The Power of Storytelling in Leadership Education with Dr. Shannon Cleverley-Thompson

[Music] Welcome to season 11 of the Leadership Educator Podcast, your source for knowledge and expertise on facilitating leadership learning. Passionate about leadership education, want to expand your resource toolbox with practical strategies for teaching learning and program design. This is the podcast for you. If you haven't done so already, please hit subscribe so you'll never miss an episode. [Music] Hello, welcome to season 11 of the Leadership Educator Podcast. I'm Ben Chacon, Professor of Leadership, Organizational Studies at the University of Southern Maine. And I am Lauren Balak, a Assistant Professor of Instruction at Temple University. This season we're discussing specific instructional strategies, leadership educators can use to facilitate learning in their places and spaces. These might include academic courses as well as co-curricular programs. In doing so, we've invited leadership educators in our community of practice to join us to showcase some of the innovative as well as the old school approaches to teaching leadership. Guests will speak to strategies such as reflection, team building, gamification, improv, and today storytelling, among millions of other approaches that are out there. We're excited to have these conversations and know that y'all as our listening audience are excited to hear those conversations. Absolutely. We love you can out on the pedagogy and the androgogy. And so today we have Dr. Shannon Cleverley Thompson joining us. She is president of Cleverley Consulting and instructor at Creighton University and their dissertation in practice as the chair there. And Shannon also spent 15 years teaching in the executive leadership program at St. John's Fisher University in Rochester, New York. And today as Lauren mentioned, we're going to ask Shannon a little bit about how she uses storytelling in her leadership programs and courses, as well as in some of the other places in spaces where she is facilitating leadership learning. She'll share some event and space practices around that. And hopefully after listening to this episode, you'll can go out and try some of these techniques on your own. And we'll definitely put any resources that Shannon shares in our show notes. Welcome to the show Shannon. Hey, thanks for having me. Good to see you Lauren and Dan. Thanks. We appreciate you are grateful that you're going to join us today. And I was sharing earlier that I'm a little biased because I love storytelling. So I can't wait to hear you talk about how you've integrated into teaching. Before we get into that, can you share just a little bit about yourself? Maybe one or two things that you feel are important for others to know about you or even your work in leadership education and higher education? Sure. Well, Dan talked about it earlier. I spent a good portion of my career as a senior official university as a visiting professor and then department chair. And that program is focused on executive leaders. It's a cohort based and just recently transitioned to hybrid. And so I spent a lot of time teaching leadership theory and practice, qualitative research, leadership change, that kind of thing. And so, yeah. So now I am at Creighton overseeing dissertations and launched consulting leadership and coaching program while still interested in returning to higher education teaching in an online program is where I'm hoping to to land. So right now doing a lot of coaching and a lot of consulting developing leadership workshops and storytelling as part of that. Yeah. And this is funny because this idea of having you on came from I think we had connected like three years ago or something like that. I was reading an inside higher ed article that had mentioned storytelling as an approach and actually cited an article that you had published in the journal of leadership education. And I was like, hey, shit, check this out. Did you realize you just been cited and an inside higher ed and you were like, you just made my day. And so it was a you had published this article back in 2018, but was one of the first I think like application papers in the journal leadership bed when they opened up that that manuscript style or whatever they referred to it as about teaching storytelling as a leadership practice and some great, great nuggets in there will definitely put that in in the show notes as well. And so since as the expert, how would you define or describe storytelling as an instructional approved? That's a big question. First of all, I did not know it was the first journal that had an innovative practice as a form of submission. But honestly, it has changed so much since I first wrote that article so much. So what I would say as a leadership educator is storytelling can be one of two things. But can you storytelling as a way of reflective practice in terms of helping students learn more about themselves so you can help them tell stories about their favorite leader or a leader that inspired them and using just all kinds of prompts and as a way of kind of a narrative pedagogy and some narrative storytelling is used interchangeably. And what I have learned is the narrative pedagogy approach is really used as a way to help students further understand who they are through stories through coming up with stories. And then there's the other approach of leadership as storytelling as a tool. So how can leaders develop stories to share as a tool of communication. So there's really two ways as a leadership educator that you can think of how do I want to use storytelling in my course. Do I want to use storytelling to help further develop a leader identity. And so you ask them to tell stories about their past, their present, which then helps them reflect on who they are as a lead. And then you have the other approach of helping students see the value of stories as a leadership tool in terms of communicating. And how do you want to get your message across or are you trying to enact change and