It has been well-documented that having a personal story is especially critical when you are in a leadership role. It provides a key source of motivation and resilience that leaders can continually draw upon to guide their decisions and engage others.
What is less well understood is how actually to do it. Creating that internal story is challenging, and many leaders struggle with where to start. Having helped dozens of senior leaders develop their personal narratives, we believe these steps are critical for success:
Look to Your Past
Amal, a leading clinician and woman of color at a world-renowned health institute, defined herself through her professional credentials as an outstanding physician. In her formative years, her personal story was shaped by excelling as a student and not making mistakes because she was different and knew she would be judged harshly. This story had served her well, learning to rely on herself for her success. But then she was thrust into a new role directing a global team of scientists, a job that required complex influencing skills. She struggled to make her personal story of individual achievement fit these new demands.
Think back to the events and relationships that shaped how you saw yourself. Who most inspired you— teachers, mentors, grandparents, siblings who had an impact on you? What challenges did you have to overcome? What experiences taught you about what it means to be a leader, and how do they serve you today or do they get in your way? The important work is looking for the common threads that start to emerge.
Know Your Signature Strengths
Building a leadership narrative also requires considering the perceptions others have of you and what they see as your signature strengths. You may learn that others value strengths you never realized. When Amal sought feedback from colleagues, she learned that others saw her as someone who cared deeply about others and perceived her as a great mentor. This feedback surprised her, but she also felt conflicted—these strengths were not always recognized in a profession that valued personal expertise and accomplishment over developing others. But as she reflected on the feedback, she began to accept those qualities as part of her evolving leadership narrative and sources of strength in her new role.
Find Your Power Source
Harvard psychologist David McClelland studied human motivation—what drives us and gives us emotional satisfaction. One of the motives he identified is the need for achievement and the role it plays in success. But McClelland also recognized the limitations of an overfocus on individual achievement. The leaders we often most admire are those who focus their broader ambitions not on themselves but on others to achieve a greater good—a motive that McClelland called socialized power.
Amal’s strong need for achievement motivated her in her career as a research scientist. But working on her narrative, she recalled memories that had gone unrecognized—growing up in a community where she experienced social inequities. She came to understand that she had a strong need to influence others and make a positive social impact—socialized power—but her personal narrative had been primarily shaped by memories deeply tied to her need for achievement. She realized that to find meaning and purpose in her new role and better adapt to its demands, she would have to integrate her deep desire for social justice into her leadership story.
Look for the Connections
In working with leaders, there is often a turning point where all of their personal work suddenly comes into sharp focus. For Amal, it was the deaths of Ruth Bader Ginsberg and George Floyd, two figures of great social significance. She began to see that her truer narrative and purpose as a leader included speaking up and having an impact on the systemic inequities she had experienced in her institution and society. She began to draw on that theme as a source of power and strength for her emerging narrative.
As you look for connections to bring into focus, try finding an image or picture that speaks to your most deeply held values. Or find a leadership artifact—a family heirloom, a book, or a poem that means something to you and captures the essence of your leadership narrative and brings it into sharp focus.
Write It Down
You are now ready to consolidate your narrative. Try writing it down or use a more visual approach. A good place to start is by answering these four critical questions:
- Where have you come from?
- What’s important to you?
- What are your unique strengths?
- What’s the impact you seek to create through your leadership?
Be forewarned—it will be hard but rewarding work.
Test Your Story with Others
Once your leadership narrative is in hand, it’s time to test it in the real world. Start small, sharing your narrative with a few trusted people. What elements of the narrative resonate most for others? What may be missing? How did sharing your narrative make you feel and what new insights did you gain? Now you can begin using your narrative to address the following questions:
- Where do you see your narrative reflected in the personal stories of others? Amal was able to see more clearly her own struggles as a professional woman of color echoed in the stories of her colleagues who faced similar challenges. It gave her greater empathy for them and, with it, the courage to speak out on their behalf and take collective action.
- Who could personally benefit from your leadership narrative? Amal found herself using elements of her leadership narrative in team meetings and in her coaching to encourage and inspire others. She explained where she came from and what she most strongly believed in as a leader.
- What are my non-negotiables—how can my leadership narrative help me take a clear stand? Increasingly, Amal found herself able to more confidently express her views to her colleagues and raise issues of inequity that she had previously felt unable to discuss. “To me, it feels personal”, she says. “If we can do this, if we can question ourselves, we can do something about it.”
As leaders like Amal learned, a leadership narrative is not your resume. It is not a retelling of your accomplishments. It is not the willed fiction of positive thinking. It is your story of who you are.
