Storytelling Is A Critical Communication Skill For Business Leaders

Open communication is a trending topic on LinkedIn right now. Leaders want to have the communication skills that cut through the noise and move past the surface to understand what is being left unsaid. They want to know how to build trust that allows everyone on the team to express ideas that are important, even if they are not easy to say. Building trust has never been an easy thing to do, but with the proliferation of AI, trust has been even harder to build.

Before a recent meeting, I emailed the run of show to my co-presenter. He  wrote back asking if I’d used AI to draft the email. I said no, I’d typed every word myself. Later, I learned that when he suspected the email was AI-generated, he stopped reading altogether, deciding it wasn’t worth his time if I didn’t spend the time to write it.

The Power of Storytelling As A Communication Skill

So how do we build trust when we are all feeling suspicious? I believe storytelling is one key answer. Storytelling is what makes us human; it inspires engagement and it can’t be faked. A well-told and well-timed story will make presentations and sales pitches more memorable and impactful for your audience. This is because the human brain is built for stories. “After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world,” writes author Phillip Pullman. That’s because stories have the power to help us pull meaning from our experiences.

Imagine the power of helping someone else discover that their experience is a story worth telling. I call this story facilitation.

Recently, I have been working with a VP of a global company. Here’s what one of our early conversations sounded like:

Client: [shares a story in passing], but anyway, so back to what I was saying…

Esther: Wait, before going back, can you tell me more?

Client: [shares more]

Esther: How interesting! Was that what you were expecting?

Client:  No way! Because [continues story…]

Esther: That’s a fascinating story.

Client: You think?

Esther: I know. Here’s why…

After a few coaching sessions working on stories and how to present them, I asked her how she was feeling. This is what she said: “You’ve given me confidence.”

Because she gained confidence in her own stories, she now feels empowered to tell more stories at work, where she often presents before a large group of employees. “It’s doubled my impact as a leader,” she told me. Once her team caught on to the fact that she’s now regularly sharing powerful stories, they followed her example.

When we help people discover their stories, we are helping them connect the dots of their experiences and make meaning. We can use the tools from the story facilitation toolbox to promote open communication in our workplace.

3 Tools From Story Facilitation That Promote Open Communication

1. Get Curious

Poet Paul Valery said, “To see is to forget the name of the thing one sees.”  This is a clever way to say we must have a beginner’s mind to truly understand something or someone. Don’t bring labels or your own agenda. Leave behind preconceived ideas and foregone conclusions. Instead, get curious; bring the desire to learn everything anew. Ask questions.

Example: A client recently told me the following story that illustrates how curiosity can help prevent miscommunication.

“A colleague approached me with a question about our meeting the day before. I assumed she was about to criticize how I’d handled a brief conflict — something I was already feeling self-conscious about. Instead of getting defensive, I remembered to stay curious and asked, “Tell me more.”

Turns out, she’d gotten a troubling text right before the meeting and had difficulties concentrating during the meeting, so she missed some details about the new project. She was asking for information, not trying to give critique. I’m so glad I asked a question instead of responding defensively when she first asked to talk.”

2. Listen

Listening is much more than sitting back and idly taking in information. Good listening is active and invites the speakers to reflect more deeply as they share. Listening creates an openness that makes people more willing to reconsider their own positions — not because they are convinced, but because they feel accepted. What’s more, the better you listen to others, the more willing they are to listen to you. Often, as managers, good listening requires you to take action based on what you are hearing.

Example: In my recent book on leading with curiosity, Winning Without Persuading, I shared how researchers James Detert and Ethan Burris studied a national restaurant chain in 2016 and found something striking. When managers acted on frontline employees’ suggestions by bringing them to senior leadership, turnover fell by 32%, saving the company over $1.6 million annually. The reason is straightforward: people only speak up when they trust they’ll actually be listened to. In this case really listening meant taking action on behalf of their employees. When you listen like these managers did, you build trust.

3. Reflect back

Reflecting is not “echoing” or repeating what they said in an effort to say, “I heard you.” Instead, reflecting goes one step further into the interpretive: “Here’s what I see in what you said.” It helps people see themselves and their ideas more clearly.

So often we understand ourselves partly in response to how others see us. For leaders, reflection is not a soft skill. Structured, disciplined, compassionate reflection builds trust, improves decision-making, and creates environments where people feel genuinely seen.

Example: A client once shared a moving story about the sacrifices his parents made so he and his sisters could achieve what they themselves could only dream of. This was a touching story, but I pushed him to ask a harder question: what does this sacrifice actually mean?

The sacrifice made his achievements possible, but that is just a chain of events. And not unique. A lot of parents sacrifice so their kids can have a better life. The real work is asking: so what? What does it mean to the storyteller, and to the audience hearing it?

Before my client could tell the story well, he had to reflect on what it meant to him. It could mean, “I owe it to my parents to achieve as much as possible.” Or it could mean, “Their sacrifice gave me the freedom not to neglect my own children the way my parents had to.” Same sacrifice, different meanings. Different interpretations can lead to vastly different decisions, behaviors and eventual outcomes.

Story Facilitation Tools Cultivate Open Communication

AI can draft an email in seconds, but it cannot get curious about a colleague’s misread intentions, sit with someone as they uncover what a sacrifice really meant to them, or notice the pattern beneath a story no one has told out loud yet. That work is still ours to do, and it helps us build trust. And trust is what helps cultivate open communication at work. Your door may literally be open, but no one is going to walk into your office with something that’s hard to say if they don’t trust you.

These 3 tools of story facilitation — curiosity, listening, reflecting – can help us build trust and encourage open communication. Every time you ask “tell me more” instead of assuming, every time you act on what someone shares instead of just nodding along, you’re proving you are trustworthy and open communication actually is worth it.

In a workplace where people increasingly wonder if the words in front of them are even human, the leaders who have the communication skills to take the time to listen, reflect, and help others find their story will be the ones people actually trust and follow.

Related Articles

Energize Your Networking Skills With These 3 Proven Storytelling Tips

Empowering Leaders of Leaders