Are you sitting comfortably....?

"I was on a short break in the Yorkshire Dales with my wife following a hectic few months at work and on the first morning was lying in bed looking forward to the full English when my wife suggested we walk up Burnsall Fell! My initial reaction was one of 'can't be bothered, I'm tired' and I replied that it would be too much effort. However, she then changed my focus from the effort of walking up the Fell to the outcome of standing on top of the Fell by describing what I myself had often said was one of the best views in the World. This 'Vision' that enabled me to focus on the end state was sufficient to motivate me to get up and go.

As I expected it was an effort to get to the top, due to feeling tired, but when I arrived at the top and saw the view it was all suddenly worth it and for the first time in a long while I experienced a real sense of 'being in the moment' with all the stresses and strains of work suddenly disappearing, a sense I still get when I look at that photo."

I am currently in the process of developing a number of Executive Leadership Courses across several sectors including Leeds University, Oil & Gas, Maritime Logistics and Rail Construction and invariably use my own stories, such as the one above, to contextualise the importance of leaders developing/implementing/acknowledging elements such as Psychological Safety, Empowerment, Vision, Double-Loop Learning, Wicked Problems etc. Indeed, I often find it is the 'story' that sticks in delegate's minds more so than the actual theory.

However, while many leadership courses invariably use storytelling to impart/contextualise knowledge, in my own experience as a delegate they seldom focus on developing the leader's own ability to use storytelling to influence people/communities through sharing experiences in an engaging manner. We've undoubtedly all got stories of good leadership/bad leadership but how often do we use them outside of the classroom, how often do you talk about the best boss you never had (no spelling mistake - another story) or the time someone less senior challenged your decision and prevented an adverse outcome. Indeed, when did you last tell a story in your day-to-day activities with your colleagues?

#storytelling #leadershipdevelopment