Flywheel Leadership · Graham Peelle (Managing Partner, Endeavor Strategic)

Episode #69: Telling Better Stories | How leaders cultivate connection and culture through story telling with Ash Seddeek

·42 min·2 clips

A coaching event led to people in the room crying and a standing ovation at a sales kickoff.

Graham welcomes Ash Sadiq, founder and CEO of the Executive Greatness Institute. He sets up the conversation around leadership storytelling and how communication can become a real leadership edge. The episode opens with the show's Beyond the Bio segment. Ash shares his proudest professional accomplishment: receiving a surprise Fulbright scholarship to the U.S. to study linguistics. He describes the scholarship as the result of hard study and strong networking, and he speaks with clear appreciation for the community around it. Graham then turns the discussion to how stories work inside organizations. He asks how leaders can connect the past, present, and future for the people they lead. Ash says leaders need to recognize what a team has already built before asking for the next push. He argues that appreciation and memory make people more willing to keep moving. Graham notes that many organizations rush past their wins and miss the chance to use them as fuel. The two keep coming back to the idea that culture gets stronger when leaders can point clearly to where a team started, what it has achieved, and where it is going. Ash introduces the idea of organizational alpha. He explains it with a stock market metaphor, where alpha means performance above the ordinary baseline. That lands as a way to think about leadership creating value that goes beyond the incremental. Graham and Ash treat that as a reminder to make communication more intentional. Ash says story can help teams, boards, and customers understand direction. The episode stays conversational and generous throughout. Graham keeps asking for examples, and Ash keeps turning them into practical leadership language. Near the end, Ash shares where listeners can find him on LinkedIn and at communicatewithclarity.co. He also gives ash at executivegreatness.com as a direct contact path. The close lands on the impact he wants his work to have. He wants people to feel the value of the work they are doing and connect with audiences at that same level.

As heard by us

Leadership becomes more effective when communication links past effort with future direction.

Flywheel Leadership focuses on the leadership work that sits behind a durable story: how a founder or executive connects past, present, and future in a way a team can actually follow.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

You want your next message to land like a story, not a memo.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Flywheel Leadership