The Secret Language of Leadership: How Leaders Inspire Action Through Narrative

There are four classical "levels of discourse": Exposition, Description, Narration, and Argumentation (EDNA).

Exposition uses information to explain, reveal, "expose," etc.
Description makes vivid with compelling details and figurative language.
Narrative tells a story with a plot or explains a sequence.
Argumentation convinces with logic and/or evidence.

So what? Actually, a great deal if the objective is to communicate much more effectively. All of the most influential transformational leaders throughout history were great storytellers. They knew when and how to use the elements of EDNA to explain, to inspire, to entertain, and to convince others.

What we have in Stephen Denning's latest and most valuable book is his development in much greater depth of information and insights he previously introduced in The Springboard, Squirrel, Inc., and The Leader's Guide to Storytelling. He also shares his thoughts about other dimensions of transformational leadership because he realized that "narrative wasn't the whole story. The secrets of leadership lay not only in the stories that were being told but also in the way the leadership goals themselves were formulated. Leaders could also use other tools like frames, questions, offers, challenges, metaphors, reasons, and so on.