Can you and do you inspire others?
This is an important question for all of us to ask as leaders. Our answer helps us see past our positional “power” and look at our true effectiveness. Alaina Love, wrote a a blog post for Business Week that outlines ten attributes that help you inspire others.
Here is her list:
1. Authentic rather than phony.
2. Reliable rather than erratic.
3. Anchored rather than disconnected.
4. Optimistic rather than pessimistic.
5. Self-aware rather than unconscious.
6. Driven by purpose and passion rather than power and fear.
7. Inclusive rather than divisive.
8. Focused on others rather than self-focused.
9. Respectful rather than manipulative.
10. Able to foster other leaders rather than demanding followers.
She describes each in her post and suggests scoring yourself on a 1-10 scale on each of these ten behaviors. I think this is a great idea – knowing where we stand ourselves is a very valuable exercise.
On the other hand, I also think this is a great list of things to get feeeback from others on. Some may be things you feel you do well, may be seen completely differently by others – and in the end it is their perceptions that matter, as they are who you are hoping to inspire.
Here then are your two leadership activities for today.
1. Pick one of the behaviors above and spend 10 minutes of quiet time with your journal thinking about how you could use, apply and/or behave consistently with that behavior in the next month (with the intention of increasing your habit long term in this area).
2. Identify one or more people who could and would give you feedback on these behaviors. Contact them now to gain that feedback within the next few days.
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Would you like to:
- Grow your skills as a leader?
- Become more influential and persuasive?
- Learn how to reward great performance and turn-around poor performance?
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Like the post. The activities you describe would be great with a personal board of directors. People who will give honest feedback as you suggest. Good things to think about and thanks for the link to the article.