Archives October 2021

Great Leaders, Great Storytellers

Great leaders are great storytellers… but not all of them are born storytellers. The good news however is that anyone could get trained to become an excellent storyteller. Are your leaders trained storytellers? If not, then you need to equip them by providing professional storytelling training.

The Art of Storytelling

While some people seem to be born storytellers, the good news is that storytelling is a skill that can be learned and developed. Effective storytelling involves more than just telling a good tale. It requires understanding your audience, crafting a compelling narrative, and delivering it with passion and conviction.

Leadership Through Storytelling

Storytelling can be a powerful tool for leaders to navigate even the most challenging corporate situations. By using stories to convey important messages, leaders can:

• Unite and Keep the Team Together: Stories can help to create a sense of shared purpose and belonging, fostering a strong team culture.
• Achieve Excellent Results: By inspiring and motivating their teams, leaders can drive exceptional performance and achieve outstanding results.
• Keep the Team Highly Motivated: Stories can help to keep employees engaged and motivated by providing them with a sense of meaning and purpose.

The Importance of Storytelling Training

If your leaders are not already skilled storytellers, it is essential to invest in professional storytelling training. Such training can equip them with the tools and techniques they need to become more effective communicators and leaders.

Additional Benefits of Storytelling in Leadership

In addition to the benefits mentioned above, storytelling can also help leaders to:

• Build Trust: Stories can help to build trust and credibility with employees, customers, and other stakeholders.
• Increase Engagement: Stories can make information more engaging and memorable, leading to increased employee engagement and retention.
• Foster Innovation: Storytelling can encourage creativity and out-of-the-box thinking, leading to new ideas and solutions.
• Promote Company Culture: Stories can help to reinforce a company’s culture and values, creating a sense of unity and shared purpose.

How to Get Started with Storytelling in Leadership

If you’re interested in learning more about storytelling and how to use it in your leadership role, here are a few tips:

• Start by observing great storytellers. Pay attention to how they use storytelling to connect with their audience and achieve their goals.
• Practice telling stories yourself. The more you practice, the better you will become at it.
• Seek out resources on storytelling for leaders. There are many books, articles, and online courses available to help you develop your storytelling skills.
• Attend a storytelling workshop. A professional workshop can provide you with hands-on training and guidance from experienced storytellers.

By incorporating storytelling into your leadership style, you can become a more effective communicator, build stronger relationships, and achieve your goals more efficiently.

Storytelling is a powerful tool that can be used by leaders to connect with their teams, inspire action, and drive success. By investing in storytelling training and practicing these skills regularly, you can become a more effective storyteller and a more successful leader.

Even the most challenging corporate situations could be handled effectively by a leader who knows how to use stories in their leaders

hip. Stories can help you unite and keep the team together. You will be able to achieve excellent results with the help of your team by using effective storytelling techniques. You can keep your team highly motivated and inspire them with the art of storytelling.

For highly effective Leadership storytelling workshops by Antony Innocent, contact now.

Building strong and fully functional teams in any organisation is a challenging endeavour. Without having strong teams, it is not possible to build a successful organisation. Here are five important tips for building strong teams.

#One – Learn to give constructive feedback

Many of us are of the impression that if we were to build a cooperative team, we should not point out mistakes to the team members or else the members will sulk and become less cooperative.

If you are going to take on to the above approach then, you are making one of the biggest team building follies. Instead of totally staying away from giving feedback, you should learn to give constructive feedback. You may have to do a lot of homework to prep your team well so that they take your feedback in a good spirit. This takes us to the next important area and that is cultivating the habit of appreciating generously.

#Two – Cultivate the habit of appreciating generously

If all that you do is to find fault and if you are totally blind to the efforts your team members are making towards achieving the organisation’s goals and the extra bit that they are putting forward for the success of your team, then your team members will not only become under motivated over a period but they will also not be able to take even genuine feedback and that will make things increasingly challenging for you as a team leader. This will eventually result in blame game.

Cultivating the habit of appreciating your team members generously for the good things that they are doing will elicit unbelievable results. You will be able to create a highly productive and a cheerful team. To know more on how this work, you could order my book Change on the Fly – From a Whining Team to a Winning Team.

#Three ­– Delegate tasks prudently based on individual’s strengths and capabilities

Do not think that you should do everything by yourself. One of the biggest advantages of a team is that you could share the responsibilities so that you or any other single individual is not overly burdened.

Delegation is an art and in order to make delegation work for you, as a team leader, you must have a good understanding of your team members. You should know the strengths of each member and based on their basic skillset you need to delegate tasks and responsibilities.

#Four – Be ready to listen to new ideas from the team members

Two minds are better than one. Good ideas could come from anyone and when they do come from your team members, welcome them open-heartedly. Just because it is not your idea, it need not necessarily be a bad one.

Have a listening ear when your team members come with new ideas. Not all ideas could be executed but definitely you will be able to execute at least some of the ideas. Do not hesitate to implement executable ideas that comes from your team members. This will boost the motivation level and the morale of the entire team.

#Five – Use clear communications and let them know your expectations

Often teams fail for the want of clear communication. When the team leaders fail to set the boundaries clearly and when they do not let the team members know what are the expectations, the team will lack direction and this will affect the overall productivity of the team.

The rule of thumb for building a highly effective and successful team is communicate clearly and ensure that your message or your communication has reached correctly every member. Be succinct in all your communications.