Seven Proven Ways to Inspire Others
*****
You make a difference by inspiring others to make a difference.
Here’s how:
1. Stop fixing.
If your passion for excellence and success drives you to constantly fix people, stop it. Problem centered fixers invite self-protective restraint in others.
2. Compassion wins.
The pursuit of personal gain and glory doesn’t inspire, it threatens. Inspiration occurs when others believe you genuinely put them before yourself.
3. Share frailties.
The frailties you’re working through inspire others to work through theirs. Avoid whining. Focus on hope, progress, and benefit.
4. Leverage weaknesses.
Your weaknesses are inspirational opportunities, especially if you’re loved. For example, acknowledging your inability to create systems gives place for system builders to step up.
5. Be great.
A life dominated by weakness and frailty never inspires. Bring positive value.
Value is determined not by what you tear down
but what you build up.
6. Believe in others.
“The people who influence you are the people who believe in you,” Henry Drummond. Rise above the failures of others by believing in their future. Those who believe in others inspire others.
“Keep away from those who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you believe that you too can become great,” Mark Twain.
7. See potential.
Potential motivates. See what could be not what is. People who believe in their potential dare to act. For example, a friend of mine is trying to earn a place in the Navy Seals. You don’t try that without believing in your potential.
Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.”
*****
How can leaders inspire others?
8. Hold others as being naturally creative, resourceful, and whole. Believe that about everyone. You may understand that there are dings and scratches and cracks on the outside, but the inside of each person is naturally creative, resourceful, and whole. When you see people that way, they know it. And they respond. See yourself this way, too.
Hi Jeanny,
Thanks for your comment. I can tell you have lived it.
I remember how people started freeing up around me when I started accepting them for who they are.
8. Forward Leadership Freak 🙂 !!!
Honored Joe… thank you
Hi Dan –
I love how the first four “ways” illustrate some of the important paradoxes in effective leadership and influencing others.
We are bathed in a culture where we’re told leaders are strong and decisive, unwavering and singleminded.
Of course, real life is nothing like that. So leaders who have to fix everything and don’t own up to their frailties appear weak, uninspiring and shallow.
In a world full of ambiguity and uncertainty, truly great leaders show us how to steer a courageous course directly into the unknown, so we can figure out the path together.
Hi Michael,
Thanks for your kind words.
I love your last paragraph…there’s real power there. Perhaps its the character of leaders that lets them pull others together even when the path isn’t clear.
Best,
Dan
Great post, Dan. The other aspect that comes to my mind is create and work out of a non-judgemental, trusting environment. I have seen this has the potential to be highly inspirational.
Cheers
Shakti
HI Shakti,
Thanks for the good word.
You’re pointing to an important issue…systems and environments deeply matter. Thanks for sharing.
Best,
Dan
Great Post Dan. I love the quotes especially the one by Emerson.
Dan can you tell me what I am doing wrong that I don’t get any emails alerting me to responses or new posts? thank you, Al
HI Al, I think you got it figured out…I mentioned you in Sunday’s post. 🙂
yes…..Yes…..YES!!!
Dan, this post needs to be highlighted in some special Leadership Freak blog post Hall of FAME! 🙂
Every point rings of sound wisdom and truth. Love it.
Compassion (genuine love/empathy) is the key ingredient that transitions fear/shame based leadership into love-based leadership. And not just for leaders, for all of us. Anyone.
Power in weakness. Absolutely.
Favorite: ‘Value is determined not by what you tear down but by what you build up.’ Exactly.
Another favorite: “The people who influence you are the people who believe in you,” Henry Drummond. It’s positive influence that helps inspire and nurture growth in others.
Potential: The truth is every single person we come in contact with has potential. Whether we believe it or not. It’s our own lack of belief in the potential in others that negatively reinforces another persons possible lack of belief in themselves. You never know just how much GOOD you can do by simply believing in another person. In some cases, you can even save a life. Or provide someone in despair just enough HOPE to keep going. The courage to take that next step. That next breath.
I’m reminded of an old Sufi tale I once read on FB:
‘When a pick pocket sees a saint, all’s he can see are the pockets.’
It took me a bit of pondering to really ‘get’ the point being made. To me, it means that we tend to judge others by our own estimation of ourselves,(and current state of character/development) and this has little or nothing at all to do with the other person. If we aren’t conscious of it, we can easily fall into not seeing past our own character and pigeon hole someone else without knowing them at all. We wind up not seeing past the pockets of our own estimations.
When someone believes in us, that’s powerful. That’s compassion. That’s love.
Kudos for this post Dan. You done GOOD! 🙂
Samantha,
Thank you for sharing you insights…powerful stuff.
One of my favorites: You never know just how much GOOD you can do by simply believing in another person.
The good thing about your comment is it takes no skill to believe in another. Anyone can do it. 🙂
Best,
Dan
I have to admit that I don’t always read the entire post from Leadership Freak when it comes… like today, I read – Inspire-Others-blah-blah-blah, then my heart stopped at: “Stop Fixing” – so I had to read the whole thing! all my life I’ve struggled to stop fixing (like when my dad walked out on my mom,my sister & I when I was 13 – like when when my college roommate got pregnant – like when my husband admitted his addiction – like everyday!)… I was glad to read the others and feel somewhat redeemed that I’m actually pretty good at 2-7… though 5 could use more work 🙂 Anyway, all this to say – thanks! I needed the reminder to keep being inspiring to others!
Hi Fortannam,
Thanks for the good word. It feels good to be useful.