is there a story you can tell to help motivate people around you who want to change. What I've realized in teaching adults and then teaching undergraduates and opportunity to teach to undergraduate courses. Very different in terms of approaching storytelling in both of those courses. Yeah, thank you for setting the setting that's straight with what exactly we're talking about and going to geek out for like 45 seconds as I think about storytelling as you know pedagogy and drag and from an androgycal approach. And I think we talked I keep sharing this story at too many times on this podcast, but the idea of of you know adult learners love to tell their stories and share their experiences because they have relevant experiences and stories. And because they've been on the workplace and we want to make you know do the meeting making process or that it reinforces our experiential learning, we are our cold cycle, you know and all these types of things and the sense making and then all these so much tied to reflection versus you know learners a certain age particularly you know cake through five they want to tell stories but they may not be relevant at the time right. And so we have what we sometimes refer to anytime that we use some of these like I don't know if this is a call the actual techniques but you know doing things where we're performing or sharing or telling stories so you might have what. Refer to as more like the constructivist of like creating your story based on an experience but then also like the constructivist like interpretive is where it's like okay like now let's interpret and make sense of an exam and then reflect on critically or what have you the stories that you told or the stories that someone else is told right that's I mean public speaking is a form of or having a guest speaker I guess is what I'm getting at it can be a form of storytelling oftentimes when the most captivating public speakers or guest speakers are those or even. You think of the best head talks and things like that of these people that have these captivating stories that they want to share with or that they do share in there and their Ted talks that one of the things I mentioned briefly on the intro episode I want to mention it again is my head of professor that assign this reading to us that was called the six types of stories that you need to learn how to tell and I wouldn't grab it because I think I only was able to recall one during the intro episode but the six types of stories are not. types of stories are who am I stories why am I hear stories my vision story teaching stories values and action stories and I know what you're thinking stories and I love all six of those and so I have students read that passage and then they have to share a story that is in one of those six archetypes and it's it's and then they will share on the discussion where usually this is an online class active but I've used it both in my advance like theory seminar for undergrad as well as our intro seminar theory for grad students and. They go back to that one a lot and say yeah that was a really that was really challenging but also really really good activity that's so interesting because those are some of the stories that Steven Denning had in his book way back when is all these different types of stories and then when do you tell them because that's the other piece is making sure you know your audience so helping students understand stories aren't if you're not sure what you're doing. if you're using them as a leadership practice, helping them understand where stories are used and to make sure that you're audience, no, no, no, you're aughty. - You know, it's interesting that you say that because so sometimes we're teaching, but more often actually in coaching, as we're trying to one reflect and affirm the kind of leader a person is, and then two, communicate that to other people, I find that the buckets are the categories where the breaking down just stories for stories sake is so helpful, right? You know, you talked about, you know, undergrad versus grad students, I wonder how do you decide which story to learn approach when you're teaching undergrad versus when you're teaching graduate students who maybe see leadership? Like I know my students, I usually get them in their first or second year, I have to convince them their leaders before we identify those stories. Whereas my grad students, they look at it from a positional lens, but they at least know they are a leader. I'm a leader because I hold this position and then we even get into that. So two totally different points of entry, but how do you like get to a space where you're saying, okay, I'm gonna teach, this is the storytelling activity, how do you make those decisions? - Well, try on air, because the first time I did this with undergraduates, I had to realize that same thing. They did not really see themselves as leaders. And so what I did, one because of the introduction to AI, I switched an assignment a little bit and used the five practices of exemplary leadership. So we were talking about that. And so instead of having them write an essay, I had them come up with a way to present examples of each of those practices in their life. And so I let them do PowerPoint, I let them do video. I said, this is, and it was so hard for them because I didn't give them the exact directions. I let them create it. I never thought part of my instruction was going to be helping them. Who can I just do the PowerPoint? Yes, you came in. But what I did without them really until the end was every example they shared for each of those practices became a story. And so we talked about how model the way. How did you model the way? And these were juniors and senior. And so a lot of them used high school. And I said, you could use a family member. So if you don't feel that you have done this practice yet, then you can use somebody else. And so it was amazing because when I was finished, I said, all of these examples are the start of the story about leadership, about