Storytelling in Leadership: A Mode of Effective Communication Report

This report examines the effectiveness of storytelling as a mode of communication within an organizational leadership context. The author, a branch manager, reflects on a successful instance of using a narrative to communicate the need for knowledge management and organizational change to employees. The report details the story of a health worker in Zambia who accessed information from the Centers for Disease Control, highlighting the importance of knowledge sharing and the potential for positive impact when information is disseminated effectively. The author contrasts the impact of storytelling with the limitations of presenting facts and artifacts, emphasizing how a well-crafted narrative can capture attention, stimulate critical thinking, and motivate employees to envision and contribute to a better future for the organization. The report underscores the power of relating the story to the employees, making them understand their role in the organizational structure and how to solve future crisis. The author concludes that storytelling fosters a shared understanding and encourages proactive engagement, ultimately driving organizational success.

Running head: STORY-TELLING AS A MODE OF COMMUNICATION
Story-telling as a mode of Communication
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author’s Note:

1STORY-TELLING AS A MODE OF COMMUNICATION
Story telling is the best way of communicating one’s thoughts to the audience. Being
the branch manager of the organisation, it had been my responsibility to guide my employees
so that they can get more involved into the betterment of the organisation.
I realized that there needs to be a session on knowledge management so that I can
communicate to them the need for change in the organisation. The management knew what
needs to be done and it was important to communicate the same to the people so that they get
the crux of it. The customers and the stakeholders should responsibly take part into the
communication. Future stories are something that tend to instigate fear among the people and
it acts negatively. People get worried about the future and the future stories fail to generate
any kind of positive action among the workforce. Thus is thought of telling them a story that
had already happened in the past. This could help them gain the experience by knowing the
situation and the solution to the problem that had occurred. It was after telling the story that I
got positive reaction and success. The people could understand what needs to be done
without even having inventing any new ideas.
I gathered the entire workforce of the organisation into the seminar hall and told them
a story of Zambia. In the year of 1995, in a small town of Zambia, a health worker had gone
to the web site of the Centres for Disease Control. He had a question of how to treat the
disease of malaria. And going to the site, he got the answer to his question. I told them that
this incident had happened in such a small town, which was far away from the capital city,
inaccessible to most of the people. The climax of the story was that there was no involvement
from the World Bank. Today we know almost all the solution to the poverty related issues
and our organisation is not even in such a place. We have access to all the solutions but still
this sort of information is not at all available to the community. If our organisation would be

2STORY-TELLING AS A MODE OF COMMUNICATION
in such a place away from all the amenities, from the city, then imagine what kind of
organisation we would become. The treatment of malaria had been an imagery of the actual
knowledge. It was a metaphor that I had used to let them know that problems of the
organisation do have a solution. It is just that they need to be together and have the zeal of
letting the solution and the knowledge travel from people to people. Keeping the ideas to
one’s self does not do any good.
This story helped the employees realize the importance of knowledge and information
and also the value of knowledge management. This simple story helped the staff and the other
employees envision a different type of future for their own organisation. They knew that
knowledge management was something that was an official corporate priority and it could
not be ignored. I also used similar other stories to keep them motivated. In this way, the story
telling and the narrative acted as a source of motivation, encouraging them about the actual
idea that I had thought of communicating to them. I could see that even while I was telling
the story, they could have an idea of the situation and invent their own solutions to the future
crisis. Not all stories have the same impact as the story that I had said. This is because I had
narrated the story from the perspective of a single protagonist who was almost a prototype of
an organisation’s business.
The story had become familiar to them since through the story they could relate
themselves to the situation they are in and could also envision the future crisis that they could
possibly be. It thus captured the attention of the listeners and stimulated their attention about
the idea of knowledge management. They understood that they need to get down from the
rigid hierarchical structure of the organisation and become a significant player throughout the
globe. Facts and artefacts would not have done the same impact as story telling did.
Leadership story was one such story that got inside the people’s head and make them think,
worry and dream about themselves along with the future success of the organisation.