Spotlight Storytelling: The Six BEAM Stories Every Leader Needs (Part 3)

After coaching leaders across tech, business, science, architecture, and policy, I’ve noticed a pattern: great leaders have six core stories they can tell on demand. In interviews. In team meetings. In all-hands. In podcasts.

This article builds on Spotlight Storytelling, a workshop we facilitate at companies to help teams and orgs communicate effectively:

• Part 1: why a clear, concise story acts like a spotlight for your message

• Part 2: how to structure that spotlight using BEAM (Beginning, Escalation, Awareness, Meaning)

Part 3 is the next step: the six stories that matter most for leaders because in moments of uncertainty, your words can shape what people choose to do next. Hire you. Believe in you. Trust you. Follow you.

1) The Origin of Purpose Story

What it does: Explains why this work matters to you through one moment that makes your commitment obvious.

Question: What was the first moment you thought, “Someone should fix this”… and then realized it might be you?

BEAM beats:

• Beginning: Where were you, and what was “normal” about the situation?

• Escalation: What got costly, messy, unfair, or personal?

• Awareness: The moment you realized, “I can’t outsource this.”

• Meaning: The practice you committed to and what it changed.

Example: A client and I were running interview reps at an up-and-coming tech company. With a few tweaks, his answers were good but something was missing. On the third session, I stopped him and asked, “Why do you care so much?” He went quiet, then told me one story. A single moment that explained his passion and dedication. I suggested, “Lead with that.” He did. He got the offer.

Tip: Ask someone who has watched you work up close what moment made them think, “Oh, this matters to you.”

Takeaway: When people understand what drives you, they trust your judgment faster.

2) The Strategic Vision Story

What it does: Shows you can see around corners and that your past proves you have the instincts to navigate what’s coming.

Question: What future are you trying to create, and what moment from your past proves you can recognize the pattern early and move first?

BEAM beats:

• Beginning: The moment you noticed an emerging pattern before others did

• Escalation: The risk of doing nothing (drift, stagnation, misalignment, wasted effort)

• Awareness: The sentence you realized was true: “We need to shift our behaviors now to move towards a better future.”

• Meaning: The move you made (or advocated for) that created traction

Example: A few years back, I coached a leader who wanted to become a thought leader in her domain. She had several talks coming up and wanted each one to build toward something bigger. We clarified her career goals, her purpose, and the future she wanted to help create. Then we chose one story that could carry that future, and rebuilt the talks around it. Strategic on many levels!

Tip: Predicting the future is hard. Your vision does not have to be right. What this story shows is that you have thought about your role in what might come next, and that you have a plan you can adapt and share.

Takeaway: A vision story turns abstraction into direction and proves you can lead into uncertainty.

3) The Setback Story

What it does: It’s tempting to present yourself as perfect because it can feel safer in the moment. But that sets an expectation that you will hide mistakes, which makes problems harder to solve. A Setback Story shows you can name what went wrong, take ownership, and change how you operate. That signals you are someone who can learn in public and lead with transparency.

Question: What’s a moment you were sure you were right… and then reality proved you wrong, and what did you change because of it?

BEAM beats

• Beginning: The call you made (and why it seemed reasonable at the time)

• Escalation: The consequence (missed deadline, fractured trust, measurable fallout)

• Awareness: The moment you owned it: “This is on me.”

• Meaning: The new habit/system you built so it doesn’t repeat

Example: With tech companies, layoffs happen, and many clients take it personally. It leaks into how they network and interview. I break down how to tell that setback story with clarity, not bitterness, in The Interview Question That Catches Everyone Off Guard (Including Me).

Tip: Only share setbacks you have fully owned, not the ones you are still arguing about in your head.

Takeaway: The point is not the failure. The point is that you changed.

4) The Principled Decision Story

What it does: Shows your belief system in the real corporate world, where trade-offs are normal and there is rarely a perfect answer. It makes clear what you protect when two priorities collide and you cannot make everyone happy.

