Stop Telling Stories, Start Sharing Examples

I was facilitating a leadership retreat last month when someone asked me to talk about narrative and storytelling. I hadn't touched this topic in depth in a while (although it's where I started my journey as Narrate, over 25 years ago), but I found myself improvising a two-hour session based on their questions. A week later, one of the participants called: "Can you come to our senior leadership team in September and do exactly what you did?"

The problem was, I wasn't sure which pieces were most useful from our session, although subsequent conversations illuminated what they wanted in greater detail. But I knew what had resonated: I'd told them to stop thinking about stories. In 25 years of working with leadership teams around narrative, this might be the most counter-intuitive advice I give about narrative communication—and the most effective.

The Story Trap

When we leaders hear we need to use "storytelling," most of us immediately think back to our school lessons. Stories need a beginning, a middle, and an end. They need character development and narrative arcs. Suddenly, communicating with our team feels like a creative writing assignment we're not qualified for.

"I don't know how to write a story," we think (and why would we—it's not exactly standard management training). So we either avoid narrative altogether or create something that sounds artificial and rehearsed.

But here's what I've learned: leadership isn't about constructing perfect stories. It's about sharing examples that help people understand what you actually mean. It's actually something in which you're already skilled—but just need some helpful nudges to bring to challenge.

The Abstract Problem

The real issue in most organisations isn't that leaders lack storytelling skills, it's that we've become addicted to abstraction. I’ve seen it in the boardrooms of technology companies struggling with integration and in government departments navigating public sector reform. We talk about "innovation," "collaboration," "excellence," and "customer focus" as if these words have the same meaning for everyone in the room.

They don't.

When you say "we need to be more innovative," some people think that means using a different font in their presentations. Others think it means ignoring established processes entirely. 

The result? Weeks of misaligned effort and frustrated teams wondering why their best intentions aren't getting results. Neither is what you probably had in mind, but without concrete examples, people are left to guess. My experience in organisations has seen this simple issue derail business transformations, bring strategies to a grinding halt and undermine leadership teams’ effectiveness.

The Two Kinds of Example Rule

As a leader, you need to give two kinds of examples:

More Like This: Examples of behaviour, decisions, or approaches you want to see more of. These become your "future is already here" moments—the seeds of your desired culture that already exist somewhere in your organisation.

Less Like That: Examples of what you want to move away from. Not to shame anyone, but to clarify boundaries and help people understand what success isn't.

Let's say you want more innovation. Instead of repeating the word until it loses meaning, you might say:

More like this: "Last month, Sarah's team tested three different approaches to the customer onboarding problem before committing resources to a full solution. They learned something valuable from each test, and the final approach worked better than anything we'd tried before."

Less like that: "The tendency we had last year to spend months perfecting detailed project plans before we'd validated whether customers actually wanted what we were building."

Finding Your Examples

The best examples don't come from business school case studies or other companies' success stories. They come from your own experience and your organisation's actual history.

This requires you to become a collector of your own stories. When you see someone doing exactly what you hope the organisation will do more of, capture that example. When you catch yourself or others falling into old patterns you're trying to move away from, note that too.

As William Gibson said, "The future is already here. It's just poorly distributed." Your job as a leader is to find where that future is already happening in your organisation and help it spread.

The Perspective Problem

Here's something most leaders miss: the perspective from which you tell an example matters enormously.

If you're trying to convince your sales team to focus more on customer retention, telling a story from the CEO's perspective about quarterly numbers won't land. But sharing an example from the perspective of a salesperson who built a stronger relationship with an existing client and saw both their commission and job satisfaction improve—that resonates.

The most effective examples aren't about you or your experience. They're about people who face similar challenges as your audience and find a way through.

Beyond The Perfect Narrative

Leadership communication doesn't need to be polished or theatrical. It needs to be specific and recognisable.

Instead of saying, "we need better collaboration," describe what you saw when two departments actually worked well together. Instead of declaring "customer focus is our priority," share what happened when someone went out of their way to solve a customer's problem.

The power isn't in your storytelling technique—it's in helping people see concrete examples of the abstract concepts you're asking them to embrace.

Gathering, Not Constructing

The most sustainable approach to narrative leadership isn't about becoming a better storyteller. It's about becoming a better gatherer and curator of examples that already exist in your organisation.

This means:

Listening for Examples: In team meetings, one-on-ones, and casual conversations, pay attention to stories that illustrate either the culture you want more of or the patterns you want to move away from.

Creating Space for Sharing: Instead of filling every team meeting with updates and announcements, occasionally ask: "Can anyone share an example of something that worked well this week?" or "What's something we tried that we should probably do differently next time?"

Building Your Collection: Keep a simple list of examples that illustrate your key priorities. Update it regularly. When you need to communicate about culture, improvement, or change, you'll have specific, relevant examples ready. This doesn't need more meetings or formal processes (you've got enough of those already). It's about shifting your attention during conversations you're already having.

The Authority Of Experience

Here's why examples work better than inspiration: they carry the authority of experience rather than aspiration. When you share a concrete example of something that actually happened, people can see themselves in that situation and relate it to their own context, even if it's significantly different. They can imagine taking similar action.

Abstract concepts feel distant and theoretical. Examples feel immediate and actionable.

Your team doesn't need you to be a professional storyteller. They need you to help them understand what success looks like in practice, what failure teaches, and how to recognise the difference.

The examples are already there, in your organisation's daily experience. Your job isn't to create new stories—it's to notice the ones that matter and share them in ways that help your team see the path forward.

Because leadership isn't about having all the answers. It's about helping people recognise the answers when they appear.

Do You Want To Communicate With Greater Impact?

Most leaders know their abstract concepts aren't landing, but they're not sure how to make them concrete and actionable. I help leadership teams develop their ability to gather, curate, and share examples that actually resonate with their people.

Schedule a discussion with me about building your organisation's capacity for example-based leadership communication.