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LEADER AS STORYTELLER
CHAPTER 12
FIGURE 12-1 Leader as Storyteller
Power of Story
Cautionary Tale
Reassurance
Inspirational Messages 179
Determination
Reflection
Humorous Anecdote
Kindness to Strangers
Courage and Vision
Riding Hood, for example, discovers the error of befriending strangers at her
own considerable peril.
In the Middle Ages, storytellers and troubadours traveled from village to
village, spinning yarns about lords and ladies, about star-crossed lovers and
dishonorable dastards. What is Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales if not a series of
fables about human adventures and misadventures told by a group of pilgrims
on their way to visit a religious shrine?
To read Peter Drucker is to experience the scope of history in its broad-
est sense. Part historian and part social commentator, Drucker links history
with management in a way that puts management into context as a human
endeavor—that is, as something that has been going on for quite some
time—and to draw parallels with the way the people who came before us
dealt with the challenges brought on by economic, social, political, and
technological change.
Stories are fundamental to human character. In fact, they serve as frame-
works for our character. They illustrate behavior in ways that only stories can
because they transport the listener away from the current situation to learn
about another similar situation. This separateness creates distance, which ide-
ally will enable the listener to draw a lesson from the story that he or she can
apply to his or her own work situation. And it is for this reason that storytelling
is so compelling for today’s leaders.
Let’s examine eight different types of stories and how leaders may use
them in the business situation.

THE CAUTIONARY TALE
Cautionary stories are endemic to business. Because they lack effective com-
munication skills, many people in business tell, or direct, instead of showing
by pointing at cautionary examples.
Lessons drawn from business history are always effective. One favorite is
the tale of the Xerox executives who were shown the first version of the