storytelling is a core leadership skill (audio)

Audio transcript:

Storytelling is a key, but I think often overlooked domain of leadership. Managers give directives, leaders tell stories. And I think the difference in giving directives and telling stories is that giving directives is something that is not participative.

The people that you are giving a directive or instructions or objectives or whatever that you're giving that to are receivers. They receive their instructions and they carry them out and they report back to you and tell, tell you, what they did and you tell them how good they did or how good they are.

And it creates this hierarchy. It doesn't lead to a relationship of equity between the leader and the follower. And I think some people think, ‘Well, there's not supposed to be equity there. I'm the leader. I'm higher up. They're supposed to look up to me. I'm supposed to be better or higher or more powerful or on a different level than them,’ which is true organizationally, but I think all real leaders recognize that their leadership is not based on the title or the position they hold in the organization.

The organization's titles and positions are specific to that organization only. And a leader is a leader no matter where she is. So if you're a leader in an organization by title, this doesn't mean that as soon as you leave that building and that title is not there on you anymore, that you stop thinking, behaving, and performing like a leader. That's very unlikely for someone who is truly a leader versus someone who just holds a title. So leaders know that the primary way that they influence is through relationship. And there are a number of ways to exist in a relationship with others. I think a lot of us think of it purely as this idea of networking. Like I go into a room and I press the flesh. I amass a whole bunch of people, then I call them and I have coffees and I go on golf dates with them. This is what we think of when we're, when we usually think of like networking or relationship building in terms of career or work or business.

But relationships are built on all kinds of interactions, and storytelling I think is one of the first ways we learn to build relationship with others.

As children we hear stories. Maybe an elder in our family is telling us stories, or maybe we're getting read a bedtime story, or maybe in school we have story time, but what we start to understand as kids is these are one of the few times when adults, the people who are bigger than us, come down to our level and actually engage with us, and ask us where we want to go next. Or have us say, Well, what happened next? Or, Well, why'd they do that? We're in a conversation in a more equitable level than we've probably ever been with an adult in our lives.

And this is the relationship that stories allow us to build between and among each other. And as leaders, it's kind of that same idea of if you're living in the leadership stratosphere all the time. Storytelling is this activity that allows you to sit down and look eye to eye at everyone across your organization and engage in an act of co-creation with them.

So you may be telling a story, but if you've really learned how to be a strategic storyteller, you recognize that every story you tell is not a story about you per se, even if it is, it's a story that's about the person who's receiving it. The point of you telling the story is so that the person receiving it can identify themselves in this story and then see themselves as the hero by the time you're finished telling it. You're telling stories to your people so that they can see, 'Oh. This is an achievable idea, or this is a relatable experience. Or if this person has been through it and I can identify with them, then I can possibly identify with this story and see myself going through it as well.'

I think this is why, for me, storytelling is such a core discipline of leadership. It's also a wonderful way of knowledge transfer. And I think another part of leadership or what leaders are maybe not always consciously thinking of, but definitely unconsciously leaders are always concerned with legacy.

'What am I leaving behind that represents me even though I'm no longer here?' And stories are one of those things that are wonderful ways to transmit legacy. And I think those two benefits or those two outcomes of really good and really strategic leadership storytelling: the ability to build equitable relationships and the ability to transmit or transfer leadership legacy; I think storytelling really is so powerful, , in accomplishing those two objectives or delivering those two benefit. And it's highly accessible. It is accessible to anyone in an organization who sees themself as a leader and wants to build relationships and leave legacy.