something you could use in a job interview. When somebody asked, tell me a little bit about yourself or can you tell me a time of when? Now you have little nuggets to start the story with. The other example I used was the tell me about the best leader you had and tell me about, or the best boss you've had and tell me about the worst boss you've had. And what did you learn? And those are some examples how they came out with stories. And so that's what I have learned is to not make it about storytelling until after they've started the experience or talking about their experience. And then sharing ways, especially in undergraduate, ways of using this in an interview. Because that's a lot of the times when they're going to have a time to tell stories. And so that's a few examples. But I had to realize that they didn't have time thinking that they had a lot of stories. You're almost like the person that kind of opens up those floodgates and that-- and you can almost probably see the aha moments where it starts to click and their wheels start turning. I love the correction of kuzin-pazers model the way. Because once they hear it, it's like, oh, this is not rocket science. It's good leadership practice and philosophy. But once it kind of feels like it's not rocket science, then they get into the idea of like, yeah, maybe I can explore for it. For sure, Dan, I know you have a couple of questions, right? Well, it's interesting that-- yeah, I love that approach. Shannon, I'm using the five practices. It's kind of funny because you kind of reverse engineered how the five practices came to be anyway, right? Because then, didn't they collect like 800 stories where they asked people about their-- Yeah, wait, tell me a time when you were your best leadership moment. And I tried that. And they were all like, we aren't leaders in our work. And so I kind of shifted around, as you do. And I came up with this different type of exercise because I told them, you can go to AI, you can go anywhere, and they can tell you what the five practices are. So I want to know where they show up in your life. And I also realized that they don't always want to talk about themselves in front of their peers. And so that's where I said, then talk about a time where you saw a coach or a teacher or somebody you work with demonstrate that practice. Because I really wanted to see if they really truly understood what the practices were, and if they could identify what they looked like in themselves or others without writing an essay. And so I think they wish they would have had an essay. But at the end, they not only learned about each other, they had a sense of pride at the end. Because they did it, they stood up. And some people did a video. And some people did a poster, like they brought in a whole poster and explained it. So I feel like because I let them pick how they wanted to do it, I thought it was going to be easier, but I think at a level of pressure to them. You know, it's interesting. You say that the variety of platforms, I sometimes will, I teach in a communication program, and I have students who are great with like videos. They can create videos easily and authentically. And I say, that's your space. Use it. Like I don't care as much your delivery. I care more about the content in that. So if you can make a great video, wonderful. If you can't and just, you know, record on Zoom, you click into slides, like, okay, that also works too. But to your point, it's like it's not about the platform. It's about like what, what you want them to take away or get out of it. - Yeah, you have me, you're convincing me both of you all that like reflection is just a form of storytelling, right? I mean, it's like, he says, oftentimes students don't want to are uncomfortable talking about themselves, which I think is why, you know, we, we may front load reflection so much. And I think about in introductory classes, there is like a book end that I borrowed from. And now is like one of the seminal learning activities in the intro to leadership class that I have been teaching some version of for like 15 years now. But it came out of the, we've talked about this before on our podcast. And you can Google it. I think it's on the National Clearing House for Leadership Programs website. But there was an instructors guide for the second edition of Exploring Leadership for college students who want to make a difference by come of as Lucas and McMahon. And they have this opening assignment, like the first or second week, of which is called like a quote, an air quotes, a who am I? Which is like, what's your philosophy of leadership? Who are you? What values drive your decision making? What do you want to be? You know, it gives you like eight to 10 like open-ended questions. And then at the end of the semester, there's an assignment. It's like, well, looking back on the semester and you're who am I? What's changed? You know, like, where do you think you're going now? What are some acts of steps you can take based on what you've learned? And it is just, it's just a form of written storytelling. And then there's an extension of that, which I've borrowed it from that instructor's guy. But I made, I think I call it something slightly different, but it's basically just called a significant learning expression where students basically will take something that had an impact on them from the semester and they have to express it in a creative way. And sometimes it is they tell a short story, or they might put together a collage, or they write a poem, or they do an interpretive dance. Most of these are just expressions. They're just telling stories of three different expressions. And so I think storytelling, and it's like most general form, is kind of how you describe it. But I think there are like little extensions of, or adaptations of storytelling. We tell stories all the time. I think the difference for leaders is the purpose and the intention of the story and in your audience. So that's that next level learning to lead, and how do