Leadership traits of Clown fish – Learn the important HR message

Certain corporate leaders are extremely smart to follow the leadership style of ‘clown fish’. The question is whether we should call such leaders ‘chameleon’ or ‘clown fish’? To answer the question correctly, one should know the real definition of the clown fish leadership style and what it means in real management language.

Clownfishes, otherwise called as ‘anemone’ fish are small, brilliantly coloured aquatic animal more often seen in places where sea anemones densely grow. Interestingly the clown fishes are ‘hermaphrodites’ having the sex organs of both male and female present within the same animal.

The school of clown fish is represented by a single dominant female and multiple males. The female is bigger in size than the males. The female clown fish is the one that controls the group by occupying the highest position in the hierarchy.

The interesting thing about the clown fish society is that when the dominant female dies due to some reason, the dominant male in the group immediately sense the leadership gap and become female clown fish. Once it changes its gender from male to female, it develops all the characteristics of female and become the leader of the group.

This typical leadership behaviour is seen in many people incorporate. To get the position and power, all of a sudden, they totally and completely change their behaviour, attitude, qualities, working style etc. People may wonder how these people can change so ludicrously. These people cannot be compared to chameleons as the changes they display characteristics that temporary’ in nature.

Many people in the corporate may wonder as for how to describe some leaders who exhibit such an unimaginable character change like clown fish? Are such people worth to be called as leaders?

The issue needs to be understood from the larger perspective. In the clown fish school, many males hobnob around a single female not only for achieving their mating success but also seeing an appropriate opportunity to become the leader of the entire group. They are hermaphrodites. What we see them as male is only what is seen or expressed at the given point in time. The hidden traits are largely unseen or not understood. When an appropriate opportunity is available, the unseen qualities dominate the behaviour. They, in fact, are waiting for the opportunity to shift from one gender to another. The management message is that please understand the people around you. Do not go by what you see but always remember the existence of something beyond and totally different from what is seen or understood.

If the understanding is not correct, the mind would always love to settle with ‘blames’ and ‘complains’ about others. Learn from nature about different aspects of management; indeed learn from clown fishes as well. Such learning will certainly help you to understand the different leadership dimensions.

Dr S Ranganathan