Storytelling – leaders as cultural custodians
For businesses, organisational change is a fact of life. Although an unwelcome disruption for many, the coronavirus pandemic, which caused overnight unprecedented changes to how we live and work, brought the role of leadership and its relationship to internal communications squarely into the spotlight.
With its power to shape organisational culture, boost stakeholder support and drive behavioural change, internal communications is an essential business function - particularly during periods of crisis. Historically, it has been the case that internal communications campaigns are most likely to achieve positive outcomes when reinforced by the legitimising influence of a leader; however what defines good leadership is still in dispute.
Under the intensive demands of the modern organisational environment, the slide in to transactional, or indeed laissez faire leadership styles, can become unavoidable. Regardless, part of meeting the changing expectations of a post-COVID workforce requires businesses to actively explore alternative approaches to ‘top-down’ communication styles.
Whether the goal is introducing new behaviours or simply maintaining business continuity, communicating the positive value of change requires logical and sincere appeals that employees can identify with. Reports like the Deloitte Global 2021 Millennial and Gen-Z survey highlight that now more than ever, the onus is on employers to demonstrate that their leaders exhibit the emotional intelligence necessary to build a resilient workplace culture.
The 2021 Edelman Barometer results highlight a belief that CEOs should act not only as leaders, but as cultural custodians, earning trust by standing for societal and community issues as well as protecting workplace values. However, with employee expectations set so high, it can be difficult to remember leaders carry their own biases and as such their management styles can vary greatly, with some naturally better at gaining stakeholder trust than others.
Although generally managers are moving away from the idea of communications as a soft function, many are failing to embrace their own power in this regard. When it comes to the introduction of change initiatives, particularly ones which require learning new skills or practices, employees need a compelling reason to change their behaviour. They need a persuasive leader, one willing to listen as much as transmit.
A crisis of leadership?
Leaders at all levels (team leaders, middle-management and CEOs) are well placed to build momentum behind change initiatives: visible commitment to the initiative or modelling of values in their day-to-day conduct act as a signal of the idea's credibility.
While leaders are often uniquely positioned to express a holistic vision for the business that encapsulates both the organisation’s objectives and employee contributions, they can sometimes lack the communication skills necessary to share their insights, causing them to appear disingenuous.
Therefore, leaders must make efforts to bridge the gap in understanding between themselves and employees. While the intricacies of behavioural science and cognitive bias are undoubtedly complex, the intrinsic link between motivation and its relationship to habitual and emotional thought processes is self-evident to most leaders (and fans of crime-drama). In short: employees might have the opportunity and the capability to embrace change initiatives, but not the motivation. This is where leaders, acting as cultural custodians, come in.
For most leaders, stakeholder analysis is par for the course and there is no doubt that it is particularly useful for anticipating how change initiatives might be perceived. However, it is by applying behavioural economics insights (which highlight the psychological, emotional, cultural and social cognitive factors that impact on employee behaviour), that leaders can make real impact.
Taking steps to understand what drives employees can help to uncover new opportunities for shaping employee decision making without enforcement. If culture is expressed through the stories we tell, then stories are one of the most powerful tools in the cultural custodian’s cache.
While it is by no means a quick fix, understanding and being able to utilise storytelling is a vital leadership skill, facilitating improved communication flow and lowering resistance to change.
When conducted with employee wellbeing in mind, storytelling can be utilised to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes for all, helping to facilitate behaviour changes and leading to increased innovation, cooperation and collaboration across the organisation, by empowering employees to make good decisions.
“The 2021 Edelman Barometer results highlight a belief that CEOs should act not only as leaders, but as cultural custodians, earning trust by standing for societal and community issues as well as protecting workplace values.”
Leader as storyteller
Leading through periods of change effectively calls for authenticity; finding space for this in an environment ruled by jargon, numbers and financial targets is difficult, but not impossible.
Humans are compelled by the need for continuity in all areas of their lives and the workplace is no exception. ‘The strategic sequencing of facts and emotions’, (storytelling) can act as a framing tool which helps develop common ground between the rational objectives of the organisation and the emotional values of the individual. Stories help enhance a sense of continuity, purpose and meaning. Effectively utilised, storytelling can be used to address issues ranging from absenteeism to performance to tardiness and technological compliance.
Storytelling not only translates organisational goals into something relatable it fosters connection and builds trust. In times of change or even crisis, narratives can help reassure or inspire employees - becoming particularly important in light of the growing threat of disconnection caused by remote working. The stories leaders tell help to create a culture of shared values - they arrange the cultural context in which employees make decisions. Collective change based on shared values creates community.
As storytelling capitalises on the fact that behaviours can be influenced by mental and emotional cues, it offers a gentle, and ethical, approach to creating a positive workplace culture. Broadly speaking, leaders are able to use stories to create outcomes by acting as cultural custodians - organising the environment in which employees make decisions.
Indeed, as it is perception rather than logic which influences behaviour, by building a bank of recurring workplace narratives leaders can take employees on an emotional journey, working within their existing biases to overcome negative perceptions, a lack of motivation or anxiety around change initiatives.
This is not to say that foundational narratives can be plucked from the air. Work must be done collaboratively with all functions across the business to ensure that related communications come from a place of authenticity. Leaders must also be transparent in their storytelling – not just in the name of ethics but also to preserve trust.
A nudge in the right direction?
Modern workplaces require solutions to organisational problems that are flexible, cost-effective and easy to implement. Against such a challenging wish list, storytelling has emerged as one of a handful of effective strategies for boosting organisational efficiency by making use of pre-existing behavioural biases to align employee performance with business aims.
This said, the introduction of any change initiative, always demands effective leadership. There is no doubt leaders are experiencing heightened pressure, but the need to re-evaluate transactional management styles has only become more pressing in the face of the current crisis.
Where behavioural change is concerned, positive reinforcement is every bit as important as the strategic narrative itself. In order to raise the probability that the change will be adopted in the long-term, leaders must sustain momentum for the change initiative by being open to feedback as well as remaining visible in their ongoing support.
Alexa Downing is a PR and Communications Executive and a CIPR Member, who has showcased her digital and print media communication skills as part of Birketts’ BD & Marketing Team for two years. Prior to joining Birketts, she worked in ecommerce as a copywriter.