Grow your Narrative, Grow your Leadership.

Every morning at work, we start the day with something we call Daily Affirmation, which can only be described as a daily realignment of our core values while we highlight the matters of the day and the week we are in. I conduct this meeting with the department heads that report to me or the Hotel Manager, and at times their representatives from supervisory level. It is their responsibility to in turn, have this Affirmation meeting with their teams to ensure we effectively align our focus and attention to the matters at hand. I always try to combine information such as occupancy related data, in-house meetings, guest metrics with information to provoke thoughts and perspective. An example of this is the John Maxwell Daily Reader, a book that features 365 short insights aimed to develop leaders... you guessed it, one for each day of the year. Often I end up posting these on my WhatsApp and social status as well, as they are powerful and I would highly recommend this book to any business leader as the stories create conversation and insights that can be applied immediately.

Having done this Daily Affirmation for a good while, my attention started focusing from the delivery of information to our leaders and junior leaders, to the output they produce towards their teams. If people just show up to my office for 15 minutes daily to get a break from work, and don't take the information to the floor, what sense would this meeting have? I started asking the participants of my morning meetings what their take aways would be after our session, and what their narrative would be like.

Let’s dive into leadership narratives. In every business, you have leaders at different levels—junior, senior, and executive and a key challenge that I see across the board is how leaders at times struggle with finding the right narrative for different situations. All businesses, hospitality not excluded, have ebbs and flows in performance. You can be riding a high for months at a time until challenges and/ or hardship all of a sudden presents itself. External factors can impact the way the business is to be strategized and operated and each business requires their leaders to manage the "rainy" season as well if not better as the "sunny" season and this is where narrative is so critical.

Each level of leadership needs to communicate differently to align their teams and drive action, and that’s where narrative comes in. It’s critical for leaders to have a vision and a way of presenting that vision through different scenarios, and this is done through narrative. But a narrative is never a cookie-cutter set of words that simply align with business goals. A narrative is the way a leader sets out their vision for achieving specific objectives. These could include financial goals, ownership targets, brand goals, customer focus, and of course, the well-being of team members who help achieve these goals. Each narrative is different, depending on what’s at stake and the "season" the business finds itself in. A customer-centric narrative, for example, is different from one that focuses on employee growth or financial outcomes or one that speaks to contingency planning.

The beauty of a strong leadership narrative is that it helps shape leadership itself. The words spoken by a leader are powerful—they create alignment, build buy-in, and ultimately form the foundation of a leader’s impact. If the narrative is poor or non existent or not well delivered, people disconnect, they lose interest, stop following the vision, and drift away as their sense of belonging diminishes. But when a leader speaks with passion and purpose, it can resonate with the team, helping them connect with the bigger picture and align their actions accordingly on micro and macro level.

At every level of an organization, leadership narratives are crucial. At junior levels, the narrative helps leaders define their style and grow into their leadership role. It’s through these narratives that they practice and refine how they communicate, setting the stage for their future growth. As leaders move into mid and senior levels, these narratives become more strategic, translating into overarching business goals. Narrating skills are a critical element for leaders to transition from leading smaller teams to taking on larger organizational responsibilities in front of a larger audience. As you develop your narrative, you’re not just effectively guiding and growing your team today—you’re preparing yourself for the next audience, the next challenge, and the next opportunity to lead. A confident leader is one who speaks with clarity and passion, and this confidence is built through the narrative they develop and share. When a leader speaks from a place of passion, their words resonate with authenticity, and that’s when the real impact happens. Posture, tone, eye contact and all the other critical elements of effective communication can never be left behind here, as well as the ability to back that narrative with intent, purpose and presence. This is you being your personal professional brand and it will be your catalyst for growth. Know that your narrative will change over time. It develops through gained experience, and also other narratives help shape yours through mentorship. Then there is emotional growth on your journey that adds to and diversifies your message and creates new levels of depth that allow you to become a multi dimensional leader. The knowledge you acquire from sources around you, was never yours to keep. It is your mission to share and empower others.

It’s critical for leaders to become confident with the words they speak. One way to build this confidence is by speaking towards your passion and putting your specific signature on the words you speak. This means using sentences and words that you are comfortable with. At some point in my career I simplified my narrative as I kept getting stuck with difficult words to pronounce and I felt my audience wasn't connecting to what I tried to share. When you’re clear on what drives you, and when you speak with confidence, your narrative has the power to inspire and align your team to move in the right direction with you. Finally, leadership is about more than managing people. It’s about crafting a story—one that connects your vision with the actions of you and those who follow you. Narrative shapes leadership, and in turn, your leadership shapes the success of the organization as well as build your personal professional brand.

So what's your narrative?