Question: Tell me about a time you had to choose between two priorities and you knew you would disappoint someone either way. What belief guided your choice, and what did you protect because of it?

BEAM beats

• Beginning: The context and constraints (why this wasn’t a clean choice)

• Escalation: The competing pressures (speed vs trust, optimism vs honesty, morale vs reality)

• Awareness: The value you chose to anchor on: “If we win this way, we lose.”

• Meaning: The decision and the consequence you accepted (and what you’d repeat next time)

Example: In a two-day storytelling workshop, I helped a leader prepare for an all-hands during a brutal growth phase. The org was scaling fast and people were exhausted, and his first instinct was to smooth it over with a polished update. The participants debated the pros and cons of each. Ultimately, he chose honesty over gloss and told this story to 500 employees: “This org feels like raising my awkward teenage son, sometimes smart, sometimes lazy, but destined for greatness if I stay patient.” Years later, people still remembered it because it showed his belief system under pressure: tell the truth, then stay committed.

Tip: Great leaders work from a conceptual framework. Know your leadership values, define your principles, and be aware of your assumptions.

Takeaway: Under pressure, people look for your belief system. A Principled Decision Story is how you make it visible.

5) The Influence Story

What it does: Leadership is persuasion in practice. The Influence Story proves you can move ideas through people and not just be “right.”

Question: What’s a moment you shifted someone’s mind not by pushing harder, but by changing the frame, the evidence, or the relationship?

BEAM beats

• Beginning: Misalignment (two groups, one stuck decision, competing incentives)

• Escalation: The cost of staying split (delay, resentment, duplicate work, risk)

• Awareness: The leverage point you noticed: “They don’t need more logic, they need a shared reality.”

• Meaning: The sequence of moves that created buy-in (small pilot, reframed narrative, one-on-ones, shared criteria)

Example: In the dojo where I have been practicing martial arts for 14 years, a student once said the culture was “toxic” because some people seemed to get special treatment. I could’ve dismissed it. Instead, I invited the whole community into the conversation and made the process explicit: if it’s toxic, we rebuild; if it’s partially true, we improve; if it’s not true, we still learn. That conversation surfaced diverse opinions. Some people left. The people who stayed helped install clearer feedback loops with leadership. The influence wasn’t “winning.” It was building a culture sturdy enough to hold disagreement. I tell this story to every student bowing into the dojo for the first time.

Tip: When telling this story, don’t get caught up in the topic, but focus more on how you influenced. To learn more, read my article, The Arc of Influence: Persistence After No.

Takeaway: Influence is not about inventing solutions, but about how you open up channels of communication for people to come to a natural conclusion.

6) The Quick Win Story

What it does: Shows you can create momentum fast. It gives people a concrete reason to trust you with bigger bets.

Question: What’s one small move you made that produced a visible result quickly, and why did you pick that move first?

BEAM beats

• Beginning: A recurring friction point people were tolerating

• Escalation: The time/cost/confusion it created (small, but constant)

• Awareness: The simple diagnosis: “This is the bottleneck.”

• Meaning: One change → fast signal → what it unlocked next

Example: I coached an early-career client who didn’t yet have scope for “big impact.” We found a story that showed how she was “adding value” to the team. In her next 1:1, she told the story in 60 seconds. Her manager said, “Can I repeat this to my manager?”

Tip: Prioritizing what has the biggest impact with the fewest number of operations is a skill. If you don’t say something, this super power you have might go unnoticed.

Takeaway: Quick wins build credibility because they make progress easy to see.

Why you’re never done revising these

These stories are not one-and-done. If you keep growing as a leader, your stories have to keep up.

Your responsibilities change. Your blind spots get exposed. Your standards sharpen. What you thought was “the point” of an old story might no longer be true. So you revise. Not to sound better, but to stay accurate.

When your stories are current, people can make sense of you. They can connect what you say to what you do. They can predict how you will respond under pressure. That makes your leadership easier to read.

And when leadership is easy to read, it is easier to follow.