New keynote focused on communication through storytelling empowers leaders of leaders at Tobias Leadership Retreat
INDIANAPOLIS, IN, UNITED STATES, February 10, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — Esther Choy of Leadership Story Lab was a keynote speaker at Tobias Tune-Up through The Randall L. Tobias Center for Leadership Excellence at Indiana University. The immersive, daylong retreat is designed to help leaders fine-tune their leadership style, sharpen skills, and walk away with fresh strategies to lead with clarity, confidence, and agility. This was the third year that Leadership Story Lab has presented and the first year Choy presented storytelling as ‘facilitative leadership.’
“Storytelling is not a ‘nice to have’ skill for leaders—it’s foundational,” said Christina Smithhisler, Managing Director of the Randall L. Tobias Center for Leadership Excellence. “Esther helped our participants understand that leadership communication is less about delivering the perfect message and more about unlocking meaning, voice, and belonging within their teams. That kind of leadership is exactly what is needed.”
The new keynote, “3 Keys to Effective Leadership Communication,” focused on how great leaders are not just a “sage on stage, but guides on the side.” Great leaders unlock their team’s potential through story discovery and business storytelling. Based on her 15 years of helping business leaders strategically use storytelling, “3 Keys to Effective Leadership Communication” helps leaders understand how to use three essential keys of business storytelling:
-Facilitating Stories: how to coach others to build their own narratives
-Cultivating Belongings: how to help your team learn how to speak up, one level at a time
-Word-Playing: how to accelerate your impact with creativity
“A lot of good leaders know how to elevate themselves and drive their messages home,” said Choy. “But Tobias fellows are striving to be leaders of leaders and that means knowing how to elevate their teams and colleagues, not just themselves.”
The impact of the session was experienced immediately by the conference attendees. One participant shared that Esther’s keynote was the most relevant to their work, writing, “A great idea is nothing if you are the only one that understands it and knows how to apply it.”
Esther Choy’s most recent book Winning Without Persuading: A New Framework for Leading with Curiosity and Story Discovery offers a more in depth discussion on her breakthrough approach: leadership communication built on discovering the stories waiting inside others that can elevate teams, energize organizational cultures, and drive transformational outcomes. To be published in May 2026, the book can be pre-ordered now.
About The Randall L. Tobias Center for Leadership Excellence at Indiana University:
The Randall L. Tobias Center for Leadership Excellence at Indiana University prepares leaders for 21st-century challenges. By bridging the gap between knowledge and practice, they empower leaders to develop people, organizations, and communities to solve complex problems. They value inclusion, innovation, impact, and integrity and their focus on leadership across all sectors—corporate, public service, education, religion, medicine, and nonprofit—makes them unique among leadership programs nationwide.
About Leadership Story Lab:
Leadership Story Lab is a women-led business storytelling consultancy, offering coaching, training, and certification in story facilitation. Their strategy, T-Squared (Transaction × Transformation), empowers leaders to meet goals, see differently, and create meaning through authentic communication and connection.
Reena Kansal
Leadership Story Lab
+1 312-324-3830
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