The WICS approach to leadership: Stories of leadership and the structures and processes that support them

This article presents the WICS approach to leadership and relates it to other approaches. Effective leadership is viewed as a synthesis of wisdom, creativity, and intelligence (WICS). It is in large part a decision about how to marshal and deploy these resources. One needs creativity to generate ideas, academic intelligence to evaluate whether the idea are good, practical intelligence to implement the ideas and persuade others of their worth, and wisdom to balance the interests of all stakeholders and to ensure that the actions of the leader seek a common good. The structures and processes underlying WICS work in concert to produce and maintain stories of leadership. These stories in turn enable leaders to fulfill their mission in leading followers.