These days, facts and data reign supreme in business, so it’s easy to overlook the power of storytelling in leadership. Yet, here’s a fact that cannot be ignored: storytelling is a potent tool for motivating your team, often more effective than a thousand statistics and industry updates.
When was the last time you felt inspired? Was it statistics that inspired you? I’m quite sure it wasn’t. Most times, it isn’t statistics or bullet points but the story behind those bullet points or statistics that truly inspire. Leaders who want to stand out and get their team to follow their vision have learned to motivate their team members.
Storytelling is one such tool that can be used to inspire people to work as a team. With the proper techniques, leaders can motivate and connect with team members on a deeper level.
We’ll point you in the right direction by showing you some key ways you can use storytelling to motivate your team to work more effectively.
Why the Need for Storytelling in Leadership?
As far as we know, storytelling has been part of human communication. People of old have used it to inspire men and get them to follow particular paths even long after they are gone.
Leaders today can use it to evoke emotion, get the team’s attention, and sell ideas that would generally be difficult to agree with.
Here are some reasons you should include storytelling in your leadership style:
1. Storytelling makes you more human
When your team sees you up there as a superhuman, connecting with you on the same level is difficult. Storytelling brings you to their level. It doesn’t make you look less credible or incapable of being a leader, as you may think, but it allows your team to see you in a different light.
It helps them relate to your failures, challenges, and wins. They will easily see what you are seeing and feel what you feel when you communicate with them through your brand story.
2. Keep your vision in their memory
Storytelling in leadership is powerful for helping team members to not just understand your vision but never forget it.
Research has shown that connection and retention are two major elements of a good story. It works magic compared to writing a list of instructions. They may read the instructions but forget them soon afterwards. But a good brand story stays for a very, very long time.
3. Inspire action
Storytelling in leadership eliminates foot-dragging when executing instruction. How?
It motivates and inspires team members and propels them to go beyond limits they would typically not want to reach.
Related:
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What Makes A Good Leadership Story?
There are good stories as well as bad stories. It is essential to note that you are not to tell a random brand story. The story must be strategic and aimed at achieving a particular purpose.
As a business owner, CEO, or team leader, your story will not inspire or connect without the following elements:
1. A person
Every leadership story should have a person who is seen as the hero. This hero, either you or someone else, needs to be someone your workforce can relate to. They should be able to put themselves in the hero’s shoes.
2. A challenge
Your founder story needs a challenge it intends to solve at the end. With this challenge, your workers will be interested and pay attention because they want to see how you overcame it in the end.
3. A solution
The story should describe how the problem was resolved and the lessons the team can learn from it. The solution should give hope and motivate the team as they move forward with their roles in the company.
4. A message
This is where you give your input. Input should be like a takeaway or a call to action that aligns with your vision and what you want them to achieve for the organization.
When Is The Right Time To Use Storytelling In Leadership?
Now, let’s move on to timing.
Although storytelling in leadership can help you connect and inspire, timing matters. You won’t get the desired result if you tell the right story at the wrong time.
Want to make an impact? Consider the following timings:
1. Meeting time
Meetings are great times to share stories that motivate teams and cause them to act. These could be emergency or routine meetings.
Make sure you keep it simple. It gets boring when it is complicated and you may be unable to drive the point home.
2. One-on-one conversation
One-on-one storytelling in leadership may not be straightforward, especially for a large organization. But it is very effective when telling a founder story to a larger audience. The reason for this is the intimacy and closeness it creates.
You can get genuine reactions up close if you are trying to coach or mentor a small group of people. However, you must be guided. Fabricating stories may not spring up genuine emotion and motivation. Be yourself and share personal experiences.
3. In times of change
Most people do not like change, especially in the workplace. This change could be in leadership or rules. Speaking with your team using storytelling at this time is very important to ease their tension and uncertainty.
Sharing stories about how previous changes have brought about positive input can relax tension and help team members prepare ahead. In this situation, you must practice what to say because saying the wrong thing may worsen matters.
4. After a failure or success
Storytelling in leadership is good both in good times and in bad times. In both cases, there is always something to learn.
When there is success, it is an opportunity to celebrate the team for a job well done and remind them of other milestones to reach. When there is a failure, it is an opportunity to address what led to the failure and look at how to do better next time.
Take the Lead with Storytelling!
Irrespective of your business or team size, you must know that personal stories, success stories, the vision ahead, and empathy are vital ingredients that should not be missing in your founder story.
Being a good leader is not just about giving orders. Even in the military, there are times when superior officers keep orders aside and speak to the soldiers’ hearts. Leadership also entails inspiring people and motivating them to achieve organizational goals.
Storytelling in leadership can help you do that, in addition to helping you connect at a deeper level with team members and earn their trust.
However, if you’ll need help turning your experiences into inspiring stories to boost your workers’ morale, contact us now!
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