Inspiration is more effective than motivation over the long haul. Your leadership team and others will create more from that internal spark or vision. Seeing their why and finding their want first and foremost.
I once worked with a business owner who, by all accounts, was miserable. He could have had a good business, but it was struggling. And he’d been at it for a long time. He was struggling himself, creating problems faster than he was solving them. Not only were his business and work life crushing him, but his marriage was falling apart, and he was dangerously overweight.
His view of his problem was that his team just couldn’t do what he needed. Or wouldn’t. He couldn’t seem to hire good people. Everything fell back for him to do.
He had a second home on the coast and loved his boat. He’d be so beaten up at work that he’d need to get away and recharge every two or three weeks. As he made ready for a particular escape and recharge trip, he was telling me about some of the critical projects he needed his team to handle while he was gone.
I asked him for confirmation of the obvious: “You expect them to fail, don’t you?” He quickly replied: “Absolutely. I know they’ll fail. And I’ll have to come back and clean it all up myself.”
Of course, that’s a formula for disaster on all fronts. If that’s the game you’re playing, you’d better change the game, and fast.
I offer this as a supreme example of leading through motivation, to the extent that there was a little leadership. It’s really a case of trying to manage people and outcomes and not being effective at even that.
And its textbook is creating what you expect. He expects them to fail. Do we think they are unaware of his expectations? What’s the likelihood of them exactly meeting those low expectations he has for them? It’s been happening for years, so I’d say that likelihood was around 100%.
Let’s come back to you and others who are less in the ditch than this fellow. You’re a leader in your company, family, and other areas. What is the #1 ingredient to be inspiring? Is it to talk about inspiring things? Yes. Is it to paint an inspiring picture? Sure. But what really matters is:
For you to BE inspired yourself!