you want to use stories? And the value of stories that can help you, as long as you are authentic. And there have been some studies that have looked at the impact on followers. And you have to be really mindful. Some of the followers don't want to hear a story about yourself. Race you to really know who your followers are. And the story has to be something that is right for the moment. And that's the part about teaching storytelling to anyone that wants to use them as a leader, is to really make sure that there's a structure. So now there's all kinds of tools out there that educators can use in terms of here. It's this framework for a story. So there's lots of different ways to help them understand the story has to have a beginning, a middle, and end. Typically there's a challenge that somebody got over. So there's kind of be a structure to the story and the reason and the purpose and also-- practice, if you really, if it's going to be an impactful story. So one of the outcomes was when I first started using this in my, it was a public and human relations course. I had a student that feared public speaking, feared it. And then when he learned this practice and how to tell it and created the structure, he ended up getting up in front of me, had a event, a celebratory event. He got up and shared a story about the class and that now when he stands up, he doesn't think about it as public speaking. He thinks about it as I'm just going to tell it story. And to me, that was the value of helping students, a graduate students understand there's a story in you and you can tell it, but also it gives them a way to, I think, practice public speaking that they hadn't thought about. And I think it also gives them opportunities to connect to audiences and do it in a way and like you're a chair of like it kind of breaks down some of those barriers and reduces some of that anxiety. You know, as people, sign filters, I think it was signed built attributed to where it's like, you know, they say that people are more scared of public speaking than death than he says, well, people would rather, that means that people would rather be inside the, the coffin than delivering the eulogy at the, at the funeral, you know, I'm like, that is just, that's just crazy to me. But, you know, to, but to, I guess, extend what you were saying about using frameworks and structures you had mentioned using like, generative AIs, it's cool for that. And I can so see how helpful that could be, you know, if you've got an idea for a story, even if it's bullet points, you know, and obviously you want it to be your authentic story, AIs not supposed to replace your thought. It's supposed to, you know, collaborate with you on your experiences. And so, let's say you have a particular structure or a framework that you would like to generate your story through, you know, you can, you can use chat to be to your cloud or want to, you know, Gemini and say, look, I had this experience with this best boss or worst boss. And here's what happened. Did it, did it, can you help me to frame this story through the structure or framework of X, right? It's like your co-author. It's your, it's your PR agent, right? You know, AIs is very helpful for leaders that are trying to find stories. And also, if you're a teaching storytelling, AIs can give you props to give the students to help them construct a story. So as an educator, you can use Gen or chat, chat, DPP to help you provide some reflective questions for students to come up with stories. Or you can say, here's an example, give me, there is a framework where it's the three AIs, it's the context challenge and then change and then you talk about what the learning is. And so you can ask chat to PT to help you come up with a worksheet that can help students come up, you know, structure their stories in this kind of framework. And so I have you chat to PT, I put a story in recently and said, this is my story. What ways and what purpose is do you think this story would be helpful? So it basically helped give me some ideas of the audience the way I could frame the story without really changing my story, but helping me think of ways I could use the story in different contexts. Yeah, I love that. I mean, you have my brain like Spitting, I'm thinking about like, you know, I mean, these generic AIs tools are so, so powerful. And then I'm going to do another question, but you had me thinking about, you know, you could literally like, you know, drop your CV or your LinkedIn profile or your tenure packet into, you know, and say, hey, this is an audience that I need to speak to or I'm interviewing for this type of job. Can you give me five stories that I might want to tell based on my experiences here, you know, that would be relevant for this position or for this, you know, audience or what have you. And it may not be spot on, but it's certainly going to try, right? Well, I can tell you that I've done that. Okay. Perfect. And I, I have helped it edited one of my essays. And because it's in there, it now knows that about me. And so when I said, oh, I'm going on a podcast, what story should I tell? And it spit out this, this story, I'm not going to share it, but I was fascinated with what it knew about me and then how it could frame the stories. The other thing is it can help you come up with different stories, right? So if you have students that are not sure about what they have, it can chat GPT can prompt that. You can ask chat GPT. I'm trying to come up with stories. What are some props? What are some questions that you can ask so that I can maybe remember experiences or stories? The other thing is if you're looking for a particular story that's out there about a particular leader or a particular topic, that can also be a way to, sometimes I want to have examples that aren't me, people telling stories. And so that's another example in terms of how I've used chat GPT to come up with different stories that I can use as examples. And sometimes I find it could be a little bit better than a, I