Strategic storytelling: The story you tell about yourself determines your success

A lot of leaders and their teams work very hard, but constantly feel like they are wasting their energy on scattered efforts. What is missing then, is a strong narrative that gives direction to all the hard work. Telling the right story about your work sets people in motion. It inspires. Being too modest about the thing you are trying to do on the other hand, only ends up keeping your organisation small. So why not try and tell a success story?

That is where strategic storytelling comes in: the deliberate art of crafting a narrative that helps your team change the world. As an advisor to European not-for-profits, mostly in the cultural field, I've spent years helping leaders craft the right story. I believe that getting your message across and convincing people to join your movement is not some glib marketing trick, but an essential leadership skill.

In 2026 I wrote a book on the topic (in Dutch) whose title roughly translates as Modesty Doesn't Change The World. It explores why as a leader, you simply have to tell success stories. It is based on years and years of case notes with different clients which resulted in a mixture of theory, practical examples, and hands-on techniques that I myself apply with clients.

We look at

• the anatomy of a strategically strong story
• the nitty-gritty of measuring impact
• how to banish 'ghosts' from the organisation: often unspoken self-defeating narratives inside the team.
• what you can learn from resistance.

Successful leadership isn’t about empty rhetoric. It is about convincing people of your ambitious plans and getting your team to thrive along the way.

For now, there are no plans for an English-language translation of the book. I am however doing English language lectures and workshops. So the aim of this blog is to provide an English translation for some of the key chapters and insights. This blog, just like the book, is aimed at mostly European leaders and teams that want to change the world but find themselves stuck in "we are doing our best" mode.

I want to challenge the assumption that modesty is a good trait here. It really is not.