Business leaders face many challenges. To overcome these challenges, they must often implement new processes and strategies. And to create support for these new initiatives, they must inspire buy-in from their team.
Many leaders get misled in trying to drive action through facts and data. PowerPoint presentations and bullet points will only go far in rallying and motivating team members. Storytelling for leaders is ultimately what will get that coveted buy-in.
5 Reasons to Use Storytelling for Leaders
The human brain is wired for emotions. In fact, we make decisions based on emotions. We seek pleasure and avoid risk at all costs. It’s only when we become aware of our choice on a conscious level that we apply logic to the decision we’ve already made.
Executives who rely on stories to incite specific emotions in their teams will better inspire and drive change. There is no faster way to align human beings to action than through powerful stories.
Here are 5 reasons to use storytelling for leaders:
Better Communication
Effective communication is – or at last should be – a top priority for all leaders. Storytelling is often the best way for executives to communicate with their teams. The reason is simple: storytelling leadership helps you share your vision and values, enhancing your brand.
More Connection
There is often a disconnect between leaders and employees. And the truth is, employees don’t typically follow leaders they don’t feel a real connection with. That makes leading next to impossible. One of the key ways leaders can connect with their teams, and help others view them as real person with goals and vision, is by sharing stories.
Unitedness
Great leaders create grand narratives around initiatives to keep everyone moving toward a common goal. This helps their teams play active roles in the “story” of the organization. More than 60 years ago, sociologist Erving Goffman asserted that humans are not only wired to hear stories but to ACT THEM OUT. In other words, stories are not just theoretical constructs in our minds, they are tangible scenarios unfolding in front of us. Therefore, stories have the ability to unite people around a shared vision and get them to take action.
Establishes Authenticity
Stories help leaders “be the change they want to see.” Rather than proposing ideas and concepts that can lead to a bunch of “back and forths” with team members, leaders can establish credibility and authenticity through storytelling, which can have a transformational effect on the entire organization.
Innovation
Conventional management approaches tend to stifle the creative process. Storytelling often inspires creativity and innovation in others. That’s because stories invite us to understand novel ideas that are often complicated. They compel us to forget the status quo and think boldly and differently.
How to Gain Storytelling Leadership Skills
Becoming a phenomenal and inspiring storyteller won’t happen overnight. But with some practice with the help of our storytelling coach consultants and dedication from your side, it WILL happen. Here are some tips to get you started on your storytelling leadership journey:
Know Your Audience
Who are the people you are trying to engage and connect with? What do they struggle with? What common goal are you trying to align them with? Become a great listener so you can discover more about your team members. What is happening in their lives? What are their values and priorities?
The clearer you are with your vision, and the more you know about your team members, the better you’ll craft a story that helps you emotionally connect and drive change.
Be Authentic and Human
Look to your own life for story ideas. What struggles and challenges have you faced in the past? Which would be the most relatable to your specific audience? By sharing your humanity, you will become an authentic leader. This will put your listener into a receptive mood where they will be open to your ideas and new initiatives.
Empower Your Team
Ambiguity has a habit of inciting confusion and anxiety in people. At the end of your story, you don’t want your listener to feel they need to decipher and decode your mysterious message. This will cause a certain amount of anxiety as many team members will think, “Gosh, I hope I get this right.”
Instead, be clear and make your story action-oriented. Give your listeners practical advice and clear direction. By doing so, you empower them to take decisive action.
Be Humble
As a leader, sharing your past failures with your team is hard. But humility can go a long way in showing the human capacity for growth and change. Humility also builds trust. You don’t pretend to have all the answers. That’s what you need your team for. Great leaders don’t pretend to be perfect, and they don’t expect perfection in others.
4 Great Examples of Leadership Storytelling
Inside every leader is a storyteller waiting to get out. The following leaders were not born great storytellers. They simply understood what is storytelling and its power and honed their storytelling leadership abilities to become some of the most successful business leaders in the world.
Elon Musk, Innovator/Entrepreneur
As the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, founder of The Boring Company, and cofounder of OpenAI, Elon Musk has inspired significant change in numerous industries. How exactly has he become one of the wealthiest and most successful businessmen in the entire world? The answer is through storytelling.
Throughout his career, Musk has had to raise substantial sums of capital to get his businesses off the ground. It’s not easy to convince others to give you exorbitant amounts of cash. And yet Musk has been able to do it over and over again.
Sure, we could say that investors have been dazzled by Musk’s drive and his own belief in the value he is offering. But even the best business ideas can fall flat if they can’t be explained in a way that others can understand and get excited about. Musk’s real gift is that he speaks to others through stories. He doesn’t use technical jargon to impress. He uses clear and plain language but in a way that captures the listener’s imagination.
Richard Branson, Entrepreneur, Investor, Philanthropist
Richard Branson has gone on record and told of his enormous respect for storytelling. To him, storytelling is a skill all entrepreneurs should possess. “I have always loved stories. Since starting business with Student Magazine, I have been fascinated by the intersection between storytelling and entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs who make a difference are, in effect, professional storytellers.”
Branson himself is a masterful storyteller, often sharing all of the ups and downs and challenges his company Virgin went through. This authenticity and humility ultimately attract people to Branson’s products and services.
Howard Schultz, former CEO of Starbucks
By far, one of the very best examples of storytelling leadership is former Starbucks CEO, Howard Shultz. Shultz never stood in front of audiences as CEO of the most successful coffeehouse chain in the world.
Instead, he often shared his own rags-to-riches story of growing up in Brooklyn, the child of often unemployed parents. He’d share his background as an introduction to describe the history and mission of Starbucks as well as explain why he made many decisions leading the company.
Stories are great at helping leaders frame their organization’s values, and that’s exactly what Shultz would do. He’d share the story of his father having an accident when Shultz was just a little boy. It was incredibly difficult for the young Shultz to see his father injured and unable to work.
This was the life moment that would eventually inspire Shultz to launch a company that cared for its workers and provided a wonderful benefits package offering insurance and time off. By framing his company mission in a personal story, Shultz was able to share his vision and strategic thinking engagingly and understandably.
Steve Jobs, Cofounder of Apple Computers
“The most powerful person in the world is the storyteller. The storyteller sets the vision, values, and agenda of an entire generation that is to come.”
~Steve Jobs
Suppose you were to take a poll and ask 1000 business leaders to come up with an executive who was good at storytelling; no doubt a majority would say, Steve Jobs. He was so good that even people outside of the storytelling sphere recognized his abilities.
Jobs’ product launches were the stuff of legend because he had a way of building excitement within the audience. He was masterful at setting context, creating tension, and throwing in some twists and turns. In other words, Jobs truly did understand the “stuff of drama,” most likely picking up some storytelling tricks as a cofounder of Pixar films.
Conclusion
In today’s competitive marketplace, leaders must find ways to convey complex ideas and concepts to their teams to stay ahead. Storytelling leadership is a powerful communication tool that helps leaders drive organizational success through inspiring, motivating, and connecting with teams and stakeholders. We invite you to use these insights and practical storytelling tips to deliver engaging messaging that inspires action.
