No One Wins Alone

In today’s highly competitive and exhilarating atmosphere of change, a leader can’t win alone. Great organizations triumph behind strategic leaders who use their “power” to ignite their team’s passion and purpose to perform at their highest potential to create long term competitive advantage.

“Power” is not volume, masculinity, or intimidation, but a voice that is heard and heeded. When a leader’s authentic energy aligns with her company’s vision, it can strategically draw the troops to a mission, empowering them to overcome challenges, become evangelizers for the process, and achieve the success for themselves and the enterprise.

As I begin my preparation to deliver the keynote address at the ARVoices Strategic Leadership Summit, I am acutely aware of the many professionals who may mistakenly believe that this “power” is only bestowed upon a select few.

The truth is that everyone has this “power.” It is your ability to influence others through the purposeful story you tell to sell. By purposeful, I mean a story with a goal or call to action to the listener, whether it’s to buy my product, invest in my company, embrace a culture, acquit my client, hire me or give me a promotion.

This tool, your power to tell a purposeful story has been with us for 40,000 years. It was the way we passed down the rules, values and beliefs of our species, as well as the tactics and strategies necessary for our survival and success around the campfire, before print, recordings or digital media.
Unfortunately, by the time most people have entered business, stories, as professional tools, are often dismissed as too soft or suspect and get replaced by soulless bullets points and forgettable data. Yet, only stories and their telling can create the emotional experiences, what I call “emotional transportation,” that make the important information embedded within the story memorable, resonant and actionable.
As strategic leaders, you must think of your purposeful story as a Trojan horse – the vehicle for your emotional transportation that carries the proof of process embedded inside that story into the call to action aimed at your listeners’ hearts, not just their wallets or their heads.

That’s what story does! It gives meaning that human beings crave so that they can hold onto the information and pay it forward. This tool is no gift from me to you, but a treasure owned by you to “power” your greatest leadership success!

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