Do you remember a famous scene from the movie “Animal House”, where the hero Bluto tries to gather his friends with an inspiring speech and goes out the door, but no one follows him?
This is one of the greatest fears of any leader.
It is difficult to move from the phase of an ordinary leader who tries to make everything go smoothly and not leave unresolved problems, to the state of a leader who lifts the spirits and motivates employees. Many ask – what will happen if no one responds to my motivational calls?
Successful managers know how to make sense of things, justify their decisions, oversee, draw up budgets, and delegate tasks. However, to become true leaders, they need to develop a different muscle group. With their help, they must set the direction, motivate others and create an environment in which the team can take on new challenges without necessarily being told how and why.
For this to happen, you must overcome your fear of becoming like Bluto – to lead without anyone following you. Leadership can be achieved by setting the right direction and communicating important things. Here’s how we can get to this:
Stop trying to manage the following:
How your team does its daily tasks.
When to do this.
Who to perform the tasks.
Start asking the following questions:
Who wants to help make this a reality?
How would you do the following …?
Are you ready to do this today?
This is how you move from simple management to motivation, which creates a wave of reactions. When someone raises a helping hand, offer support, protection, advice, and encouragement. When they come to ask you for something – help, resources, budget – give it to them. Once they have a plan to do something new and interesting, you need to open the door and make it possible.
As soon as one or two people on your team begin to take these first steps toward initiative and independence, make it public to show others what success looks like. Then people will not only start following you – the followers will even overtake your leader, but always in the direction, you have set.
