Why is storytelling by leaders important

Based on this knowledge, you assume that if no one around you uses it, the product is bad and not investment-worthy, right? This also brings you the notion that it will not stay strong in the markets and probably not grow in value either. You create this story by connecting the dots automatically. However, you should realize that you have not yet checked the market nor the sales data for this specific product.

Instead, you just assumed a bad stock performance based on the patterns you tried to find. In this case, a good leader would achieve to fill in the gaps for the possible stock buyers by sharing the right information in the right way with the right audience at the right time.

Basically, by creating a narrative for the company and its products. Bizarre sentences are more attractive and memorable relative to common, usual sentences. In leadership storytelling, the bizarreness effect explains why extraordinary information makes stories much easier to recall: We tend to keep memories that are novel. Of course, as the leader, I would not recommend you to create all these strange stories which are unrealistic and unbelievable, but rather suggest you spice your stories up with interesting facts about your journey.

There are two leaders giving a talk on how they started their businesses. Leader 1: I started this journey a while ago, right after I graduated from university. When we first started the business, just like everyone else, I had hard financial times but eventually figured a way out. Now, I am very happy about where I am….

Leader 2: I started this journey a while ago, right after I was kicked out of university due to failing grades. I have never believed in the idea that exams could determine your life success, so I did not put emphasis on getting an A or F. This is why I decided to start my own business and here I am; happy and stronger than ever.

Which story do you think is more interesting to listen to? I would say the story from Leader 2. This is because there is bizarre information about his failure at school that you normally do not expect from a reputable leader. This information makes the story more interesting and attractive, and at the end of the day, the one to remember. We tend to better remember information that we can link to ourselves.

For example, if I give you a whole bunch of adjectives here: beautiful, smart, jealous, confident, trustworthy, kind, decisive, easy-going, brave, broad-minded, helpful, hard-working, emotional, faithful, gentle, energetic, honest, and flexible. Which ones would you recall after spending 2 seconds reading this sentence? Probably the ones that you can associate your personality with. This is how the self-relevance effect works in short. When it comes to storytelling as a leader, you should keep in mind that the self-relevance effect might be helpful.

For example, if you know your audience — in this case, the audience might be anyone, from your employees, your customers to your potential collaborators — you can adjust your story accordingly and make it more personalized based on their interests and expectations. This way, they would be more interested in what you are saying and who you are.

Thus, you and your story would stay in their memories for a longer time. Yes, every leader needs a good story. Storytelling is one of the strongest communication tools that help audience follow and understand what you do and for what reason. It also connects you with your listener on an emotional level, thus making you more persuasive.

If you want to learn more about behavioural insights, you can have a look at our blog page. They tell the truth. As a doctoral student, I learnt how each person could construct a different story around the same data set.

Cut to today, when storytelling is suddenly the toast of the town. People proudly advertise their storytelling skills on social media profiles. Entrepreneurs, particularly those who work in marketing fields, routinely describe themselves as storytellers. There are online courses and in-person workshops where you can learn to be a good storyteller. This is new, and it is a shift in how organizations have viewed stories. Truth is, stories are all powerful. Advertising agencies, marketers and politicians have known this all along.

Stories can move you in ways that no logical arguments or data tables can. They have the power to frame your ideas and get you to take action. Take the recent Delhi elections, for instance. As much as it was a fight between two political parties, it was a fight between two compelling stories.

One story was about the concern that the country was in danger because of the ill-intentions of those outside the country and even some inside. If you were a loyal citizen, you should worry about that and vote accordingly. The second story was that this was the first time since independence that a government had worked tirelessly to provide its people the basics—power, electricity, education, healthcare.

And they had made great progress. Regardless of your ideology, if you wanted to see continued progress in the quality of your life, you would vote them back to power. Again, very compelling. Note that stories do not have to be completely true to be effective. They just need to connect with you, and make you think. You see, demands for our attention are everywhere. A daily element of your leadership role and one of many of your leadership skills and qualities is your ability to motivate your people to reach certain goals.

To achieve this, you must engage with their emotions. But the crucial part is to create meaning in what your people do, how they do it, and why they do it. Your ultimate goal is to make them feel inspired, energised and motivated to deliver their best work.

The first is conventional rhetoric, which is the approach most people adopt. Sounds good so far. First, your people will have their own set of statistics, facts and data all drawn from their personal experiences and interactions. You can memorise data and facts, but to have it change opinion and behaviour, you need to share a story. The second approach to persuade people, and ultimately a much more powerful way, is by uniting an idea with an emotion.

And the best way to achieve that is by telling a compelling story. A poem, passage or famous story …which helps you define your message. Now I need to be honest with you.