Do you know your story as a leader? Our stories are constantly evolving and always changing. 

Just when we think things will turn out a certain way, something changes — either for better or for worse — and then we find the main character (that’s you!!) facing a totally different future with a brand new end-goal in mind! 

Or maybe that end goal stays the same and the pathway to get there takes a few unexpected turns. Regardless, our stories are always making up who we are and it’s so important that we all have an awareness of that!

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A huge part of knowing who we are involves things like:

• Moral values
• Beliefs
• Commitments
• Priorities
• and also knowing your story! 

You need to know the story of your life so that you can know the role that you, as the star and main character, play in it!

Let’s just pretend that you and I grab a coffee together. We start just chatting about the weather and keep it superficial, because it’s always a little awkward at first with someone new. But eventually, we get into some DMC (Deep meaningful conversation, aka my favorite part of any conversations ever!!), and I look across the table and ask you: “Sooo, what’s your story?”

What would you say? 

Would you even know where to begin? 

I think most of us wouldn’t exactly know where to dive right in in order to tell our life story, but the very first step in answering that question is believing you have a story to tell.

And the truth is that, unfortunately, most of us don’t actually believe we have a story worth telling. Or, we just shrug it off as not being interesting, worth telling.

And I am here to tell you that you absolutely do have a story worth telling, and I personally would love to hear it! 

3 Reasons to Know Your Story as a Leader:

1. Knowing your story places you within your right context. But what does that mean? 

Oftentimes, we can almost lose our identity in the identity of whatever it is we are a part of. Whether it’s a sorority, a company, a team, even a family or a partner’s job, it is all too easy to lose our identity in other things. 

In Shannon Polson’s book — The Grit Factor — she has an entire chapter devoted to this topic of knowing your story. She writes about an inspiring leader: “to be effective and to truly lead, she has to continue to understand her own story, both the degree to which it exists as a thing apart, and how it exists within the larger whole.”

Rephrased: To be effective and truly lead, you have to continue to understand your own story, both the degree to which your story exists apart from the group you’re with, and understand the degree to which your story exists within that group. Knowing your story before you become a part of anything else will help you make sense of where you best fit in as a piece in that bigger puzzle! 

RELATED: Knowing Yourself Before Leading Yourself

2. Knowing your story makes you more confident. 

When I first did this exercise for the very first time, I spent a whole 30-minute-or-so car drive using voice memo recordings on my phone to share my entire life story with a friend. She suggested I do this as a therapeutic exercise, and she was SO right! It was amazing. I went all the way back to the very beginnings and just tried to recall every detail that I could. 

So what came out in this story of mine? Sure, the painful things and the regrets came out, which is therapeutic in and of itself to speak those things bravely out loud. But the confidence came from remembering amazing things I have done in my past that I had allowed myself to ignore and gloss over as “no big deal.” 

I know you have some big achievements that you’ve glossed over, too. They are worth remembering, because remembering the obstacles you have overcome is the key to being ready and willing to take on new opportunities with a seasoned perspective and with (you guessed it!) CONFIDENCE! 

3. Knowing your story helps you be a better leader.

If you know your story like the back of your hand, you can more quickly draw from personal experience when you’re trying to relate to someone or put yourself in their shoes. And when you find areas that you and this other person have in common, you give them the gift of empathy when they can now know that, because of you, they aren’t alone. 

This also translates into your leadership performance, because when the people that you lead know some of the lessons you’ve learned and some snippets of your story, they become more confident in you. In other words, they get to learn enough about you to understand the direction that you–as the leader–are taking them in, and no one follows someone into the completely unknown, right? We want to know where we are going and where the person we are following is leading us!

So, my challenge to you is to carve out some time to voice record to a friend, voice record for yourself, or write down your entire life story. If you’re anything like me, it will be a game-changer!

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