The Three Factors Of Leadership Motivation

Written by Brent Filson


Continued from page 1

2. MOTIVATION IS DRIVEN BY EMOTION. Emotion and motion come fromrepparttar same Latin root meaning "to move". When you want to move people to take action, engage their emotions. An act of motivation is an act of emotion. In any strategic management endeavor, you must make sure thatrepparttar 119515 people have a strong emotional commitment to realizing it. When I explained this torepparttar 119516 chief marketing officer of a worldwide services company, he said, "Now I know why we're not growing! We senior leaders developed our marketing strategy in a bunker! He showed me his "strategy" document. It was some 40 pages long, single-spaced. The points it made were logical, consistent, and comprehensive. It made perfect sense. That wasrepparttar 119517 trouble. It made perfect, intellectual sense torepparttar 119518 senior leaders. But it did not make experiential sense to middle management who had to carry it out. They had about as much in-put intorepparttar 119519 strategy asrepparttar 119520 window washers at corporate headquarters. So they sabotaged it in many innovative ways. Only whenrepparttar 119521 middle managers were motivated — were emotionally committed to carrying outrepparttar 119522 strategy — did that strategy have a real chance to succeed.

3. MOTIVATION IS NOT WHAT WE DO TO OTHERS. IT'S WHAT OTHERS DO TO THEMSELVES. The English language does not accurately depictrepparttar 119523 psychological truth of motivation. The truth is that we cannot motivate anybody to do anything. The people we want to motivate can only motivate themselves. The motivator andrepparttar 119524 motivatee are alwaysrepparttar 119525 same person. We as leaders communicate, they motivate. So our "motivating" others to get results really entails our creating an environment in which they motivate themselves to get those results.

For example: a commercial division leader almost faced a mutiny on his staff when in a planning session, he put next year's goals, numbers much higher thanrepparttar 119526 previous year's, onrepparttar 119527 overhead. The staff all but had to be scrapped offrepparttar 119528 ceiling after they went ballistic. "We busted our tails to get these numbers last year. Now you want us to get much higher numbers? No way!"

He told me. "We can hit those numbers. I just have to get people motivated!"

I gave him my "motivator-and-motivatee-are-the-same-person!" pitch. I suggested that he create an environment in which they could motivate themselves. So he had them assess what activities got results and what didn't. They discovered that they spent more than 60 percent of their time on work that had nothing to do with getting results. He then had them develop a plan to eliminaterepparttar 119529 unnecessary work. Put in charge of their own destiny, they got motivated! They developed a great plan and started to get great results.

Overrepparttar 119530 long run, your career success does not depend on what schools you went to and what degrees you have. That success depends instead on your ability to motivate individuals and teams to get results. Motivation is like a high voltage cable lying at your feet. Use itrepparttar 119531 wrong way, and you'll get a serious shock. But apply motivationrepparttar 119532 right way by understanding and usingrepparttar 119533 three factors, plugrepparttar 119534 cable in, as it were, and it will serve you well in many powerful ways throughout your career.

2004 © The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

The author of 23 books, Brent Filson's recent books are, THE LEADERSHIP TALK: THE GREATEST LEADERSHIP TOOL and 101 WAYS TO GIVE GREAT LEADERSHIP TALKS. Sign up for his free leadership ezine and get a free guide, "49 Ways To Turn Action Into Results," at www.actionleadership.com


Leading from the Inside Out: The Power of Deep Blue Leadership

Written by James K. Hazy, Ed.D., Founder & CEO, Leadership Science LLC


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You can't systematize innovation, Jobs says, "you hire good people who will challenge each other every day to makerepparttar best products possible.... When I got back, Apple had forgotten who we were.... Fortunately, we woke up"2.

These stories demonstraterepparttar 119514 power of deep blue leadership. When leadership operates on people's deeply held sense of identity and purpose, motivation comes fromrepparttar 119515 inside out.

