Hey, I’m Jordan Bower: a leadership storytelling coach for executives, creatives, and thought leaders.

Leadership Storytelling for a Changing World

When I went to business school, many moons ago, “leadership storytelling” was mostly about sticking to the scripts. The emphasis was on presentation skills. Leadership presence. To me, that mostly meant pretending that you were someone else. When me and so many of my classmates struggled with nerves, stage fright, and even humiliation, it was no wonder that we stuck to our talk tracks and focused on being clever instead of actually, you know, connecting with the audience.

In doing so, we avoided the common sense truth: people won’t remember what you say, they remember how you made them feel.

I carried these leadership assumptions into the workforce. Then, about fifteen years ago — finally — things started to change. That was when I found the courage to go out on my own and found my own leadership storytelling consultancy. At first, everyone I knew thought I was nuts. But quickly, as I gained experience and know how, I started to see results helping leaders, teams and even entire organizations communicate with clarity, courage, and vulnerability.

Today, I know that what was once “soft stuff” is now table stakes for leaders in every industry. When the world is changing so fast, we need storytelling leaders who can provide context and motivate us in bold new directions. This is the kind of storytelling I focus on with my coaching clients: stories of possibility, of hope, of bold new directions… and, also, stories of closure, collaboration, and healing.

With AI rising exponentially, now is the time to double down on the abilities that only you have — and that more and more of us need — like empathy, creativity, personality, and charisma. This is the new stuff of storytelling.

Why Do People Hire Me as a Leadership Storytelling Coach

Generally, my clients come to me with one of these needs:

1. You want help working on a particular story. Perhaps you have an upcoming speech, presentation, article, email announcement or pitch. It’s really important, and you really want it to be awesome. You’re looking for guidance across all facets: finding and honing the right story, building your ability to tell it, and differentiating yourself through your personality and connection with the audience. You want a coach who will guide you through the creative process, while providing clear, tactical tools that will help you succeed.

2. You want help working on narrative strategy. Bigger than any one particular speech or article, you’re asking strategic questions about your overall narrative. Like how to position your thought leadership, data, or change initiative so that your agenda sticks — and how to communicate it in ways that others will tell the story for you. You’re looking for more complex guidance: beyond presentation coaching, you’re thinking about the strategic systems and story arcs that will bring the new narrative to life — as well as the old stories you’ll have to dismantle or address along the way. You want a coach/consultant who will help you think about both the strategic/tactical, as well as the emotional/relational, so your communication sings.

3. You want to build more general leadership storytelling and communication skills. You don’t have a pressing leadership need. But whether through feedback or self-reflection, you’ve realized that your career (and, probably, your personal life) would be vastly improved by leveling up your communication. You’re not exactly sure just what you’re looking for — and, maybe, what leadership storytelling even means! But you’ve got the hunch that there’s a coach out there for you who can help you unpack some of the blockers to effective communication, so you can connect, inspire, motivate and lead more effectively.

If you fall into any of these three categories… I can help!