Author: Bryan Bennett

As we prepare for the launch of our Storytelling for Leaders Master Class, I’ve reflected on my life as a story gatherer and storyteller. I’ve loved writing and telling stories since I was young. Family interactions can be some of the most impactful stories to tell.

I heard stories from my great-grandparents as they told us about growing up on farms in Louisiana. I vividly remember my great-grandmother telling us about how they would get a chicken from the farm for dinner.

As we learned in “The Matrix”, perception is not always reality. That is also true to when it comes to leadership. Leaders are only as good as their people perceive them to be.

In our Professional Leadership Training programs, we address the perception versus reality dichotomy with a peer assessment. Participants are usually surprised to see that what they considered to be their leadership attributes were not what their peers thought, both positively and negatively.

At the end of each chapter in my book Prescribing Leadership in Healthcare, I tell a personal “Tales from the Leadership Front” story to summarize the chapter content with insights from the leaders I’ve met.

In my travels I get to meet some great leaders and am thrilled when we discuss their leadership journey. I especially enjoy hearing their leadership origin story or what in their life made them into the leader they are today. A leader must be aware of their origin story to understand who they are as a leader and why they are leading. As Simon Sinek says, ‘knowing the why’ is critical to their success.