The Story Part 2: Resolution When Lynn arrived in his office, he immediately asked some tough questions. "How often are teams getting together to talk about opportunities to realize our vision? Are we passionate about process improvements? How about new ways of thinking? Do we critically review project plans and budgets? Do we talk seriously about personal and career development? Do people share a common vision? What is it? How doesrepparttar 119516 situation compare with six months ago? How engaged are our people? These were difficult questions, but ones that could be answered. The process took several weeks, but oncerepparttar 119517 data was gathered and preliminary analysis was completed,repparttar 119518 trend was clear—leadership activity aimed at identity and purpose, deep blue leadershipSM activity, had fallen off inrepparttar 119519 organization.

When he had these answers, Lynn called his leadership team together to sharerepparttar 119520 findings and express his concerns. "We seem to have lost our edge," he said. "I don't feelrepparttar 119521 energy that I did six months ago, and data that shows our lower activity levels support my concerns. Our leadership velocitySM inrepparttar 119522 areas supporting our collective sense of deep significance, identity and vision has dropped off. To berepparttar 119523 strong company we need to be, we have to do better. How can we bring backrepparttar 119524 excitement?"

The team had a difficult time at first, uncomfortable withrepparttar 119525 meta-perspective Lynn brought torepparttar 119526 discussion. "Isn't it manipulative to target activities that influence deeply held believes about identity and purpose?" one manager asked. What began as a one-hour discussion, continued in a follow-up two-day session,repparttar 119527 second day of which included a much broader array of leaders. It became clear fromrepparttar 119528 interaction that even amongrepparttar 119529 leadership, cracks had formed inrepparttar 119530 common sense of purpose. Renewal was needed. As Lynn knew, it had already begun.

Inrepparttar 119531 course ofrepparttar 119532 discussion, it was agreed that monthly half-day sessions among members ofrepparttar 119533 leadership team were needed to evolve and communicaterepparttar 119534 collective identity. The process cascaded intorepparttar 119535 organization until a consistent, invigorating vision became evident to all members ofrepparttar 119536 organization. The quarterly cultural survey in use was modified to include targeted questions about personal versus collective vision, purpose and identity, to provide on-going feedback. The vision was NOT developed by a small group, and communicated downward, but left to emerge inrepparttar 119537 context of guiding principles.

After six months,repparttar 119538 vision meetings were integrated intorepparttar 119539 organizations planning process again. Excitement was evident and morale was high. To close outrepparttar 119540 cycle of leadership, Lynn asked his teams to propose waysrepparttar 119541 interventions could be proactive, with continuous feedback and action. He realized that leadership is hard work, and nothing works forever. Atrepparttar 119542 same time, he didn't want to wait until something seemed wrong again.

Recently, Lynn told a reporter from a national newspaper: "Sometimes I feel like we're all sailing onrepparttar 119543 open sea. At once, what we do is both exciting and mysterious. But I must say, leading fromrepparttar 119544 deep blue is one ofrepparttar 119545 most satisfying parts of my job." When his teammates read his words, they smiled. They knew exactly what he meant. They had been onrepparttar 119546 journey with him. ___________________________________

1Nadler, D.A. A Success Story: The Case of Lucent Technologies. (1999) In Conger, J. A., Spreitzer, G. M., Lawler, E. E. (eds.) Leaders Change Handbook. Jossey Bass: San Francisco, 3-26.

2 Mandel, Michael. This way torepparttar 119547 Future. (2004) Business Week. October 11, p. 96.

(c) Copyright 2004 James K. Hazy, Ed.D. Leadership Science, LLC Founder & CEO. Leadership Science offers a unique mix of application and research in all areas of organizational leadership. We offer custom and canned seminars, speakers and intervention programs built upon the research in how leadership impacts results. To learn more, visit our website: http://www.leadershipscience.com/. Mailto:jim.hazy@leadershipscience.com


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