Utilizing cool posing narrative and technique as leadership strategies among underrepresented individuals

Abstract “Cool posing” narrative and technique—or story and style—has implications for changes in how schools and organizations think about leadership. Cool posing is showing restrained emotion to gain advantages through the use of counterpoint to puzzle and baffle rivals. The intention to be paradoxical and confusing aids the narration of appropriate techniques that offset unfavorable situations and images. Cool posing is as much a part of some underrepresented groups' performance as their sense of self, and as valuable. This strategy is frequently exhibited orally through metaphor, which transforms facts into novel accounts of reality. It is as though the ability to comprehend their experience through cool posing provides many with “the only ways to perceive and experience much of the world” (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, p. 239). Leaders in schools and organizations could benefit by implementing the strategies suggested here that seek stability and flexibility for those underrepresented individuals traditionally studying, working, and living in less than adequate conditions. Findings suggest the consideration of additional intellectual dimensions aside from the traditional logical and mathematical ones as indicators of valid and reliable aptitude. These further dimensions include the interrelated elements of cool posing, which are spirituality (a vitalistic approach to life), verve (high levels of stimulation), movement (the interweaving of rhythm and dance), harmony (one's fate interrelates with others'), emotion (an emphasis on feelings), orality (a preference for both speaking and listening performances), expressive individualism (the cultivation of spontaneous expression), personal time (the belief that time is passing through a social space), and communalism (a commitment to social connectedness) (Boykins, as cited in Majors, 1987/2003a). Leaders need to broaden their ideas of standard leadership and become transformational and transformed to respond to less heard voices that scream as loudly as those that benefit through full representation. Innovative leaders can emerge from underrepresented groups and thrive in industries that become skilled at converting deficit orientations to resource orientations through “patience, a certain flexibility in world view, and a generous tolerance” (Lakoff & Johnson, p. 231). Knowledge from this study may equip teachers and leaders in multiethnic schools and organizations to respond empathetically across racial and ethnic boundaries of difference.