We all need people to help us along the way. You cannot accomplish anything big if you try to go at it alone – be it starting a business or launching a new product or doing something meaningful for a social cause or even enabling your children to achieve something. Notably, while you require other people for all such efforts, importantly you also need to take them along.
The moot question is how does one bring various people on the same page and make them aligned towards the same goal. The ability to motivate people so that they work towards a shared goal stems from the leader’s innate authenticity and extraordinary integrity in rooting for their success as well. The ability to get into their heads and hearts is probably the single biggest factor that will drive the effort to achieve the desired objective.
Helping others to help themselves, celebrating individuality, offering constructive feedback and mentorship are some of the initiatives that one could adopt to develop people. They include creating a safe haven for voicing different points of view, to allow well-meaning dissent, as well as focusing on the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge. Be an avid listener who also seeks and builds knowledge. Be a know-how junkie!
Competitive brands and operational excellence are mostly about having engaged people. Leadership, becomes a privilege when one is fortunate to have people who can make the difference. However, conversely it is the leader who in turn must provide the supportive growth environment which creates the differentiation. Genuine purpose and right leadership behavior can go a long way to achieve this-succinctly put across by Rudyard Kipling in his famous poem, ‘ If ’ -
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!”