“Management is telling someone what to do. Leadership is inspiring someone to do it”
Jeff Weiner, CEO, Linkedin.com
“Sometimes, I think my most important job as a CEO is to listen for bad news. If you don’t act on it, your people will eventually stop bringing bad news to your attention and that is the beginning of the end.” – Bill Gates, CEO, Microsoft
So why is it in important to inspire your employees so they “work better”? You should care because it has a direct impact on your productivity. Without motivated employees, your customer service will be impacted and so will your manufacturing results. Even if your ‘widget’ is a service and not a product, unmotivated employees will represent your firm in a negative light. With an active competitive marketplace, what business can afford a bad client experience or low quality work product? Not many.
“Transformational Leadership is defined as a leadership approach that causes change in individuals and social systems. In its ideal form, it creates valuable and positive change in the followers with the end goal of developing followers into leaders” (Source: http://www.langston.edu/sites/default/files/basic-content-files/TransformationalLeadership.pdf)
Transformational Leaders Provide Inspiration in three ways:
- Clarity of one’s vision – do you share your vision?
- Courage of one’s own conviction – Yes, if you feel it is right…it is!
- And the ability to effectively communicate these things – is your work culture a safe place to do so?
