Purpose: Research on storytelling in strategic leadership is conceptually, theoretically, and contextually fragmented, and its relationship with knowledge management remains insufficiently integrated. This study synthesizes the evidence and clarifies its knowledge-related and organizational implications.

Methodology: An integrative systematic literature review was conducted. The final corpus comprised 63 empirical studies: 54 qualitative, six quantitative, and three mixed-methods studies. Evidence was coded and synthesized by antecedents, mechanisms, contingencies, and outcomes across individual, group, organizational, and field/sector levels.

Results: Six functional configurations were identified along an instrumental–constitutive continuum, including “a platform for creating and transferring tacit knowledge and developing organizational narrative memory.” The nonlinear “translation cascade” framework showed that stories circulating across levels are interpreted, negotiated, re-authored, and enacted. Outcomes were primarily cognitive, learning-related, and relational, although resistance, distortion, manipulation, and counterproductive outcomes were also reported.

Discussion: A knowledge-based interpretation indicates that storytelling is associated with knowledge creation and organizational learning through the socialization of experience, externalization of tacit knowledge, combination of narratives with existing knowledge, and internalization of meanings. Recording and reusing narratives can strengthen organizational memory, while cognitive, infrastructural, and relational outcomes correspond to human, structural, and relational capital. These relationships are interpretive rather than causal.

Conclusion: Strategic storytelling can transform dispersed experiences into shareable knowledge and support organizational memory and collective learning. Iranian organizations may consider piloting a narrative-based cycle for eliciting experiential stories, collectively validating lessons learned, storing validated narratives, and reusing them in training, decision-making, and solving similar problems.