Inspiring Leadership: The Key to Building Inspired Teams
Someone asked me the other day, “What do you think makes an inspiring leader?”
Is it someone who is authentic, passionate, a visionary, bold, communicative, etc?
The questioner rattled through the list of qualities that they felt would show that someone is an inspiring leader, and at each one, my answer was no!
Now, while it’s true that to be an inspiring leader, you may need some of these qualities, but just having them doesn’t make you an inspiring leader.
To me, you can only class yourself as an Inspiring Leader if you have an inspired team.
That’s the true acid test, if you don’t have an inspired team, then you cannot be an inspiring leader. You could be a potential inspiring leader, but without inspired people around you, then I’m afraid you haven’t made the grade.
To me, this is a very simple definition, and it’s pretty easy for us to assess, I know that there are tools which can be used to assess engagement, and without engaged teams, we are not inspiring anybody.
It’s inspired teams which achieve amazing results, not inspired leaders. True, the leader can be the catalyst, but they don’t really do the work and certainly not the majority of it.
So if you want to be an inspiring leader, your goal has to be to create an inspired team.
Inspired teams will go the extra mile, put in the extra effort, they will snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, and they will achieve astounding results.
It’s not good enough just having a great vision if you have not got an inspired team, this will probably still result in failure.
As leaders, we need to create the inspiring vision but we also need to create the belief in the team, the belief that they can achieve that vision. When we do that and we lead by example in an authentic way, then we can create inspired teams.
If we just focus on creating an inspiring vision, and not an inspired team, then we just end up with a dream. A dream that will never be realised.
I have worked with many leaders who only did half the job, they created a vision, and then left it to the team to inspire themselves.
When I challenged them on this, they replied that my job is to set the direction, create the vision, that’s what leadership is all about.
This is flawed thinking!
If you want to achieve astounding results and be an inspiring leader, focus on building inspired teams. It might only be a small or subtle change in the way you lead, but it will make all the difference.
If you want to learn more about creating highly engaged teams or being a better leader click the link to view our course.