By Vivek Bapat
Banyans are among the world’s largest and longest-living trees. Not surprisingly, the banyan’s visual distinctiveness has come to symbolize magnificence, immortality and stature—attributes associated with strong leadership.
There are good reasons this metaphor is so popular. Like the banyan, many well-regarded leaders get their start by capitalizing on a nascent opportunity. Similar to the branches and roots of the banyan, they flourish by surrounding themselves with like-minded colleagues, bonding around the core.
However, as the banyan’s roots grow out from the center into what resembles a formidable trunk, the canopy surrounds and suffocates the original host tree, leaving a hollow core. And banyans seek to dominate surrounding trees, discouraging other plants from growing in the dense canopy of their leaves.
In stark contrast to the banyan is the lowly dandelion. You’d be hard-pressed to find a management guru who would recommend that executives lead like dandelions. But could the small, frail dandelion offer a better metaphor for contemporary leadership?
Dandelions fall under a class known as beneficial weeds—they help the plants around them. Dandelions also attract bees and other insects that enable pollination. They may not be the showiest plants, but they improve the environment.
The resilient, flexible, nurturing style of the dandelion might be better suited to the digital world and its constant change than the rigid, inflexible style of leadership reflected by the banyan. Like the dandelion, which knows its time is short, new leaders now have months, not decades, to succeed.
A dandelion can find a way to grow with minimal resources. Who hasn’t seen one popping up between the cracks in a concrete sidewalk? Similarly, today’s most resilient digital companies are lean and dandelion-tough. While in the past, disruptive ideas often starved and died because of a lack of capital investments, today, the democratization of technology —in computing, cloud, social media and big-data analytics—lets business leaders deploy, test and scale new ideas more cheaply than before.
Resilient leaders choose their metaphors carefully, keep their egos in check and leave their environments richer than they found them, clearing the way for new leaders to take root.
Vivek Bapat is senior vice president and global head of marketing strategy at SAP SE.