With wings spanning over six feet, the eagle soars over the trees. Its powerful, flapping wings sound like the mighty wind.
Its strong feet and curved talons comfortably grasp prey twice its size. Landing gracefully, it remains perched at the summit in all its majesty and glory.
The eagle—the king of birds—is a symbol of strength, vitality, power, and omniscience. And its greatness has inspired comparisons to the sun, earthly rulers, and imperial nations.
Photo by Patrick Brinksma on Unsplash
What Are Symbols?
Symbols predate language. They are encoded in our psyche as if they are hardwired into our brains from the moment we are born.
A symbol is a visual image that represents an idea.
Water, for example, symbolizes the moon, the feminine life force, and the unconscious.
Fire symbolizes the sun and the masculine life force that surrounds us.
Decoding the Meaning Behind Symbols
Every image—everything you can see with your eyes and in your mind’s eye—has symbolic counterparts.
When you see a ladder, your conscious mind sees a tool for climbing to higher places. Symbolically, the image of a ladder serves as a reminder of a climb toward higher consciousness or a spiritual climb to a higher truth.
Most of us aren’t conscious of symbolic meaning. We see a ladder as a ladder. But that symbolic meaning lies deep in our psyche, at the subconscious and unconscious levels.
The caduceus is the symbol of the medical profession. The center is the mythical wand of the Greek god Hermes, who used it to bestow sleep. The twin snakes coiled around the wand symbolize healing and poison, health and illness.
The five Olympic rings symbolize the union in sports of Africa, America, Asia, Europe, and Oceania. The colors represent competing nations over five continents. (One color was on each nation’s flag when the rings were conceived in 1913.)
How Symbols Are Used in Business
Brand logos are not a new phenomenon. The Ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and Chinese all stamped their goods, like bricks, pottery, and bags of herbs, with symbols to indicate who made them.
But in the 19th Century, trademarks became more than marks of origin. They became badges and symbols, representing the personality of the business.
Southwest Airlines flies its passengers with a big red heart on the belly of its planes. The heart is a symbol of the spiritual and emotional core of a human being, widely associated with love. (Not surprisingly, love is in Southwest’s ticker symbol: LUV.)
Steve Jobs’ decision to use the apple for his company’s mark was deliberate. The apple is a symbol of knowledge, awakening, creativity, and beauty.
The three-pointed star in the Mercedes-Benz logo reportedly came from inventor Gottlieb Daimler’s dream of building motor vehicles for land, air, and sea.
But the star itself is an ancient symbol. For thousands of years, stars have guided humans as they wandered in the darkness. The star represents something within us that is visionary and star-like.
It is a symbol of the Self—a higher part of us—of wisdom, guidance, and destiny. Mercedes owners are guided by this symbol whenever they get behind the wheel.
The Relationship Between Symbols, Archetypes, and Emotion
These symbolic images of our collective nature are found throughout the world, in our myths, dreams, and fantasies.
Polymath Adolf Bastian referred to them as elementary ideas. Carl Jung called them archetypes. For Jung, archetypes aren’t just elementary ideas; they also represent elementary feelings, fantasies, and visions.
Archetypes are simultaneously images and emotions. An image becomes dynamic when charged with emotion. Without emotion, the image cannot speak to us.
Symbolic images act as doorways to our inner world—the home of our fantasies, imagination, and emotions. Without emotions, life is, well, lifeless.
Archetypes, Jung explains in Man and His Symbols,
“are the pieces of life itself—images that are integrally connected to the living individual by the bridge of the emotions.”
Images tap into the emotions of our inner worlds, giving life a sense of meaning. Symbolic images are powerful because they provide this shortcut to meaning.
See also: The Ultimate Archetypes List (Over 325 of them)
How Symbols Influence Behavior
Archetypes are set patterns of behavior.
A familiar archetype is the Hero. The hero exhibits certain behaviors, such as valor, courage, selflessness, and proactivity. So if advertisers are successful at activating the hero archetype in you, they can effectively call you to take action.
It’s as if we have a library of programmed behaviors cataloged in our psyche. And how do we open these programs? Using symbols is one way.
Symbols are like keys that trigger archetypal patterns of behavior.
The Many Symbols of Leadership …
There are many different symbols of leadership.
We must, however, be careful with how we define “leadership.”
If we associate leadership with power, then symbols like crowns, thrones, robes, imperial guards, suits, orbs, and scepters come to mind.
