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Grassroot level public officer in Sri Lanka is known as “village headman” or “Grama Niladhari”. There are 296 Grama Niladhari divisions in Polonnaruwa District and a village headman is appointed into each division to make  coordination with the government. Village headman is the government officer in each village and people link with the government through village headman in most activities like social, birth and death registration, land matters and economic development of villages. All village headmen are administered by the district secretariat, and the district secretary is the department head of the institution. In that period, around 100 newly appointed village headmen were recruited to our office for a training program for 3 months. There was an inauguration ceremony on the very first day of the training program, and the district secretary chaired the occasion. On that occasion, the district secretary told a story which was essential for all village headmen to develop their leadership skills and to improve public relations in their villages. According to the district secretary’s wordings, the story can be given as follows.

“I am going to tell you an interesting story related to a
village headman like you. In the colonial period, there was a government agent in Hambantota district. He mostly considered the importance of the village headman’s
role in each village. One day, he visited Lunugamvehera area to solve several land matters. He met a village headman on that field day named “Karolis”. He asked Karolis that he wanted to visit the village which Karolis was serving. Karolis
agreed. At that period there were no vehicles to travel even for top level public officers, and most government officers used horses for travel purposes.However, the government agent came in that day by foot due to the short distance to the village.

When they were reaching the village, one brown dog followed them with continuous barking. It was an
embarrassment for the government agent, and he asked “Karolis, whose dog is this?” Karolis replied, “The dog’s owner is Appuhamy. The dog has 5 small puppies. They are in the corner of the temporary hut which is behind Appuhamy's
house, and that is why she is barking”. Then the government agent replied “let’s go to meet Appuhamy, I want to tell him the way of caring for dogs.  According to the government agent’s advice, the village man changed the way to Appuhamy’s place, however, just across the gate of Appuhamy’s residence, the dog bit the leg of the government agent. Then the government agent looked at the village man seriously, and asked ‘you must come tomorrow to Hambantota, and meet me at my office’”. After concluding this story, the district secretary raised a question, and the question was “can anyone guess what happened to the village headman after meeting the government agent the following day?”

Most answers of the audience were giving a punishment for Karolis. But the district secretary mentioned that, on that day, the government agent highly appreciated Karolis regarding his awareness about the village, even just
about dogs in the area, and he recommended an increment for his salary also. Further, the district secretary pointed out that the character of the Karolis reflects the role of a village headman, what the government expects from you.

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Storytelling is an effective efficient methodology to transfer knowledge and experience into the next generation. Storytelling is a key component for leaders to make effective communication (Cleverley-Thompson, 2018) and influence followers (Mládková, 2013). Therefore, storytelling can be defined as “sensemaking currency of organizations” (Rosile et al. 2013). Ready (2002) identifies five essential elements of a successful story which leaders need to consider when they are telling a story for their followers. First essential factor is the relationship to the context. In my story, the main character was a successful village man, and the audience was also future village headmen. Therefore, the story was context specific. According to the author the second requirement is the level appropriateness of the story. Village headman in the story and the members of the audience were on the same level.  Ready (2002) further mentions that the storyteller is required to be a respected person, and if not, listeners show skepticism. In my story, storyteller was district secretary, and he was the department head as
well as chief administrative officer of all village headmen of the district. Author indicates that a successful story needs to contain drama. My story also contained many curious and humorous events which attracted the audience. Author
further points out that effective stories need to have a learning value. The audience of my story was future village headmen and their role is highly important in uplifting the living condition of people. District secretary had identified
that most existing village men are not doing their job well. The story implied to the audience how to be a good village headman, and therefore the story has strong learning value. The village headman in each village needs to get the
leadership in most village level activities. Auvinen, Aaltio and Blomqvist (2013) describe that managers use storytelling to develop leadership qualities in six different areas including, motivation, inspiration, neutralization of conflict,  establishing trustiness, focus identification, and influence their superiors. In my story, the district secretary told the story to evoke most of these characteristics of newly appointed village men. Harris and Barnes (2006) point out that leadership
stories need to have an icebreaking start. District secretary in my experience started his story as “I am going to tell you an interesting story related to a village headman like you”, and it was curious to begin the audience. According to these circumstances ``story of the village headman” is an excellent example in inspiring followers, make positive changes in the audience. According to the leadership role of district secretary, he was a goood storyteller as a leader, and he used a suitable story which compateble with the audiance. District secretary used the story at the correct time, and he used several techniques to grab the audiance.

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Auvinen, T., Aaltio, I. and Blomqvist, K., 2013. Constructing leadership by storytelling–the meaning of trust and narratives. Leadership & Organization Development Journal.

Cleverley-Thompson, S., 2018. Teaching storytelling as a leadership practice. Journal of Leadership Education, 17(1).

Harris, J. and Barnes, B.K., 2006. Leadership storytelling. Industrial and commercial training.

Mládková, L., 2013. Leadership and storytelling. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 75, pp.83-90.

Ready, D.A., 2002. How storytelling builds next-generation leaders. MIT Sloan Management Review, 43(4), p.63.

Rosile, G.A., Boje, D.M., Carlon, D.M., Downs, A. and Saylors, R., 2013. Storytelling diamond: An antenarrative integration of the six facets of storytelling in organization research design. Organizational Research Methods, 16(4), pp.557-580.

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Government agent with village heads - Colonial period

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Government agent with village heads - Colonial period