Stories our leaders tell: Leadership through storytelling

During the civil war in America, the president, Abraham Lincoln, was asked to yield to the demands of the confederates.  The pressure was high and constant.  No American president had experienced those circumstances, so he had no predecessors from whom he could draw lessons from their experience.  However, to his persuaders, Lincoln told the following […]

During the civil war in America, the president, Abraham Lincoln, was asked to yield to the demands of the confederates.  The pressure was high and constant.  No American president had experienced those circumstances, so he had no predecessors from whom he could draw lessons from their experience.  However, to his persuaders, Lincoln told the following Aesop story:

“A lion was very much in love with a woodman’s daughter. The fair maid referred him to her father and the lion applied for the girl.  The father replied: ‘Your teeth are too long.’  So the lion went to a dentist and had them extracted. Returning, he asked for his bride.  ‘No,’ said the woodman, ‘your claws are too long.’ Going back to the dentist, he had them drawn.  Then he returned to claim his bride, and the woodman, seeing that he was unarmed, beat out his brains.”

Then Lincoln asked those trying to persuade him: “May it not be so with me, if I give up all that is asked?”

In this very short story, Lincoln told his compatriots not only of his resolve, but also of the reason why he would not yield.  

Recently, a former president of Nigeria, Olusegu Obasanjo,was featured on the Nigeria Television Authority’s Tales by Moonlight programme – a story telling show. Later, Obasanjo was reportedto have said that children should be taught morals through stories.

It was a good call.  Indeed it is customary in Africa – even beyond – to tell children stories to teach them many things – morals included.

However, it’s not only children who need stories, adults too, do. And stories should not be told to teach only morals – we can employ stories in every situation imaginable.  To persuade, to resolve conflict, to stress a point, to inspire, to encourage, to facilitate understanding, and so forth.  

The foregoing list shows what leaders do every day, therefore, storytelling, arguably, is a tool that leaders can use to facilitate leadership.  And whether it’s the leadership of a nation, of a family or a company or a religious group, every leader would benefit from telling stories.

In graduate school, I wrote an academic paper with the title, “Stories Professors Tell,” where I may the following argument about the power of stories.

Experts are increasingly using story-telling techniques in communicating about business.  It is easy to illustrate how people warm up to stories by observing speakers who alternate between prepared speeches and story-telling. Whenever a speaker finishes a story and goes back to prepared speech, the audience usually returns to fidgeting.  A story could have many propositions and still be shorter, simpler, and easier to understand and remember, compared to non-narrative techniques. “Because stories draw their effectiveness from an ancient resource – the power of social dynamics – they are deeper, and more compelling compared to non-narrative text. When we read the story, we create an image in our minds that is whole and internally consistent, and we can use that image as a setting for any points that are made.”

Even the oil and gas sector – a purely technical field – now uses stories to drive innovation.  Shell International Exploration and Production’s Organizational Performance and Learning (OPAL) team argues that “the power of a good story well told can inspire innovation, personal challenge and professional breakthrough. Stories can encourage us to change, to think `out of our boxes’, to seek the aid of others in leveraging our own efforts. For these reasons we have embraced story-telling within Shell Exploration and Production as a means of helping shape our knowledge-sharing culture”

On stories, Lincoln said:  “I believe I have the popular reputation of being a story-teller, but I do not deserve the name in its general sense, for it is not the story itself, but its purpose, or effect, that interests me.  I often avoid a long and useless discussion by others or a labourious explanation on my own part by a short story that illustrates my point of view.  So, too, the sharpness of a refusal or the edge of a rebuke may be blunted by an appropriate story, so as to save wounded feeling and yet serve the purpose.  No, I am not simply a story-teller, but story-telling as an emollient saves me much friction and distress.”

So let’s take the counsel of Lincoln, the master storyteller, who said we can instruct with stories or use them as a salve on open wounds or mitigate potential injuries.  So when next time you have a leadership crisis, look for an appropriate story for the occasion.  But to be able to employ stories effectively, you need to develop the habit of collecting them.  One way to get them is to check the religious books – they’re laden with stories.  Because God knows, that stories work.  He knows, that human beings respond to stories.