Leadership Essentials: How do I inspire renewal and innovation?
I define leadership as an attitude and behavior that inspires people to strive for a greater, brighter and more beautiful future. Leadership inspires people to be the best they can be: they dare to be more, and do more.
Use the following tips to make a quantum leap, from where you are now to where you really love to be.
Leadership Essentials tip #1: Be inspirational
“Cut our costs by 10% within 60 days” is less inspirational than “create happy and loyal customers in every contact you have.”
Every person is inspired and passionate in his or her own personal way. If you support, inspire, and challenge people in a way that “fits” with their personal world, they will be the best they can be and will work accordingly with very little supervision and motivation from you.
Align your innovation with what drives people from inside out (Their Why), and what makes their fire burn inside (Passion), so that they will come to work enthusiastic, happy, and “good to go.”
If the Why is strong enough, the How will Follow. Tony Robbins
Leadership Essentials tip #2: Communicate to inspire.
Communicate your vision to inspire people to see more and do more.
You can’t communicate your vision too much or too often. It’s an ongoing process. You’re more effective if you connect to the listeners’ model of the world, their values, desires, and aspirations. Communicate in a visual way so that people “see” what you envision. Do so with powerful words in a comprehensive way so that people remember what you say, and communicate with feelings that touch their hearts.
When you connect to the heart and minds of people, their hands (actions) will follow.
What would you do, if you were absolutely certain, you couldn’t fail?
Leadership Essentials tip # 3: Break through fears, free up creativity and action
We are usually conditioned to stay in our comfort zone. We keep doing things in the way we are used to. We are mostly not thrill seekers and don’t want to rock the boat. We also want to keep the peace.
Fear of the unknown, self-doubt, and disbelief can unknowingly and unconsciously seep in and can keep us from stepping out of our comfort zone and into our learning zone. This can be challenging, especially when the world around us is changing at a very fast and disruptive pace.
Growth is not always an automatic process. We can reignite growth through challenging, bold actions that scare the hell out of us. We discover that we dare to be more and do more when we’re challenged to step up to the plate. We then realize how powerful, creative, inventive, and courageous we are.
In our next Blog we will discuss our following tips.