mean, it, generative AI, sometimes can be better at, you're like, better than a Google search because you're like, a story about this topic and, you know, like, I mean, it's like, you know, I just imagine the Google engines, you know, the little gears turning behind the scenes and it's like, I must think this person's out of their mind, right? Because you're just like pulling snippets of your memory and then, and sometimes the Google search is just, you know, it's a dead end. And I've found, you know, it's, it's kind of flip a coin whether one's going to be better than the other, but that thing, you make an interesting point. All right. So, Shannon, you've shared some great different examples of ways you've used the story to communicate with your students. And I think I'm curious, is there like a favorite storytelling activity you haven't shared with us yet or maybe one that, you know, your students just love and, and, you know, that you hear about for, you know, years and years after, after those semesters are over? Well, I, I don't use it in my class, but I use it in teaching stories to storytelling in consulting and leadership development programs. I'm teaching leaders just outside of the classroom. And there's a tool that I've used and you can actually purchase it. It's basically a tool that helps you structure the story. And it gives you, there's two things. One, it's a pack of cards that basically give you an example of a story and a purpose and then a question or called story card. That has been a really phenomenal tool. It's called the storytelling leader and there is a book and a website. It's called the storytelling leader by David Hutchins. And there's free resources on his webpage. And what I've used are the story cards. And there is also a outline that kind of allows students and participants to fill in the different pieces of storytelling. And what's really interesting after I've done this workshop, we have a 30 day get together with those that went through the program and so many come back and say how they've used the story. So we develop it and we talk about purposes and then they come back 30 days later and say, oh my gosh, I used my story and this is what happened. And so really kind of shows leaders, wow, there is a way to use storytelling and so in different scenarios, like they used it at a town hall meeting. They've used it with their staff. They've used it to create a vision for their organization. And so yes, I'm throwing out Dave Hattens. I have not met him, but those resources are free. And so educators, you can use those and there's a canvas that basically helps the student or the participant walk through the different parts of the story. And it always starts with why are you telling this? So it helps the storyteller or the leader or the student think through what's the purpose as they're constructing the story. It helps them to think about the emotions involved with the story. And so those resources have been a game changer for me because they support my belief that stories are very powerful, if told well and told with the purpose in mind. So that's one of my favorite resources. So I can't say that I created it. I just really use it and like it. That's a great example of a resource that people can use, especially the paid and the free resources part of it. And to your point, I feel like that's the challenge around storytelling. Like why don't you identify, feel like you open these blood gates. But then also how do I construct it in a way? I sometimes when I'm working with clients have to get them down from like a 10 minute story to like a 5 minute story or a 20 minute story down to a 5 minute story and getting the ums out and removing some of the extra information. But then making sure that it kind of ended with this is the moral of that story. Lauren, it is a great way to use chat. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Yeah. You can say here's my story. Can you give me, can you revise it for a short story or a long story? And so it's your story. So you know with it's making stuff up. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And it's even. but also like to. like once they have like a draft or something to build, then it's the practice and the reps getting it down and timing it, like they can do it independently, but sometimes having somebody there, I'm like, nope, you hit the three minute mark or acting like an interviewer who is bored with the story and learning how to read body language. So it's like it can help with the draft and pair really well with the coaching in terms of giving them reps and things like that. You know, one of the things though, we talk up, we've asked kind of our guests before is thinking about maybe what are some of the challenges with using this? Like I know I struggle, so I identify as a black woman and I'm despite me lying about my age regularly, I'm older than 40. And when I was growing up, saying you wanna tell stories meant you were lying. And so sometimes I get a little like caught up, not caught up, but I have to say like this is beyond that. This is outside of that culture and this is a different space than you can always explain why. But sometimes I hear telling stories and I think, oh, I'm lying or I shouldn't do this because my great-known Claire will be rolling over her grave and she found out I was telling stories. And you talk a little bit about some of the challenges that you face in using it, maybe not that and maybe not getting students on board, but maybe something else we haven't talked about. - Well, I think one of the challenges is being vulnerable. And so if you have it created the space in a classroom where students can tell stories about themselves that may be hard or that may be challenging, that's going to be a very difficult scenario. So it's not something that I would wanna say the first day of class or, you know, so I think that you have to build that psychological safety. Students have to feel that they can tell and share their experiences or their stories or even mess