Chapter 5: Storybeing and Leadership
Will Storr, award-winning journalist and author of The Science of Storytelling and A Story is a Deal, has spent decades researching the links between storytelling, the human condition and our identities. In our new interview series, we speak to him to uncover how we can harness the power of our storytelling brains and unlock the full power of the story – in changing beliefs, driving action and achieving extraordinary results. Here, he discusses storybeing; how we act out the story of our lives.
Never Miss A Story
Read the transcript of the film:
Everybody knows what storytelling is. We tell stories, and they persuade people. But what’s less well understood is that we also persuade people by acting out compelling stories, which is a more powerful motivator for people.
Storybeing simply recognises that a story isn’t something that we just tell; story is what we do. Every day, we act out the story of our lives. We want to follow heroes, we want to keep away from villains. Other people can persuade us by appearing to us as certain characters in the story of our lives.
“Successful leaders are experts in storytelling and also experts in storybeing. They present as a hero in the lived experience – the lived story – of their human groups.”
Will Storr on leadership
Successful leaders are experts in storytelling and also experts in storybeing. They present as a hero in the lived experience – the lived story – of their human groups. A bad leader is somebody who sees themself as separate from the group, that is up there on their mountaintop issuing orders at risk of punishment.
A good leader will tend to use the identified pronoun “we”. They are prototypical, heroic, the living embodiment of the ideal of the group, in everything they do. Stories of identity are the most powerful stories that you can have in persuading people. You root through the stories of the organisation’s past, to find a way of saying: “This is who we’ve always been. This is the best of us, and we need to embrace this spirit now in order to take ourselves into a new and even more heroic future.”
Get Will Storr’s new book A Story is a Deal here.
