There’s a screaming truth I keep returning to in my leadership coaching: every school is a story, and someone has to tell it.
If leadership doesn’t narrate the story, someone else will—and leaders rarely enjoy the version that fills the silence.
Over the years – as a head of school, a mentor, and now a consultant -I’ve become convinced that one of the least understood and most essential responsibilities of a Head of School (or Executive Director, or CEO) is to serve as the Storyteller-in-Chief. Not as a marketer. Not as a cheerleader. But as the person who names reality honestly, locates people in a shared narrative, and helps the community understand what chapter they’re in and what comes next.
Why stories matter in schools
Neuroscience has confirmed what good educators have always known: stories are how humans make sense of the world. They build trust. They anchor memory. They create connection.
But institutions run on story too…and not always the official one. There’s the story a school tells publicly. There’s the story people tell each other in the hallways and parking lots. And there’s the story people carry privately about their place in the community.
When these stories align, culture feels coherent. When they diverge, culture frays. This is why narrative leadership isn’t “soft work.” It’s culture work. It’s alignment work. It’s leadership work.
Where storytelling actually shows up
In my headships, and now in the schools I coach, I see the same narrative leverage points again and again:
- Admissions. Families join the story before they join the school.
- Development. Donors give to a future they can see themselves within.
- Board governance. Boards drift when members think they’re in different chapters.
- Faculty culture. Teachers need to understand how their daily work fits into the broader arc.
- Change leadership. Change is always a narrative moment: “What story am I in now, and who am I in it?”
You can have the right strategy, the right curriculum, even the right people.
But if no one understands the story, the work stalls.
What happens when the story goes untold
Here’s the pattern I see most often when I begin coaching a leadership team:
When leaders don’t narrate clearly and consistently…
…people fill in the blanks themselves.
And what fills the vacuum?
Rumor.
Assumption.
Projection.
Shadow stories.
Once those harden, they’re hard to undo.
The antidote isn’t more meetings. It’s intentional, transparent, repeated storytelling.
How leaders become Storytellers-in-Chief
This is not a personality trait. This is a practice. Here are some of the habits I help leaders develop:
1. Name the chapter.
Are we rebuilding? Growing? Stabilizing? Innovating? Surviving?
Say it out loud. People crave orientation.
2. Tell the small stories.
The hallway interaction. The quiet win. The moment a child lights up.
These “small truths” build big trust.
3. Connect the story to values.
If belonging, kindness, curiosity, or rigor matter, tell stories that show them lived.
4. Locate people within the narrative.
“Here’s where you matter.”
“Here’s what you helped make possible.”
Belonging is a narrative act.
5. Repeat yourself. Then repeat yourself again.
A story becomes a culture only when it becomes shared memory.
A Jewish Frame
Moshe is remembered as the humblest of leaders, yet his final act is Sefer Devarim – an extended retelling of the people’s journey, giving them clarity and courage. Our tradition is built on leaders who narrate meaning, re-frame experience, and locate communities in a sacred trajectory.
In Jewish education, narrative isn’t ornamental.
It’s heritage.
Why this matters now
Our schools are navigating complexity: changing demographics, rising expectations, cultural tension, burnout, mission-drift.
You can’t solve all of that overnight.
But you can narrate it—honestly, consistently, and compassionately.
And when leaders narrate well, something remarkable happens. People stop feeling whiplash. Teams realign. Boards settle. Families feel anchored. Teachers reconnect to purpose. Change becomes possible.
Because clarity is calming. And stories create clarity. If leaders don’t tell the story, the story will lead them. If they narrate it well, the community finds its way. This is the work of leadership. And it is work that we can learn, practice and strengthen…together.