Abstract
M.Phil. (Personal and Professional Leadership)
People are storytelling beings and storytelling has been associated with improved
self-awareness. It has also been indicated as a way to uncover patterns of culture,
behaviour, communication, the sharing of knowledge, and understanding in different
ways. If storytelling has such value, why is there so relatively little research on the
effect of storytelling on self-awareness that could, in turn, lead to the development of
personal mastery on life dimensions such as spirituality, mentality, emotionality and
physicality? Furthermore, if storytelling leads to self-awareness then there should be
a framework to integrate the effect of storytelling on self-awareness. Such a
framework should then be able to guide any person towards personal development
in becoming a complete human being in any of the dimensions associated with
personal leadership. Even more so – if storytelling leads to self-awareness,
storytelling could be the way through which self-awareness towards safety might be
raised in an organisational context.
The aim of this research was to describe what effect storytelling has on selfawareness
in the development of personal leadership; to explore whether storytelling
could be positioned within the internal life dimensions of personal leadership and
lead to self-awareness; and what meta-insights on storytelling could be presented
with the effects it has on self-awareness and safety-related self-awareness in the
form of a framework?
It is my view that, although storytelling is widely researched in social science, it still
lacks an integrated framework that explains the effect of storytelling on selfawareness
in the development of personal leadership, especially in an organisational
context. The first motivation for this research was to investigate and establish
whether storytelling leads to self-awareness. The second motivation was to generate
insight and knowledge by relating storytelling to self-awareness within the internal life
dimensions of personal leadership. Thirdly, to develop a framework that provides
meta-insights on self-awareness – safety-related self-awareness in particular –
through storytelling...