Thoughts on Inspiration
As a leader, the people around you need to see you as inspiration. They need to feel you offer something that they aspire to have or achieve. This will transcend your position. Maybe it’s your ability to handle high pressure situations with a still calmness and a smile on your face. Or maybe it’s your passion and work ethic. It could be your ability to navigate through difficult conversations. Moreover, as a leader you should be constantly encouraging your team and letting them know how much you appreciate their contributions. Good leaders do this with their direct reports. Great leaders do this with everyone. This select group of leaders offers encouraging words to the guy that cleans the restroom, their peers and even their own boss. Some will say “oh well that will make me look like a suck up”, no it will not, it will make you look like an inspiration. Now I am not saying to speak this over just anyone to just say it but when it’s been earned it should be said. There is power in the tongue so make sure you are using that power correctly.
Not very long ago, I had been assigned to turn around a very underperforming store. This store was in a place where virtually everything that could be wrong was wrong. Sales were tanking, customer satisfaction was at an all time low, the store team’s morale could not have been worse, sanitation was probably the most alarming of all. As I’m sure you have gathered by now, there were many things that were going wrong that was holding this store back, I knew the most important thing is to have the team believe in me and rally around me, so I could have the opportunity to lead this store from obscurity to prominence.
I knew I had my hands full and a difficult road ahead but to top it off I had 2 brand new leaders working under me. Both were super intelligent and skilled at the job but this was their first stab at leadership. As for myself, I was very new to this organization and I was in all honesty still trying to figure out this organizations systems and structure. Although I was new to this company, leadership was not new to me. I had been battle tested and even though this seemed like it would be my biggest test to date, I did not flench. Instead I immediately accessed every area of the operation and formulated a plan. I then went over the plan with my leadership team and let them know their roles in making this work. I gave myself 6 weeks to get this store back to functioning like a normal operation.
To hold myself accountable to those results I spoke to everyone on the team and told them my timetable. By week four, I felt so far away from this goal with only 2 weeks to deliver on my 6 week plan. Many unforeseen circumstances occurred during those first four weeks that really could have been looked at as setbacks and would have been more than reason enough to push my timetable back another 2-3 weeks. Something incredible happened midway through that fourth week, a very high performing subordinate said to me “I’m not sure if anyone else has told you this, but we think you are doing an amazing job and we appreciate you.” That was the boost in confidence that I needed as a leader to power me through the next week and a half. It seemed like from that moment on that the job was easier and results were coming in faster than ever. The team saw how far we came and became more motivated and had pride in the store. This is a clear illustration of how powerful words can be. This guy could have easily kept it to himself and thought, “oh he’s a manager, he’s knows he’s doing well” or “I’m not going inflate this guys ego”, but he made the choice to speak life over me. I often wonder what would have happened had he not spoke that over me. Would I have become more discouraged and let that hinder our progress. During that sixth week, I remember how everything seemed so operationally sound. Customers were leaving with smiles on their faces, employees were happy because the store was clean and pest free, my boss would come in and commend us on our progress and marvel at the numbers we were starting to hit. One employee came to me and said “You did it!’ And very respectfully responded “No, actually we did it!”
Inspiration is not just in our words. Often times we are most inspired by action. Your team needs to know that you are passionate about the purpose of your company or organization.