Simply doing your job well — and even exceeding expectations on a consistent basis — isn’t always enough to advance your career.
To stand out amongst your peers, you need to effectively communicate your contributions and achievements, and you should use storytelling to do it. By sharing your personal and professional stories, you highlight your unique skills, experiences, and the value you bring to their organization.
The Power of Storytelling in Career Advancement
Stories allow you to illustrate your achievements in a more memorable way. Rather than simply stating that you completed a project successfully with the requisite reports, provide a written narrative about the challenges you faced, the innovative solutions you implemented, and the impact your work had on the company. This approach makes your accomplishments more relatable and creates a lasting impression.
Sharing personal stories at work about how your values align with the company’s can be a powerful way to build connections and demonstrate your commitment. However, the timing and context must be right to ensure it feels natural and authentic:
- Team meeting or retreat
- Performance reviews
- One-on-one’s with your manager
- Proposal presentations
- Company-wide events
- Onboarding new employees
- Internal communication channels such as an intranet
Storytelling helps you build a personal brand within your organization. By consistently sharing stories that showcase your strengths, values, and accomplishments, you create a narrative that defines who you are as a professional. This can make you more recognizable and valuable to your managers.
Examples of Career Advancement Through Storytelling
When I researched this article, I found a lot of stories of folks who have grown powerful personal brands for lucrative entrepreneurial and speaking careers. What you need, though, are examples of folks who worked or work in corporate America and used storytelling to create career paths that led them to the top.
- Indra Nooyim, former CEO of PepsiCo, is known for her ability to tell powerful stories about her journey and leadership experiences. Her storytelling skills helped her build a strong personal brand and advance her career to the top of one of the world’s largest and most iconic companies. Nooyi often shares stories that highlight her values, such as inclusivity and ethical leadership.
- Satya Nadella‘s rise to CEO of Microsoft is a prime example of using storytelling to advance one’s career. Nadella frequently shares personal stories about his experiences, challenges, and vision for the company. His book, “Hit Refresh,” is filled with narratives highlighting his leadership philosophy and commitment to innovation and empathy. These stories have not only resonated with employees but have also helped to redefine Microsoft’s culture and direction under his leadership.
- Mary Barra is the CEO of General Motors, and she effectively uses storytelling to advance her career and lead the company. Barra often shares stories about her early experiences at GM, where she started as an intern and worked her way up through various positions. By sharing her journey and the lessons learned along the way, she has inspired employees and reinforced her commitment to the company’s values and vision. Her ability to communicate through storytelling has been instrumental in driving cultural change and innovation at GM.
How You Can Use Storytelling to Advance Your Career
Follow the examples above and the tips below to put you on your own path to wherever you want to go in your career:
- Identify Key Moments:
Think about your career and the key moments that highlight your skills, values, and contributions. Overcoming challenges, achieving significant milestones, or leading successful projects are all points around which you can craft stories during any one of the events listed earlier in this article. These stories illustrate your professional journey and the value you bring to your organization. - Be Yourself:
You’re a savvy user of social media and can spot a fake from a mile away, and so can your colleagues and managers. Just be yourself and share stories that genuinely reflect your experiences and who you are. You want your stories to resonate and build trust. - Focus on Results:
Telling a good story to advance your career means focusing on the result of your actions or ideas. Highlight how your contributions have benefited your team and/or the company, whether it’s through increased revenue, more efficient processes, or better team collaboration. Weaving in the impact of your work is more persuasive and relatable. - Practice and Refine:
Practice telling your stories to different audiences, including your colleagues, mentors, or friends. Listen to their feedback and refine accordingly. I know this sounds unnatural when the point is to be yourself and use organic moments to tell your stories, but the more comfortable you are with the stories you want to tell, the more confident and effective you will become in using storytelling to advance your career. - Use Multiple Platforms:
Share your stories through various platforms, such as presentations, meetings, performance reviews, and your own social media, especially LinkedIn. Be sure you create unique versions of your stories to fit the audience of each platform. Taking this multi-channel approach means your stories reach a broader audience and reinforce your personal brand.
Final Thoughts
Storytelling is not just for entrepreneurs, companies, and nonprofit organizations. You should absolutely use stories to advance your career by highlighting your contributions and showcasing your values to build a personal brand.
The point is to communicate your value to your current employer and position yourself for career advancement. Learn from the successful examples listed above to embrace the power of storytelling to elevate your professional journey and achieve your career goals.