I’m a fixer from way back. What’s exciting is how people open up to us when we stop trying to fix them.
BTW, fixing usually means remaking them in our own image. If you’re like me you don’t need to be fixed. 😉
Best,
Dan
Great post Dan, I plan to share it at an upcoming conference for management staff.
Hi Tina,
It’s a delight to write something you found useful.
Best to you at your conference.
Dan
I have enjoyed reading all of your posts
Enjoy the day!
Tina
Dan-
I especially like #4- Leveraging your weaknesses.
This of course requires that we have the ego strength, self-awareness, and ability to acknowledge that we have weaknesses…and then to openly seek help in those areas. This is a difficult combination of skills for most people to master. But, you are correct, once we can own up to some short-coming of our own, the void is almost immediately filled by someone who has the needed skill and expertise.
The central issue is that we cannot try to bb all things to all people and get the work accomplished. By looking for untapped strengths in other people, we can only maginfy our potential as a group or team.
Martina
@martinamcgown
Hi Martina,
Your wisdom shines through. Thanks for sharing.
We have to jettison the myth of the all-knowing, all-powerful leader in order to enter the realm of authentic leadership. It takes awhile to get there.
Best,
Dan
This post was represented in its entireity by my interactions with my son this morning. We were going to a run and he had chosen to skip an 11 a.m. meeting of an organization he is involved in and vice president of. I was trying to make the point about how he has to give up just a little bit of freedom and energy for something he has a goal of being (president). But nothing about a parental lecture is going to inspire him (much) as compared to something internal or someone who says, “I see this in you and you can do this.” More to say but it’s Saturday and I’ve gotta run! Great post.
Paula,
Thank you from bring these ideas into the family context. I have a secret passion to teach leadership to moms and dads. I think all leadership principles find expression in our homes.
Best to you,
Dan
Another straight shooting post. No 6 resonates with me the strongest, as it is the trust that you place in others that reaps the greatest rewards. Sure, there are those that will disappoint on the way but people need to be trusted and repay this trust with great work, loyalty and inspiration to others.
Chris,
You’re nailing it. Thank you for stopping in to join the conversation.
Best,
Dan
It is a life altering moment when someone looks you in the eye and you know they see something in you that you have yet to believe yourself. But you know from that moment on you are going to try and achieve that vision. If you ask any person you view as a success who first believed in them they will have a name, possibly a date & time. This is the professional version of discovering the love of your life….Who had that vision for you? See you do know ! 🙂
Learn….learn more about each person, learn more about yourself and demonstrate that you value learning/growth as a lifelong pursuit. Being a student creates a natural frailty by saying I don’t know and want to know, teach me. Being a student says you don’t know how to fix it, but are willing to learn. It means you are wanting to be open, compassionate and of course you are leveraging your weakness by displaying you don’t know.
I totally agree with this one. Especially that first point, “Stop fixing.” Something I learned late in the game is that “Hurting people hurt people.” These kinds of folks ministers, lead, speak out of their hurt. They’ve been burned so bad they have a negative perspective on everything. The worse part is that they actually think they are helping by calling out others weakness, faults, and sin. I believe there’s power in the tongue and words hurt if used wrongly. I love the idea I got from Jesus and John Maxwell. Jesus viewed everything from the end result and viewed people from the greatness He saw and created them to originally be. John Maxwell said put a 10 on everyone’s forehead and view them as winners. He also has a principle I think called the 101 principle. Find the 1% good of a person that you like and build on that. Ever since then I’ve modeled my leadership and built other leaders from the perspective that they are good to great for something. You’ve just got to look through all that dirt to find the gold and polish it. Then you put them in the right place and the right time and let them shine! Then perhaps even they will see that they had it in them all along!
Love this post! Sharing!
God bless!
Ricardo
Hey, I love this post! Thanks for sharing! You always make me think!
Blessings,
Claudia
Hello Dan, as many others before I also think that this is a great post – it is brief and therefore serves as a fantastic summary/reminder! I especially like point 6 “Believe in others”.
Cheers, Andre
Great blog: my only issue is that people are different, so what inspires me may not inspire others! That said all of the above points are relevant, and managers would do well to develop themselves in these areas.
This post makes me remember with great fondness and appreciation, a mentor/teacher from my early life. He always said I’d make a great teacher and belived in me in other ways as well. I never strived to become a teacher. It just sort of “happened.” But now I run my own trainng business. Each of these steps is important to me in my training as well. I have to know when to impart wisdom, and when to “import” it from my participants. Thank you once again for a wonderfully important post.
That’s a great post, one thing I could add is “Develop people”. I believe a good leader always develops his people by coaching them and creating the opportunities for them to grow themselves, to learn new things and improve day by day.
Reblogged this on Ginger Toes and commented:
Profound wisdom in a pithy post. Awesome.
Dan, My wife has the degree in psychology but she passed this on to me. We are attracted to someone to whom we do a favor. So to connect this to the leadership field; a leader who admits to his followers his weakness and recieves assistance, would also obtain a greater degree of loyalty.
Just my observation. Love the blog.
Keep up the good work!
Great post, like so many of yours – I’m new to your blog but now subscribe, and almost every day get at least one takeaway from it. I thought, though that this post hit it out of the park, and will be copying it to put into my Inspiration folder on my laptop! 🙂 Keep up the great work! Ray
Great post, thanks so much.
Thanks Chris
Great post contained some motivation quote..
thanks for the post