Many people promoted into leadership get there thanks to functional brilliance.

They prove their genius with the numbers or have a stellar record in sales. They deliver for the company in meaningful ways—so they’re rewarded and entrusted with more responsibility.

But senior leadership requires something more—and this is often where leaders come up short.

Back in 1969, the satirical business book The Peter Principle captured this phenomenon with its now-famous rule: People within an organization will get promoted until they reach their “level of incompetence.” In the case of many executives, effective communication—storytelling in particular—is the one competency they’ve never had to master.

It’s a crucial skill for leadership because the simple fact is that our brains connect to a good story.

In a process known as neural coupling, a story provokes the neurons in our brain to mirror the patterns in a speaker’s brain. If an audience is skeptical or disconnected, storytelling can help bring them alongside. And as leaders rise through the ranks, they need to rely more on those powers of persuasion to succeed.

The payoff is clear: As McKinsey partner Julia McClatchy said in a recent podcast, “Having a great story creates a virtuous cycle that enables CEOs to build a track record of consistency. It allows CEOs to take action, accelerate the idea, and make change in the organization.”

According to McClatchy, McKinsey research indicates that “high-performing organizations are almost three times more likely than others to say that their organizations express narratives well.”

In my experience, most CEOs intuitively understand this. But many also think that storytelling is an inherited trait, like charm or charisma.

They point to the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs or Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett—both renowned storytellers—and say, “Hey, these guys were born that way. I’m not like that and there’s nothing I can do to change it.”

But that’s not true.

Everybody can learn to be a better storyteller—if they’re willing to put in the work.

An efficient and effective tool

One thing I hear about often when talking to clients is the need for greater efficiency. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the CEO, CFO or CMO, everybody wants to be able to deliver a greater impact with fewer resources.

As it turns out, storytelling is not only persuasive; it’s efficient: Research from the organizational psychologist Peg Neuhauser has shown how “a well-told story is remembered more accurately, and for far longer, than learning derived from facts and figures.”

That data dump in an all-staff meeting or the 100-slide PowerPoint presentation? That sort of information overload is profoundly inefficient. By contrast, a story that people connect with emotionally can help leaders better articulate their vision and effect lasting change.

Equally important, storytelling helps humanize leaders.

In the old leadership model, the C-suite could get what it wanted through coercion (sticks) and bribery (carrots). But in the modern world, you need to inspire. And people are much more likely to go the extra mile for leaders they like.

Whether the goal is to get people to act or follow in your footsteps, storytelling is essential to charting any new course within an organization.

Storytelling for an external audience

There are undeniable benefits to having the C-suite use storytelling to galvanize the troops. But there’s a great benefit beyond the office walls too.

Recently, I was chatting with the senior leadership team at a U.S. healthcare company that wanted to do some storytelling training. As much as they saw the internal benefits, they were equally excited about how the training might help their executives build a public profile.

This company, like many these days, is trying to extend its authority in the broader community with various thought leadership initiatives: sitting on panels, writing op-eds and giving speeches to people outside the company (or even industry). For those who aren’t steeped in your company lore and lingo, storytelling can help clarify complex concepts—and allow leaders to reach new audiences.

How leaders can become better storytellers

Of course, every C-suite executive has different storytelling needs and a different tale to tell.

The common thread, whoever the storyteller, is the importance of understanding the audience. That means going beyond the transactional nature of any relationship—boss to worker, supplier to customer—and getting to the heart of what makes an audience tick.

Do they want to be inspired?
Do they need to be convinced?
Do they need motivation to act more like a team?

The only way you can really find this out is by doing your research and asking as many questions as you can.

Then, you need to develop and practice telling “proof stories”: These are examples culled from your company’s history that prove how it has succeeded or overcome obstacles on the path to better employee or customer relationships.

That means not just naming your values and putting them in a frame on the boardroom wall, but also making a real effort to create and share stories that speak to those values.

To share a proof story, you’ll need a good plot, of course, and interesting characters. But what really sets a mediocre story apart from a good (or great) one are compelling themes: ideas or values that the audience can take away and apply to their everyday lives. If one of your corporate values is integrity, for instance, then your proof story should not only show how integrity has helped your company succeed but also how it can help your audience succeed.

While some leaders are indeed born with a silver tongue or a golden pen, the fact is that storytelling can be learned. It’s a skill that can be mastered.

And for those newly promoted leaders looking to “take action, accelerate the idea, and make change in the organization,” as McClatchy put it, a little practice can’t hurt.