Course overview
Senior leaders are expected to explain difficult choices in ways that people can repeat, trust and act on. Yet strategy messages often arrive as dense slides, disconnected announcements or abstract statements of intent. Narrative leadership gives leaders a disciplined way to connect evidence, purpose, decisions and action without oversimplifying operational, financial, political or human realities. It is especially valuable during transformation, restructuring, policy change, crisis response, major investment programmes and public scrutiny.
This course develops the craft of strategic narrative: diagnosing audience concerns, defining the central tension, selecting credible evidence, framing choices and building messages that travel through an organisation. Participants use SCQA, ABT, Message House and stakeholder mapping to shape leadership communications for executive briefings, town halls, board discussions, investor-facing messages, change communications and difficult conversations. They practise speaking with clarity under challenge, adapting one narrative for different audiences and ensuring words align with decisions, behaviours and operating priorities.
Teaching combines concise faculty input, annotated examples, case analysis, message clinics, group work, simulations and individual rehearsal. Cases reflect situations familiar to senior professionals, including a bank responding to conduct failures, a public agency explaining service reform, and a multinational managing a major operating-model change. Each participant develops a strategic narrative dossier for a live leadership issue, including an audience map, message architecture, evidence plan, speaking outline and implementation plan.
The course suits leaders whose work depends on gaining informed commitment rather than issuing instructions alone. It is designed for experienced managers who must communicate across functions, geographies, professional groups and levels of authority.
