Season 4, Episode 9: Project Manager Stories – Narrative Tools for Leading with Clarity and Purpose with Phillip Henry

About this episode

This episode explores how storytelling can enhance leadership skills for project managers.

Storytelling is becoming an essential leadership skill for today’s project managers. Far beyond Gantt charts and spreadsheets, effective project management hinges on the ability to communicate vision, inspire teams, and navigate change with empathy and clarity. In this episode, host Liana Henry sits down with her husband and business partner, Phillip Henry , COO of The Black Dog Group and a certified Project Management Professional, to explore how storytelling can transform the way project managers lead. From guiding multi-million-dollar projects to mentoring enterprise teams, Phillip has seen firsthand that success in project management isn’t just about Gantt charts and deadlines. It’s about the human element. Phillip unpacks how narrative can communicate vision with clarity, inspire teams to work toward a common goal, navigate change with empathy and resilience, turn dry “lessons learned” into engaging, actionable retrospectives, and win true stakeholder buy-in, not just signatures on a plan. Take a listen if you are looking for practical frameworks, pitfalls to avoid, and tips to apply whether you’re managing a marketing campaign, a software rollout, or a community initiative…

People in this episode

Host: Liana Henry

Guest: Phillip Henry

Topics covered

• storytelling
• leadership
• project management
• communication
• team inspiration
• narrative tools

Keywords

• project management
• storytelling
• leadership
• communication
• teamwork
• narrative
• stakeholder buy-in

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: The Black Dog Group

Books & works: Gantt charts, lessons learned

More episodes of The Starfish Storytellers

• Season 5, Episode 6: The Problem of Maria - Poetry, Identity, and the Power of Being Seen with Pilar Quintana · June 11, 2026 · 45 min
• Season 5 Episode 5: Rewriting Pain - The Mind, the Body, and the Power of Story with Ron Clinton · May 14, 2026 · 36 min
• Season 5 Episode 4: Standing Out in a 5-Second World - Brand Clarity and the Entrepreneur’s Story · April 9, 2026 · 45 min
• Season 5, Episode 3: The Other End of the Line - Inside Sales Stories with Ceri Ruenheck · March 12, 2026 · 31 min
• Season 5, Episode 2: Telling Stories That Convert - Video, Brand, and the Power of Visual Storytelling with Tim Bradley · February 12, 2026 · 42 min
• Season 5, Episode 1: Finding Perspective - Resilience Stories from Around the World with Heidi Siefkas · January 8, 2026 · 48 min