1.2 Stories for leadership

Stories have two main purposes when it comes to leadership.

Firstly, they can be used to persuade and influence. This persuasive role can mean a single person telling a story to win support from others. In that case, telling a story is like a performance. The teller will need to judge the audience and adjust accordingly, as the story will need to resonate with the cultural dynamics.

Stories can be deployed in shared forms of leadership, where groups tell a story collectively. Doing so can help generate collective understanding and meaning. Think about a time when you and a friend, partner or family member were trying to recount an event to a third person – telling the story nearly always involves some disagreement about what really happened, what and who was important in the story; collective telling can reveal hidden aspects of events, such as how the other person was feeling at various points in time.

Figure 2 Stories can be a source of power for leadership

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This is a photograph of a woman telling a story to two listeners, a young woman and man.

Figure 2 Stories can be a source of power for leadership

Author on leadership within social movements, Marshall Ganz, places storytelling at the heart of his work. For Ganz (2011), public narratives are stories that are told, adapted and retold, adapted through experience and input from others. They reflect the purpose of a group of people and are used to inspire specific types of action. Stories are about the heart, motivating and generating empathy. They sit alongside considerations of the ‘head’ – i.e., strategic analysis – necessary to develop shared understanding for taking meaningful action.

The second purpose of stories for leadership is as a source of intelligence for leaders who want to influence others. According to Gabriel (2000), stories provide a glimpse of the fantasy world of groups and organisations. From this perspective, stories provide insight into the conscious and unconscious wishes of a group of people.

Spending time listening to the stories people tell one another, then, can enrich your understanding of a group’s wishes, as well as their values and identity. In turn, better understanding a group’s wishes will help you identify effective ways of appealing to and influencing that group of people. This is the case even when you are already well embedded in that group, as you can become unaware of a group’s dynamics through familiarity and routinised, unconscious habits.

Activity 1 Tips from an expert

Timing: Allow around 10 minutes

Watch the following video, where Jason Sinclair shares advice on how to communicate through stories. As you watch, try to identify three key pieces of advice you might adopt in your own practice.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 1

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Transcript: Video 1 Jason Sinclair – communicating through stories

JASON SINCLAIR:

I use stories in my leadership style because it allows us to open the door on being human. I think it’s really important especially when you’re trying to get people on the same page through a journey, they’ve got to understand the human elements and the emotions and everything else before they can probably put themselves properly in the shoes of said individuals.

So stories are really a powerful way of getting people to just reflect a little bit, and understand a little bit more about some of the barriers or things that they probably aren’t aware of or have never experienced. And that’s a really good way of using it. It also just dispels a little bit of tension sometimes in certain conversations, particularly if it’s a difficult conversation and slightly contentious, it’s a way of breaking down that barrier as well and making everybody feel a little bit more relaxed. You kind of open a door to a certain type of conversation, which just makes it a little bit easier for them.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The added value of storytelling in leadership is to humanise it really. I think it’s really important regardless of the level of people in the room, whether it’s other executives or if it’s subordinates on the way up, that they understand the human element of you as an individual, as an exec in your role, particularly because sometimes we come across as we’re in a bit of an ivory tower, we’re making really key decisions that sometimes feel like there’s not a lot of emotion in that decision or that we don’t relate. And I think it’s quite important for people to understand that we do-- you do relate. And we’ve experienced things, and we have feelings and we have emotions. And that’s really a way of breaking down barriers. And again, it’s useful for when it’s a difficult situation, difficult conversations. It helps to break down those barriers, relieve some of the tensions that might come up in certain subjects where it’s quite abrasive. Again, it just allows a little bit more openness.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

So the advice I give to somebody that’s on their journey into leadership with regards to storytelling is to use it as a way of starting conversations. It’s a way of opening a door. It’s a way of letting people in-- really, really useful to help with perspective. So when you’re trying to explain a situation or where you’re coming from, your perspective, that’s a really great tool.

It’s also useful in taking away barriers. It removes some of the barriers that we might have on our journey. Great in the interview context as well when you’re trying to get yourself into an opportunity and move up the chain then, again, it opens a door. It’s a great discussion starter. And it’s also about removing barriers. So it’s really useful in helping people to understand where you’re coming from, your values, or your personal thoughts and feelings on a particular subject or an issue.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

End transcript: Video 1 Jason Sinclair – communicating through stories

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Video 1 Jason Sinclair – communicating through stories

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Discussion

There were several pieces of advice that you might follow here, to help you use stories in your leadership more effectively. Stories can help in making data more understandable, introduce a topic for difficult conversation, and disarm a tense situation. Storytelling can help team members to avoid making similar mistakes, and as Jason said in the clip, it can open the door to being human. Storytelling helps people to reflect and put themselves in the shoes of the people whose stories are told. Inspirational stories can inspire people by highlighting, for example, how others overcame adversity.

Now that you have thought about the role of stories in leadership, it is time to consider the types of story that are available to you.