On Becoming an Inspirational Leader – Part 1: What’s your motive?
When you think of inspiring leaders, who comes to mind? What are the characteristics of an inspiring leader? Boatloads of charisma, giving rousing speeches, being physically imposing or attractive, a genius IQ? If these are the requirements to be an inspiring leader, are you inspiring?
We typically tend to believe that inspiring leaders were born that way. Think of Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King Jr, Madiba, Jacinda Ardern, Siya Kolisi and Michael Scott from The Office (nah not really). Born inspirational, obviously. Right?
Answer: Not at all. Yes, these people are excellent examples of leaders that have inspired millions of people over the course of the past 90 years, but they are not a part of some elusive club that us mere mortals cannot be a part of.
Leadership, like anything else in life, CAN be taught, learnt, practiced and developed. This is truly great news.
There are literally thousands of leadership and management models that outline the characteristics of great leadership. Many of them are great, while most are a bit vague and lack practical application. Over the course of the next five weeks, we will cover the ingredients of inspirational leadership as seen and lived by leaders we consider to be inspirational. We are fully convinced that anybody, irrespective of your personality, background, role, experience or context, can inspire others to do more than they thought possible.
YOU can become a leader that others love to follow.
Ingredient #1: You MUST love people
Being promoted to a position of leadership sounds attractive since it often comes with a list of nice perks: Big(ger) paycheck, important sounding title, nice office. All good things in and of themselves – nothing wrong with getting any of these. The only problem is the perks can distract us from the primary focus of what a leader should have: taking care of the people in your care (as Simon Sinek likes to put it). You can only be a leader, literally speaking, when others are willing to follow you. And people will only follow you willingly when they are convinced that you have their best interest at heart.
Patrick Lencioni, the internationally renowned Organisational Health expert, draws a clear distinction in his book The Motive between the motivations of good and bad leaders. Adam Grant does the same in Give and Take. Simon Sinek takes a different angle on the same topic in The Infinite Game. Great, inspiring leaders are not in it for themselves. They are not motivated by taking, but by giving. They are by their very nature servants – always looking for ways to put the people in their care in a better position so everyone can flourish. Bad leaders by comparison are motivated by their own benefit – they are in their role to take as much as possible. They want to win, and they want to win for themselves, primarily. This might sound harsh, but these authors have found in their research that most leaders are motivated by selfish ambitions (there are many current examples that come to mind). This is why inspirational leaders are so few and far between.
If you want to be a leader that people love to follow, you need to reconsider your motives. You need to be very honest with yourself – are you in it for your people or for yourself? If you find that it really is all about you, then you should not be a leader. Period. Until you can genuinely change your motives.
When you care deeply about your people and their wellbeing, they will not allow you to fail as a leader. Your success is guaranteed when your people are willing to do whatever it takes to help you succeed.
It is up to you to take up the challenge: will you become a leader that people would love to follow?
The Takeaway
Anybody can become an inspirational leader if you know what to focus on. It starts with reconsidering your motives: your people need to be your primary concern – you MUST love people.
PurposeWorks offers a 10-week in-depth leadership coaching course that is aimed at developing inspiring leaders that people love to follow. If you are interested and want to know more talk to us at info@purposeworks.co.za.
At PurposeWorks we are all about Making You and Your Work Rock. Our focus is on Organisational Health and Design, Employee Centered Culture, Leadership Development and Performance Coaching. For more information on how we can help you create a work environment that rocks, develop a great team, become an inspiring leader or unlock your personal excellence talk to us at info@purposeworks.co.za.
