, and his editor... well, I don't know what his editor did, but it didn't seem to be a lot. I won't go into it all of the reasons I thought this novel could have been SO much better, but I'd be interested if anyone else reading this agrees with me.

Fast forward to books like The Stand, It (both by Stephen King), Harry Potter, Charlotte Brontë’s celebrated novels (who I've literally only just started reading), and Jane Austin... I know this is a small snapshot but these guys KNEW how to capture, motivate and inspire their reader to READ and RE-READ through meticulous planning, execution, passion and skill.

So where was my inspiration for this ramble? Well, I'm currently sitting on an airplane, flying interstate to deliver a session to a group of Team Leaders where the objective is for them to create their own “Leadership Charter.” This is in addition to all the pre-existing leadership paraphernalia that exits throughout the billion-dollar organisation that I work for. This session will be where these Team Leaders create and agree to a defined list of behavioral statements, as a means for THEIR managers to then hold them accountable to.

Why is this necessary? Because the Leaders of these people do not have the skills to inspire, motivate, drive performance and lead their people to a point where they WANT to act consistently without coercion. It's a way of the leaders having a list of behaviours that they can then now wield as a stick for non-compliance “you helped to build these behaviours, and agreed to adhere to them, and now you’re not I’m going to punish you MWAHAHAHAHAHA!”

I, as the designer of this session, have called this deficiency out loud and clear and said WHY are we not looking at the reasons these peole are choosing not to act, instead of just creating yet another method of driving their accountability?

But nobody is, or wants, to listen.

As a reader, have you encountered authors like this? As an author, is it something you consider? What are your thoughts?