up when telling their story and it's gonna be okay. And so I found that when I was teaching undergraduates, there was this, but what if I mess up? What if I mess up? And so we had to kind of, I so I just felt a really bad story and messed up and got them all laughing so that they could see that the messing up is part of the point. So I think you have to make sure first of all that that happens because if that doesn't happen, it can, it can not go well. And I still sometimes struggle with even adults and doctoral students thinking that they don't have any stories to tell. And it really kind of like this, you know, this isn't me. And so then I've yearned to stories about others and try to help them come up with, you know, when was a time that one of your team members did exceptionally well or was really doing something that reflected the value of your organization? And so you have to make time for them to reflect. So kind of creating stories on demand is very difficult for everyone. And so that's one of the things that I have learned that for some people, it takes a while to come up with a story no matter how many prompts or how many examples that you give them. And so that's one of the challenges. So what I've tried to do is have different prompts that stories from the news, stories, so that it becomes easier for those that are just staff with not thinking of it. Yeah, that vulnerability piece is so important. And it's about creating a culture within your community where people can be vulnerable. So then they say, okay, so normally I wouldn't do this, but in this space, I feel okay with being able to lean in. I also too will say, like, you don't have to tell me everything, maybe just one thing. So that that's sometimes quantifying it helps to, for folks say, okay, I'm not giving everything right now. I'm giving this a little bit and that's okay. And that's enough to kind of get things started. So yeah, yeah. So the other thing is that I have them first start with pairs. So they tell another person their story and then they tell their story in groups. And then if they're comfortable, they can share it in front of the class. And oftentimes students are like, you have to tell the story. Everyone needs to hear the story. And so that's phenomenal. So that happens several times where other students are saying, you've got to tell the story. And so that is the exciting part where they, story listening is also part of gathering stories, right? Is listening to other people's stories and saying, oh my gosh, I have to, can I share your story with somebody else? But to your point about the word story, I just want to reflect. Sometimes it's, can I tell you about an experience I had that I just have to share? So there's different things that people can say, if story isn't clicking. Yeah. So using synonyms for story, it's the experience piece. I also love where you talk about, talk about somebody else. I say, this is your opportunity to pay, to pay your mentors or people you love, like tell their story, but tell how their story has changed, how you've worked or, you know, when I talk to my students about my teaching practice, I can say, okay, this piece came from this person because I saw how impactful it was on this. And so you're still kind of talking about yourself, but sometimes the where did I learn this from story can be really endearing. And it's an opportunity to show your gratitude for that person that poured into you for sure. Yeah. And I think if you start with using stories, maybe as reflective way of your identity development or in a different way, then you can start to say, oh, that is a story that I can use for something else. And so almost pairing the use of stories as a narrative pedagogy, right, in terms of helping you identify, or develop more of your identity as a leader, then you can use those stories as a way to communicate as a leader. And so what I've learned since I first started doing this is all the different ways that stories are being used in leadership education. And now we have a course at Harvard on storytelling. Now leadership programs have courses in their curriculum on storytelling and leadership, which that was not happening in 2017 or '18. There was, I had to like, had all the books and art articles putting together, how can I do this? Because there's so much evidence that shows that leaders that tell stories are more effective and make an impact. But nobody was teaching leaders how to tell stories. And now it is everywhere. Yeah, get some point. So I'm, I'm Chris, you mentioned the story cards and the free resources on the storytellingleader.com. Imagine I'm putting together a starter kit for storytelling in my teaching or my consulting practice or what have you, like what else should the centers know about implementing this approach? Or I guess ask another one, like what are the first steps folks could take to start using it in their courses or programs? First, no way you're using storytelling. Is it as a tool to help them communicate as a leader? Or do you really want them to reflect on their stories to better understand who they are as a leader? So because I use it as a leadership tool, I would approach it with making sure, obviously, you know your outcome. So my outcome is so that leaders understand how stories can be used as a practice, as a tool, and to walk away with some ideas, some story starters, and some ways of using their own story. And so when the story cards and the canvas are two things that I use, I also would say, if you're going to teach storytelling, have some stories of your own. So you need to be able to model what you're trying to teach and also bring in different videos of storytelling. Do one well, do one not well, so that your students can see that it's okay to fail. And find ways to link it with other things in the course, right? So unless you have a whole storytelling course, we used it in our public and human relations course. So we used it in terms of when you're talking to the public as a leader, when you have to face