It is 1977, and I am at a storytelling festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee. Doc McConnell is standing in front of his medicine truck, pitching old-time snake oil and telling tales as tall as a field of cornstalks. My own life as a performer is still a year away. I am lost in his stories.
I have come to believe that storytelling sits very close to the heart of executive presence. It was at the heart of my work for the first half of my career, and Doc is still my fondest memory of that festival. I was enthralled by what he and the other storytellers could do. They captured the imagination of their audience and left lasting, vivid images in people’s minds.
It took me years on the street to understand what I had been watching. My first year as a street performer at Faneuil Hall Marketplace in Boston was difficult. I would get 15 or 20 people to stop and watch, and with the slightest gust of wind they would be gone. Meanwhile, more seasoned performers drew crowds of over 300. I learned that it was not so much about me. It was much more about my audience. The best performers got people involved right away and kept drawing them in, closer and closer.
I am always amazed at how much time executives spend building the perfect deck for a big presentation. The charts are so packed with data that you would need a magnifying glass to read them from the tenth row. Then the rehearsal happens in the cab on the way to the conference. How do you think that will turn out?
How does storytelling build executive presence?
Storytelling builds executive presence by letting people see how you think and what you have lived through, instead of hearing only your conclusions. A story also gives the room something to carry out the door. When people retell your story later, your presence travels with it.
Executive presence is usually described in terms of how you show up: your stance and your voice, and the composure underneath them. (If you would like the wider picture, I explore it in the psychology of executive presence.) Leaders also bring heart and experience into every room, along with the wisdom that comes from lessons learned. The skill is learning to share those lessons in the form of stories.
There is a second story at work, and it is easy to forget. It is the story other people tell about you after you leave. Some years ago I wrote about Dan Collier, a colleague who teaches communication skills for a living. One afternoon, distracted by a big project, he was half listening to his five-year-old daughter, Lauren. She put her hands on his cheeks, turned his face toward her, and said, “No Daddy, listen with your eyes.”
People notice the leaders who put their phones away and give their full attention. They notice the leaders who don’t, too. Either way, a story about you spreads. So here is a question worth sitting with: What story might others tell about you when you’re gone?
How does storytelling build executive presence?
Researchers at Princeton used brain scans to compare a person telling a story with the people listening to it. The listeners’ brain activity became coupled with the speaker’s. The stronger that coupling, the better they understood the story, and when communication failed, the coupling disappeared (Stephens, Silbert, and Hasson, PNAS, 2010).
A wider body of research points the same way, with an honest caveat. A 2016 meta-analysis in Communication Monographs pooled dozens of experiments and found that stories do shift people’s beliefs, attitudes, and intentions, though the effect is modest (Braddock and Dillard, 2016). I find that reassuring. A story will not rescue a weak idea. What it can do is help a good idea reach the people in the room.
This fits what I wrote a few years ago about the actor’s secret. I suggested beginning a talk with a story that connects to your content, because later that evening, when your audience is asked to explain your presentation, it is often the story they recall and retell.
Let other people carry the story
Early in my performing career, I applied to be an artist in residence with the Rhode Island State Council for the Arts. On the day of my interview, I step into the boardroom and notice several people already seated, waiting to speak with me. They invite me to sit at the head of the table. Instinctively, I stay standing. I greet each person individually, give each of them my eyes, and invite them in. Then I open my portfolio of press clippings and photographs.
As I speak, I use a story selling technique that still serves me. Rather than talking about myself, I use the voices of my prior sponsors. “What the folks at the River Festival most appreciated about working with me was…” “What members of the audience would say about my performance was…”
Do you see how that changes the frame? The story is still about my work, but it arrives in the words of the people who experienced it. I was an interesting mix of introvert and extravert, and I had to learn to talk about myself in a way that was both bold and humble. Borrowed voices let me be both.
Stories can also change how a team sees one person. Ray, an IT manager at a global bank, used to slump in his chair at meetings. He had packed away his years as an international martial arts champion. When he finally shared that story with his colleagues, they started sharing their own, and it brought the entire team closer together. (I tell Ray’s full story here.)
What do these stories have in common? A real person in a real moment, and a lesson that matters to the people listening. The room’s needs, concerns, and fears shape which story you choose and how you tell it. The same story told the same way to a town hall and to a senior leadership team will come across as canned.
Can AI tell your story for you?
AI is a useful tool for gathering and shaping information. The lessons you have learned, and the moments you learned them in, belong to you. Sharing those lessons as stories is a human skill that can’t be replicated by AI.
People notice the difference. In a 2025 study, Peter Cardon and Anthony Coman asked 1,100 working professionals to rate a supervisor’s congratulatory team message written with different levels of AI help. When the supervisor used little AI, 83% saw them as sincere. With heavy AI help, that fell to between 40% and 52% (International Journal of Business Communication, 2025). Heavy AI use made the supervisor look less professional too, but sincerity took the bigger hit.
When the moment is human, such as praise for a team or a hard conversation, your own story in your own words is what people are listening for.
Here is what I invite you to try
Think of two or three moments in your life when you felt at your best, most alive, energized, and effective. They might come from a stage or a playing field, a kitchen, a lab. Write them down, then choose one.
Now I invite you to tell that story out loud to one person you trust, in about two minutes. Watch their face as you tell it. Listen with your eyes.
Then borrow the actor’s secret. The next time you present, choose one thing to work on, and let it be your story. Place it where it connects to your point, and notice what people repeat back to you afterward.
Finally, sit with one question: What is the story you would like others to be telling about you?
Take a risk, try it on, experiment, and above all, have fun. If you would like to build this skill alongside other leaders, storytelling is one of the modules inside Effortless Executive Presence, and I would welcome the conversation.
So, what are you waiting for? On with the show!
Questions leaders ask about executive presence and storytelling
How does storytelling improve executive presence?
A story lets people see how a leader thinks and what they have lived through, in a form the audience can remember and repeat. Research from Princeton found that a listener’s brain activity couples with a speaker’s when a story is understood. A well-chosen story keeps working for you after you leave the room.
What kind of stories should leaders tell?
The strongest stories tend to come from real moments you lived: a lesson learned, a setback you recovered from, or a time you were at your best. Keep a person at the center and connect the lesson to what the room needs now. Sometimes the best version lets colleagues or clients speak about your work.
Can executive presence and storytelling be learned?
Both can be learned. People with a natural presence were sometimes born that way, but most learned it through training, preparation, and experimentation. Storytelling grows the same way any stage skill does. You tell a story out loud, notice what lands, and try it again, ideally with a coach or peer who gives honest feedback.
Rob Salafia lectures at MIT Sloan School of Management, is a Master Executive Coach at the MIT Leadership Center, and is the author of Leading From Your Best Self (McGraw-Hill). He spent the first half of his career as a performing artist: a street performer, tap dancer, wire walker, and storyteller.
