How to be the Inspirational Leader you Aspire to Become
Criticism and complaint seldom inspire people to take on new challenges.
4 essentials for inspirational leadership:
Belief:
You must believe in people in order to inspire them.
Everyone who has achieved anything owes a debt to someone who believed in them. Perhaps it’s a coach, teacher, or parent. For Jack Welch, it was his mother and a leader who gave him a second chance after he blew up a factory.
One of the most neglected leadership questions is, “Who do you believe in?”
Acceptance:
You must accept people for who they are if you expect them to take on new challenges. The people who inspired you made you feel remarkable. People aren’t motivated when you let them know they aren’t good enough.
Accept people where they are before challenging them to go where they haven’t been.
Don’t complain about progress and expect to ignite energy. Don’t nag about weaknesses and expect people to feel strong.
Ability:
The person who inspired you saw something good in you. Leaders fail when all they see is weakness in people. Inspirational leaders see untapped ability in others.
Leaders who inspire say:
- “You’re really good at…”
- “I think you would be really good at…”
- “What are you proud of?”
Confidence:
You can’t inspire the insecure.
Inspiration is directly tied to the amount of self-confidence you instill.
5 questions to build self-confidence in others:
- How might you help people try something new? Self-confidence grows as we try new things, not before.
- How might you walk-with, without being too helpful?
- What are you learning? Instill confidence by helping people reflect on their successes and failures.
- What one thing might you try? Limit the scope of effort to one area of growth.
- What would you like to learn before you move forward? Provide training.
What are inspirational leaders like? What do they do to inspire?
excellent article. If I were able to go back in time, I would have spent more of my time on this or similar courses. Inspirational leaders are so much more effective and powerful.
Thanks Bruce. It’s never too late. 🙂
Love this post. Absolutely spot on … and inspirational!
Thanks Jay. A post about inspiration should be inspirational.. 🙂
Sometimes we make things so complicated when they don’t have to be. This was an exceptionally timely read for me – thanks for your inspirational leadership!
An excellent write up on Inspirational Leadership. You have covered all good essentials that a leader should focus while preparing the team of deliverables. I may add Caring & Supportive elements which can help in development of ppeople to get the best productivity results.
Lesley,
Soft does NOT equal weak. Softness come from strength.
Let your actions speak louder than your words. They may not want to hear what you are telling them, but they cannot help but see your team out producing them, they will see your lowered turn over and high team morale. It will eventually get them to ask, “So how do you keep your morale up and your production high? What are you doing differently than us?” Once you get them to ask, now you have an open door/window to speak your message. Remember, everyone changes…some when they see the light, others when they feel the heat. If you can’t get them to see the light, just wait, because in short order they should be feeling the heat from above to change.
We have several managers on our leadership team whose departments are producing poor results, have low morale/empowerment, turnover, etc. They interpret my idea of inspirational leadership as too soft and say that employees are taking advantage of our new focus on positive communication.
I’ve failed to get them to understand that the results they so harshly drive their team towards are possible with a change in their leadership style… more trust, pushing decision-making down the organization, recognizing strengths, clarity in expectations, care-frontational conversations, etc
Doing these things has enabled me to hold people accountable in a very effective way. Despite being the ‘softie’ on the team, I’m the first one to sort out low performers and recommend action if I know we’ve approached it the right way. It’s not about being soft on people; it’s about what is actually effective.
I’ll keep an eye on your posts to get some more inspiration that might help me land this idea with our managers. : )
Not only is this article spot-on for me professionally but it’s also right on the mark personally. I will take this both to work and home with open eyes, and heart, for ways to improve how I inspire my team and family. Thank you 🙂
I agree. I feel people have their own individualities and those uniquenesses must be unveiled. A leader first listens then shares. Good perspectives here. Applause!
Beautiful article thank you for sharing, I will read it again.