4 Storytelling Mistakes Leaders Make

David Hutchens: Story Dash

David Hutchens helps leaders find and tell their stories. He works with leaders around the world to find, craft, and tell their most urgent stories for the purpose of creating shared meaning, preserving culture, disseminating learning, and speeding change in organizations.

He has taught the Storytelling Leader program at some of the most influential organizations — and he’s written many books, including the Circle of the 9 Muses* and The Leadership Story Deck*. He is the co-creator with longtime friend of the show Susan Gerke of the GO Team program. He's also the author of the new book, Story Dash: Find, Develop, and Activate Your Most Valuable Business Stories…In Just a Few Hours*.

In this conversation, David and I revisit the power of storytelling and highlight where many leaders go wrong. We explore the common mistakes that David sees in his work all over the world. Plus, we invite listeners into a few practical actions that will help stories land with better impact.

Key Points

Four mistakes that leaders make:

They are not storytelling, sometimes because they don’t see themselves as storytellers or feel like they are performing.
They don’t connect the story to the strategic intent but never clearly answering the “why am I telling this story?” question.
They avoid emotional content of stories because they either don’t want to be emotional or are presenting to a “numbers person.”
They expect it to just happen, instead of making intentional effort to make it happen.