different situations, what are some stories that you can share that, like if you're making a big change, or if there was a crisis or something like that, we used it as a way to integrate it into the curriculum, or into the course that you're teaching, is to find a way to connect it. But I have found that those two resources are very helpful and I've just started using them in the last two years. So those are good tools. And the other piece, sometimes you could have like reflective parts, like just questions about that, you know, tell me about a time, it's kind of like those tabletops. Those are good starters because you ask a question, they have to tell a story about something. And so you're not asking them to tell stories. So if you start with something, like get to know you questions, or tell me about a time you miss to plane, or something that's fun, that gets students talking, not realizing they're telling experiences or stories. So I would find a way to ease into that, especially for any age undergraduate, or it just kind of helps warms people up to talking about themselves. And then you can transition to say, well, you know, share questions or you have any answers. And some of those are examples of stories. And so I would pick out the cards, right? The reflective cards that would lead into possible stories. you know, it's interesting because I will say, you know, I'll say to my students, we're gonna tell them to sort of like one time at Bandcamp. And I'm like, well, y'all know that movie and they're all too young for the movie. Stunned like your homework is to watch America buy, you know, to like watch these. And I almost now feel like I have to put together it in like my introduction like four or five videos that I reference. So like these will make sense. So that when we get to the storytelling piece, the one time at Bandcamp reference, then it clicks. It makes sense for them. - The other thing to bring it to today's time, a lot of them are watching little stories on TikTok. They're watching little stories on different, you know, on YouTube. And so what I'm looking at is what do I need to do to integrate more media, more digital tools? Because that's where the generation is at. So you started out earlier with old-fashioned ways. So maybe a last. So some of this may feel old-fashioned. So that's one of the things that I would also suggest to those that want to use storytelling is learn the language of the gen Z or the alpha, because there's so much ingrained with media. And find something on TikTok that's kind of a story, because some of these posts are just like stories. So that's one of the areas in terms of where I'm headed is looking more about the integration of media and the digital tools and AI, like, tell a story and then have an AI. I don't even know what they're called. These generated AI characters tell the story, right? So yeah, I'm still learning, still learning. Go to the dance, ILA, AI conference. - Thank you for the plug. Yeah, watch the webinar, see if they can go back and watch. - Yes. - I love that you shared that TikTok example during the first day of class or first week, I put them in groups and I say, like, teach me something. And this year, they taught the whole class of TikTok dance. And I was like, oh, this is interesting. And then later on, I heard a student who said, you know, somebody was asking me about this class and I was like, yeah, we do TikTok dances. And in my head, I'm like, y'all are gonna get me fired during my promotion year, because that's what you're saying. Without the context of, I have to get them to facilitate and organize people, you know, in front of a large room. And so on day one or week one, we do, you know, like, I'm like, y'all are missing the context, but you're definitely getting the message or you're able to pitch people on this class and the long haul. But listen, we want to say thank you so much, because you shared resources, activities, spawn, ideas. And we appreciate you taking this hour with us and talking about something you love and sharing some meaningful ways in which we can use it. So thank you so much for joining us today. Best of luck as you're in your consulting and in your dissertation oversight as you finish out this semester and the rest. - Thank you so much for having me. It was really nice to meet you, Lauren, and it was great to see you again, Dan. So thank you, true pleasure. (upbeat music) - You connect with leadership educators virtually? Please follow us on social media. Search the Leadership Educator podcast on LinkedIn to find our page and find us on Twitter at lead educator pod for episode release information, show notes and upcoming events. You can connect with me on Twitter at Dr_Leadership. And Lauren is at MRSLAURJB, that's Miss LauraJB. You can find the episodes or ever podcasts are available. We also encourage you to please subscribe at leadershipeducator.com and rate us five stars as the more you rate us, the easier it is for others to find us. - We'd like to thank the James M. Cox Jr. Institute for Journalism, Innovation, Management, and Leadership within the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia. The support was facilitated by Dr. Keith Herndon, William S. Morris Chair in New Strategy and Management. - And our wonderful theme music was composed, performed and mixed by Dr. Matt White, Trumpeter, Composer, and Associate Professor, and Chair of Jazz Studies at the University of South Carolina. Check them out at mattwhitejazz.com. Matt, thank you so much for sharing your musical genius with our audience. - And finally, we are grateful for the support of two professional associations that are destinations for leadership educators, the Association of Leadership Educators, and the International Leadership Association. ALE, which funded the start of the podcast, continues to promote our mission of continuing conversations with leadership professionals. Check out all that ALE has to offer at leadershipeducators.org. 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