Photo by Pro Church Media on Unsplash
The crown is an age-old symbol of power.
Photo by William Krause on Unsplash
Similarly, the throne is an age-old symbol of power.
The phoenix, “unica semper avis” (ever-singular bird).
The phoenix bird rising from the ashes is also a symbol of power that’s found throughout alchemical literature and occult doctrines.
These “leadership symbols” are designed to project power and embed the leader (or organization) with larger-than-life qualities.
Old-World Power versus New-World Leadership
But the reality is that these images are more symbols of old-world power and status than new-world leadership.
These leadership symbols represent hierarchies of dominance that our culture is trying to evolve beyond.
Very slowly—inch by inch—we hope civilized humans are making progress.
What are some of the emerging leadership symbols?
The emerging symbols of leadership include:
Photo by Felix Mittermeier on Unsplash
Chess
Chess is a leadership symbol that represents strategy.
Photo by Daniel Lerman on Unsplash
Telescope
The telescope is a leadership symbol that relates to building toward a vision.
Photo by Jack Carter on Unsplash
The Lightbulb
The light bulb is a leadership symbol that highlights the expression of creativity, the generation of inspiring new ideas, and creative problem-solving.
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
The Heart
The heart is a symbol of leadership associated with the servant leader who acts with humility and grace.
Two Additional Symbolic Leadership Archetypes
Other modern expressions of leadership symbols include:
The Entrepreneur Archetype
The entrepreneur archetype is a symbol of leadership associated with the process of innovation, team building, actualizing ideas, persistence, and follow-through.
The Coach Archetype
The coaching archetype is a leadership symbol associated with human development, skill building, and fostering team harmony.
There are many other symbols of leadership, but these powerful symbols have the wind at their back.
How Inspired Leaders Use Symbols to Move People
Ultimately, human beings—your family, team, stakeholders, colleagues, friends, and customers—are not moved, persuaded, or influenced by thoughts and words.
Feelings, emotions, and images move us. Symbols move us.
Inspired leaders communicate with passion, purpose, and vision. They use metaphors, analogies, illustrations, stories, and anecdotes to convey their ideas.
Metaphors are how archetypes first express themselves.
Leadership and the Use of Metaphors
A metaphor is a figure of speech that uses an object or idea to represent a specific meaning that is otherwise difficult to convey.
A metaphor suggests a resemblance; it uses a symbol to transfer meaning from one idea to another.
A study on presidential leadership and charisma examined the use of metaphors in the inaugural addresses of 36 presidents during their first term. Each president was independently rated on their level of charisma.1https://cognitivepolitics.ucr.edu/events/mio/mio_etal_2005.pdf
The researchers found that charismatic presidents used nearly twice as many metaphors as non-charismatic presidents.
Metaphors intrigue cognitive scientists because they are so effective at changing the way people think and behave.
Metaphors enable the rapid assimilation, retention, recall, and application of large amounts of information.
Lincoln, Leadership, and the Power of Symbols
Aristotle writes in Poetics,
“To be a master of metaphor is a sign of genius, since a good metaphor implies intuitive perception of the similarity in dissimilars.”
Abraham Lincoln used the persuasive power of metaphor and symbols liberally in his speeches. His Gettysburg Address is a 270-word testament to his mastery of metaphor.
For persuasive impact, Lincoln used metaphors of birth, death, and resurrection in his address. All three powerful metaphors represent universal primordial symbols or archetypes.
His Gettysburg Address begins,
“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”
In this powerful opening sentence, Lincoln evokes the imagery of birth in four distinct places. (I bolded them above.)
Harnessing the Power of Leadership Symbols in Business
The right symbolic image or metaphor can evoke a powerful sensory experience in those you influence, igniting a desired change of behavior.
Symbols can help establish a thriving culture, infusing enthusiasm into any organization.
The right symbolic images can also become robust attractors for your best customers.
Business leaders who harness the power of symbolic images can forge ahead with clarity, humility, creativity, and inspiration.
Read Next
10 Attributes of Visionary Leadership for Change Agents and Outperforming Entrepreneurs
Using the Hero’s Journey as a Powerful Map for Your Development
12 Brand Archetypes: How to Apply Archetypal Psychology to Marketing
thank you – bringing new awareness to established ideas
You’re most welcome, Angeline. Thanks for the comment.