Gentle Leadership

I want to connect several ideas that crossed my path recently. Last week I spoke with a life coach about the concept of gentle leadership and leadership elements I admire such as interaction, communication, genuine interest, and being proactive. Then there were two posts on a social marketing listserv last week: one about Disney branding produce and another about “behavior placement” in Hollywood.

How does gentle leadership apply when it comes to working with children and families about food? I feel that nutrition advocates, local food supporters, and even people encouraging something as simple sounding as “healthy food” can often come across as top down or elitist. Not gentle at all. People get defensive and say, “Who are you to tell me what to eat?” How would a gentle leader persuade people to eat a healthier diet? What does gentle leadership look like when it comes to nutrition? What would the components of gentle leadership be?

Well, Disney’s getting in on the discussion – but I don’t know how gentle it is. They are branding the produce aisle. Disney characters are now tied to everything from fresh peaches and plums to spinach and canned green beans.

Is this good or bad? I don’t think it’s that simple. It’s good if more children are asking for fruit and vegetables. And apparently they are – what kid wouldn’t love a banana with a Curious George sticker on it? It’s also good if parents feel that retailers are “on their side” and helping families fight the obesity epidemic. But what do the big corporations get out of this (and they always get something)? In a CNN.com article, a farmer participating in the Disney program said, “The only way for us to grow our markets is to increase the consumption of fresh fruit among kids.” So is it about growing markets or growing healthy kids?

Again, the question I face daily is how to get children interested in eating healthy food? Another post on the social marketing listserv discussed the concept of getting Hollywood to promote certain behaviors – behavior placement – similar to product placements that already appear on TV and in movies. Pepsi Co. pays big money for the Pepsi can to sit nonchalantly on the kitchen table of a sitcom set.

Is behavior placement a good strategy to encourage healthy eating? It seems to have happened with smoking – few TV shows feature characters that smoke anymore. It’s still on the big screen, but it appears to have decreased. So can social marketers encourage writers to bring in more healthy eating habits to their scripts? Would it still be funny if families ate well balanced meals with fresh produce on primetime? I think mom’s burned meatloaf gets more laughs than salad. But I have to believe that it couldn’t hurt to have TV provide a little gentle leadership in this area.

If you’re interested in social marketing, you can join the discussion on a listserve. It’s an e-mail list for social marketers to share information, ask questions and offer comments. It’s run by Dr. Alan Andreasen at Georgetown University. To be placed on the list, send an email message to: listproc@listproc.georgetown.edu with the following in the body of the message: subscribe soc-mktg yourname. Type your actual name in place of "yourname."