The techniques discussed in this chapter will take you a long way in terms of understanding and motivating people. But to get the very best from them, you need to go a bit further – you need to engage their passion and sense of meaning in life. This is where the notion of transformational leadership is useful.
Think about it from your own perspective. There are many factors that affect how hard you work, including the nature of the work itself, the extent to which you find it interesting, and the quality of your relationship with your colleagues. But in addition to all these factors, your boss’s leadership skills are also likely to factor into the equation: Some bosses, for reasons we may not completely understand, inspire us to go that extra mile while others leave us cold.
k k According to influential psychologist Bernard Bass, there are four
main things that you need to do to become a transformational leader:
1. Lead by example.You are a strong role model for the ethics, conduct, and behaviors you want from the people you lead, and this inspires people to identify with you and to want to emulate you (we looked at this in #49).
2. Stimulate your people intellectually. You push your peo- ple to be the best they can be by discussing ideas openly, challenging their assumptions in nonthreatening ways, push- ing them to look at situations differently, and encouraging them to innovate. What’s more – you support your people even when things go wrong as long as they work hard and do their honest best. We looked at some of the opportunities for doing this in Chapters 6–10.
3. Help your people grow as individuals.Get to know your people as individuals, pay attention to how they want to grow, and mentor and support them to help them reach their full potential. We’ll look at this more in Chapters 12 and 13.
4. Inspire your people with a compelling vision of the future.By helping your team understand how the organiza- tion makes the world a better place, you provide a positive, attractive vision of the future that their hard work will help to realize. The good news is that many businesses – from refuse collection to food distribution to white goods manu- facturing – have real meaning to them if you look for it (see
#26 and #27 for translating mission statements down to the individual level).
Think about times in the past when you’ve been led by someone who uses this approach – it’s so inspiring, and you probably worked very hard for this person. The great thing is thatyoucan be this type of inspirational boss, and you can motivate this type of passion in your people as long as you put in the hard work needed for it.
Learn more about how to become a transformational leader: http://mnd.tools/54
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Other Techniques for Understanding and Motivating Other People
Two key skills and techniques – reading body language and per- spective taking – didn’t make the cut in our survey when it comes to understanding and motivating other people. These are still highly important, and you can find out more about them athttp://mnd.tools/
c9c.
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Chapter 10
Get the Best from Members of Your Team
Building on the previous chapter, your primary purpose as a boss is to get the best from your team. If Chapter 9 was focused on whatyoudo as a boss to motivate and inspire those around you, this chapter shifts the emphasis to what your team members do. In other words, it is about how you structure their roles and responsibilities and define the appropriate interventions so that they can work to the best of their abilities.
It is often said that managing others is an “unnatural act” – that is, it requires us to behave in ways that don’t come easily to us.
Many managers are promoted through the organization because they are high performers. They did their previous job well, they delivered results, and they enjoyed the praise and recognition that came with success. But as soon as these people are given significant managerial responsibilities, they are expected to develop a completely different set of skills – for example, delegating interesting projects to others, putting them in the spotlight and praising them for doing a good job, and investing time more generally in the “people” rather than “task”
aspects of work.
It should be no surprise that many managers struggle with this transition. Learning how to get work donethrough otherstakes time, and many managers never master skills such as effective delegation.
When you see a dysfunctional workplace, a common root cause of the problems is senior managers who insist on being involved
k k in everything because they haven’t understood the basic principles
of delegation and accountability. As noted by management thinker Charles Handy, you should never steal someone else’s decisions.
This chapter provides some specific advice on how to get the best from your team. We start by describing practical tips for delegating effectively (#55). Then we provide a useful framework (RACI) to help you clarify who is accountable for what (#56).
These techniques focus on specific roles and responsibilities.
We also provide three techniques for improving how you relate to others. Giving people effective praise and recognition (#57) for doing a good job is a well-established way of enhancing their self- esteem and encouraging greater effort in the future. Building the self-confidence of team members (#58) is a broader set of techniques for developing the skills and motivations of those around you. Finally, we describe Heron’s six categories of intervention (#59), a framework that helps you think about the right ways to support individuals in your team, depending on the specific circumstances they are facing.