STORY INTELLIGENCE™ AND STORY LEADERSHIP™
THE MISSING LEADERSHIP SKILL OF THE AI ERA
The Leadership Capability for Navigating Complexity through Collective Sense-Making
Every organisation runs on stories.
Stories about leadership.
Stories about change.
Stories about trust.
Stories about "what's really going on."
Those stories determine whether strategy gains momentum—or stagnates and dies.
Story Leadership™ helps leaders recognise, shape and align the stories that drive culture, engagement and performance.
4 BOOKS
Published in 5 languages
PhD
Former Professor of Cultural History
BBC ̇ Guardian ̇ Vogue
Media profile your board recognises
Working With Global Leadership Teams
INSIGHTS. The NHS. Oxford University. Private Equity.
Elite Athletes.
WHY STRATEGY FAILS
People don't respond to strategy. They respond to the stories they tell about it.
Most transformation programmes focus on communication. But communication isn't the problem. Interpretation is.
People never respond directly to facts. They respond to the stories they tell about the facts. The same strategy can inspire one team... and create anxiety, cynicism or disengagement in another. Because every employee interprets change through existing stories about:
• leadership
• trust
• fairness
• identity
• the future
If leaders cannot influence those stories, strategy struggles to land. And nor do your culture change initiatives.
YOU HAVE SEEN IT HAPPEN...
A change programme well-received in the room and quietly forgotten within a month
Senior leaders visibly struggling but unwilling to engage with anything that feels like coaching
A pulse-survey that confirmed what you already know -- and changed nothing
An investment in leadership development you struggled to justify to the board
THE SOLUTION
STORY INTELLIGENCE™
The human capability every leader now needs.
Artificial Intelligence produces information. Human intelligence creates meaning.
Story Intelligence™ is the ability to recognise, interpret and consciously shape the stories that drive human behaviour.
It enables leaders to:
✓ recognise hidden organisational narratives
✓ understand resistance
✓ influence culture
✓ create shared meaning
✓ lead through uncertainty
Story Leadership™ is Story Intelligence™ in action.
01
Lasting Behavioural Change
Not a tick-box. Leaders leave with a framework they apply from the following Monday.
02
Board-Ready Credibility
Published author. Peer-reviewed methodology. The board conversation you need.
03
Sustainable Capability-Building
Story intelligence will transform your entire organisation in a lasting way and give you a competitive edge..
04
Natural 1:1 Pathway
Leaders who want to go deeper self-select into coaching. No pressure, no pitch.
THE STORY LEADERSHIP™ TRANSFORMATION PROGRAMME
THREE SIMPLE STEPS. A MEASURABLE AND SUSTAINABLE SHIFT.
Most leadership programmes focus on communication and behaviour. Story Leadership™ works one level deeper.
Because behaviour follows interpretation. Interpretation follows story. And change becomes easier once people begin telling different stories about themselves, their teams and the organisation.
This isn't just communication or vision storytelling training. It is leadership through collective sense-making.
Keynotes | Executive coaching | Narrative diagnostics | Leadership workshops | Story Labs | Optional integration with INSIGHTS discovery profiles
1
SEE THE STORY
Teams surface the stories shaping their assumptions about leadership, change and each other. Hidden narratives become visible, often for the first time.
2
SHIFT THE STORY
Leaders learn to recognise that stories are interpretations, not facts. Replace limiting stories with more adaptive ones. Cynicism reduces. Agency returns.
3
LEAD THE STORY
Create a compelling future narrative people believe in and that inspires action and engagement.
THE PROOF
What a global leadership team said.
Keynote speech and workshop at the INSIGHTS Global Leadership Meeting in Edinburgh. Senior leaders from across a global organisation. Followed up by bespoke team workshops, story-labs and 1:1 executive coaching.
"Storytelling is not a nice to have -- it's a core leadership skill. It is how we connect strategy to what it really means day-to-day, consistently and simply, in a way that people can see themselves in. And it is how we turn direction into momentum."
Angela Brennan -- Global Head of Learning & Talent, Insights
Global Leadership Meeting, Edinburgh
"Absolutely super execution of one of the best leadership events I have been to… and I’ve been to many! Superb execution and to work on the actual work that needs done with the wonderful Anna Katharina Schaffner was simply inspiring and superb."
Tricia Nelson -- Global Marketing, Brand Sales Director, Insights
Global Leadership Meeting, Edinburgh
"Thank you Anna for your huge contribution to our Global Leadership Meeting - it is a privilege to work with you and I look forward to seeing meaningful impact as we continue to cascade ‘The Story Solution’ throughout our business."
Sandy Wilson -- Head of People & Strategy, Insights
Global Leadership Meeting, Edinburgh
Find out more about the pioneering collaboration of the Story Leadership™ and INSIGHTS. Both Management Issues and Customer Experience Magazine (CXM) have published articles about it.
ABOUT ANNA
Credentials your board will recognise
Anna K. Schaffner, PhD, is a story leadership coach & consultant, keynote speaker, clinical hypnotherapist and bestselling author. Her work sits at the intersection of narrative psychology, solution-oriented coaching, business transformation and leadership development -- a combination that does not exist anywhere else on the market.
PhD
Former Professor of Cultural History. Academic rigour behind every framework
4 books
Published in 5 languages. The Story Solution: Change your Toxic Self-Stories and Thrive (Profile, 2026) and Exhausted: An A-Z for the Weary (Profile, 2024)
BBC ̇ Guardian ̇ Vogue
The Observer. The TLS. Cosmopolitan. RED. National Geographic. Philosophie Magazine. Aeon. Psyche. Psychology Today.
Insights
Accredited practitioner in psychometric personality tools used across global organisations
Clinical Hypnotherapist
Executive and burnout coach with clinical grounding in evidence-based hypnotherapy.
Keynote Speaker
Expert facilitator for senior leadership audiences who expect to be challenged.
QUESTIONS
What Organisations Ask Before Booking
Every question a senior buyer would ask before committing -- answered before they have to ask
We have tried leadership workshops before and nothing stuck
Most culture change programmes treat lack of engagement, burnout, turnover and change fatigue as communication or behavioural problems. Story Leadership™ treats all of these as symptoms of a story problem. That distinction changes what happens in the room -- and what leaders take back and implement.
How do we justify the investment to our board?
Anna is a published author with a unique set of skills and tools in addition to a registered and original new leadership change programme. A significantly easier board conversation than "we hired a coach". A concise summary document is available to share in advance.
Will this work with senior, commercially-minded leaders?
Yes. Anna does not facilitate with therapy language or vulnerability prompts. She works with authority and intellectual precision. Senior leaders feel challenged and seen -- not managed.
Is this a wellbeing programme repackaged as leadership development?
No. Wellbeing programmes address how people feel. Story Leadership™ addresses how people make sense of themselves and their organisations and how they lead. The outcomes are measurable behavioural shifts and a new vocabulary for collective sense-making, not temporary mood improvements.
DISCOVERY CALL
THE CONVERSATION WORTH HAVING
A 30-minute call. No preparation required. Anna will ask four questions about your organisation and you will leave with a clear picture of whether Story Leadership™ is the right fit for you.
No commitment. No pitch. Limited availability for workshop delivery in 2026
The question is not whether your leaders are under pressure. They are. The question is whether your organisation addresses it intentionally -- or waits until the cost becomes visible in your retention data.