If you ask ten people to define the word leadership, you will get ten different responses.

Some people will link it to authority, or management positions, while others will focus on vision, empathy, vulnerability, or persuasion skills. The truth is that leadership is a mixture of all of them, and will change depending on context.

To put it simply though, leadership is influence.

We are all leaders. If you communicate in any way, you are leading. We lead with our words, our silence, our action and our inaction. And with the stories we tell.

Storytelling became a passion for me at 7 years old when I first saw the film Star Wars. This led to doing a communications degree, and a Masters in media futures.

For most of my adult life I have been an educator teaching media at Universities and Colleges, but I also managed a cinema, and ran a martial arts studio which focused on life performance and ego management.

They may seem like very different careers, but the thing they all have in common is storytelling.

The stories we tell ourselves, and the stories we tell each other.

The best stories will have courage, compassion, and curiosity.

The hero decides to get involved, to step out of their comfort zone and try and make the world a better place.