About 3 years ago I took part in a "leadership" exercise. The exercise was designed to see who among a randomly thrown together group of people would emerge as a leader.

My group was about nine people strong. Most of them were above average height, athletic and had a military background. I on the otherhand have no military background (unless you count the Air Cadets), am shorter than average and not quite as fit as I should be. The activity was dubbed "team survival" the failure of which was imaginary death (the best kind in my opinion).

I didn't exactly look like the archetype of the in-group. I didn't have the training and mindset of most of them because I wasn't ex-military. So how did I emerge as the leader? The answer - I created my own ingroup of "survivors". Using an interesting communication technique I discovered in my psychiology studies, I told a story about how I had triumphed in a similar situation weaving in comparisons to our current one throughout. I described what I had done and led the group through the steps as they applied to our situation. I then created a self-leading team by defining clear tasks aligned with our goal of survival. And I created an image of who a survivor was - specifically one of us rather than one of the other team. We neatly beat the other teams, hardly raising a sweat.

Because followers adopt as leaders those who best personify an in-group ideal, it is often in corporate situations necessary to create in-groups, especially where group identity is weak or non-existent. I have with this method helped executives in certain companies create vibrant over-time donating workers out of apathetic clock watchers. It's not easy and it doesn't happen overnight, but as the in-group mythology develops so does a positive work culture.