The stories leaders tell shape which communities feel recognized and whose experiences are deemed worthy of attention.

When leaders challenge incomplete narratives and listen to the people most affected, they do more than improve messaging; they advance justice. They expand who gets seen, who gets included and whether the brand earns trust. Every campaign, partnership and image tells the public what the brand values. Those stories can reinforce tired assumptions or expand how people see a community.

This has practical consequences for groups that have historically faced exclusion. Leaders must be specific and thoughtful in their language , rather than reducing diverse communities to a single convenient category. Changing the narrative means widening the frame so people can see the complexity that stereotypes remove.

Leaders build credibility by shaping narratives that help people understand where they belong.

How Land O’Lakes Is “Repicturing Rural” America

Rural America often appears in national media as either a nostalgic postcard or a place that time forgot. There are weathered barns, empty roads and serious-looking farmers staring into the middle distance. There are fewer images of modern technology, young entrepreneurs, community networks and the people rebuilding local economies.

Land O’Lakes is trying to replace that limited visual vocabulary . In October 2025, the farmer-owned cooperative and Getty Images launched Repicturing Rural, an initiative that provides media organizations, publishers, brands and advertising agencies with a playbook and image collection for portraying rural communities more accurately. The collection includes existing and newly commissioned photography intended to address gaps identified through Getty Images’ visual research.

For Heather Malenshek, senior vice president and chief marketing officer of Land O’Lakes, changing the narrative began with a conversation, not a fully packaged marketing initiative. The work built on Land O’Lakes CEO Beth Ford’s American Connection Project, which focused on expanding broadband access in rural communities. Malenshek began asking what the company could contribute as a storyteller. The team conducted research with rural residents and questioned whether its own language about “vibrant rural communities” reflected what the people living there actually valued.

Malenshek described the frustration that pushed the work forward: “I went to Beth and asked, ‘What do you think about us trying to do something like this? Because, honestly, I’m frustrated with how rural America shows up.’ And for us, it’s frustrating because it is at the heart of everything we do and of what our farmers are doing. And if people only knew how it really was, then maybe they’d think differently about it.”

The campaign’s significance lies partly in who Land O’Lakes is inviting into the conversation. Repicturing Rural is not presented as a single company’s attempt to own the issue. It is an invitation for other brands, filmmakers, publishers and creators to reconsider the pictures they use and the assumptions those pictures reinforce.

That distinction matters. A company can produce a heartwarming advertisement about a community and still leave that community with little control over its own story. For Malenshek, success will not be measured by whether one campaign earns attention. It will be visible in the stories that get financed, the images that publishers choose and whether rural residents feel recognized rather than reduced.

This is narrative leadership at a national level. It does not speak for rural communities and declare the work finished. It challenges the institutions that decide which stories become part of the country’s cultural imagination.

Start With What Children Need, Not What Adults Assume

Sesame Workshop approaches narrative change on a global scale, but its process begins locally. The nonprofit behind Sesame Street says its educational media and resources support children in more than 190 countries. Its international programs include locally developed versions such as Takalani Sesame in South Africa, Ahlan Simsim in the Middle East and Plaza Sésamo in Latin America.

The organization’s reach does not come from exporting one American storyline and changing the language. Its teams work with local educators, psychologists, researchers, families and production partners to identify what children in a particular community need.

Scott Cameron, who leads content strategy at Sesame Workshop, described the process as a needs assessment. Before developing a character, the team asks what challenges children face and whether Sesame can address them in a way that plays to the organization’s strengths.

That process shaped Kami, an HIV-positive Muppet introduced through South Africa’s Takalani Sesame during the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Sesame Workshop says Kami became part of the first preschool curriculum created to increase understanding and reduce stigma surrounding HIV.

Cameron explained that the character emerged from listening to people close to the children affected: “The need was to help all children see that you can play alongside a friend who’s HIV positive, and you’re not going to catch it. For children with HIV, it is to help them see themselves reflected on screen and feel like they will be more welcome on the playground or in the classroom or in the community play.”

Sesame Workshop followed a similarly consultative process when developing Julia, a Muppet with autism. The team spoke with families of children with and without autism, consulted specialists, developed curriculum guidance and tested character designs and stories with children. The goal was not to make one character represent every person on the autism spectrum, an impossible assignment even by Muppet standards. It was to create a specific character with relationships, preferences and a family, then help children understand how they might communicate and play with someone whose experience differs from their own.

Cameron observed an even more revealing response while testing Ameera, a green Muppet who uses a wheelchair and appears in Ahlan Simsim . The research team brought the puppet into a classroom in Jordan where the students also used wheelchairs.

The adults expected the children to ask about Ameera’s disability. The children were more interested in Rihanna, food and whether being green was a permanent condition. “Kids come to it with this sense of curiosity about things that I think adults lose sight of as we get older,” Cameron said. “They don’t always see the difference. They sometimes see the similarity, because they’re looking for ways to play, and they want to make that happen.”

That response reveals why leaders need to examine the narratives they inherit. Adults often assume that difference must be the first and most important part of a person’s story. Children may notice it, but they are also looking for an opening: Can we play together?

Sesame Workshop does not ignore disability, illness, grief or displacement. It places those experiences inside stories about friendship, play, family and belonging. Its Arabic-language Ahlan Simsim initiative, for example, has reached 27 million children, including nearly 9 million in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

The organization listens locally, creates culturally relevant stories and gives children a vocabulary for experiences that adults often treat as too complicated to discuss .

Leaders Must Match The Story With Action

A new narrative fails when everyday decisions continue reinforcing the old one. Leaders should ask:

  • Do our policies reflect the story we are telling?
  • Are the people most affected included in decision-making?
  • Are we listening to what is actually happening, or only shaping what we want people to believe?
  • Are we changing the underlying conditions, or simply changing the language around them?
  • How will we know whether the new narrative has changed people’s experiences, not merely their perceptions?

Changing narratives is not about making reality sound nicer. It is about leaders describing reality more completely, then changing the systems that made the incomplete story so powerful.