The Commitment to Lead: Passion for Results

February 25, 2014

Individuals vary in what energizes and motivates them.  As leaders, you can engage others and make them want to do well for you by learning to recognize and leverage what motivates members of your team.  Communicate what you need from others and get them to commit by ensuring understanding of your directions and goals to facilitate goal attainment.  Consider the following to get others to do more than they believe possible:

  • Focus on continuous development.  Help others grow and learn from their mistakes.  Also, help others see how they can raise the bar on their performance and delivery.
  • Review your current goals and objectives. If achieved, could the results be sustained over a longer period of time?  For each area where sustainability is questionable, identify steps you can take or systems you can put in place to ensure the targets can be repeatedly met.
  • Reflect on past meetings and conversations you have had with your team. Consider the messages and tone you set for sustainable results and continuous improvement. In your discussions around goals and results, increase the focus on repeatable excellence, highlighting how team members could personally benefit from and positively impact repeatable excellence.
  • Document all primary business processes. Simply documenting the process often allows you to more easily identify where efficiencies can be found or improvements made.  Also, document the method and process for how large goals were met. Share the stories within your team and across the organization to help others learn from these successes.
  • Make sure you tie others’ efforts and performance to the bigger picture.  Show people how their work is influencing the broader organization.
  • Set stretch goals and standards.  Make it a goal to deliver more than requested or promised for every project or task.  Continuously challenge yourself and others to do more than you think possible or have done before.
  • When members of your team go above and beyond set expectations, be sure to recognize and celebrate their efforts.  Use positive reinforcement to establish a norm of exceeding expectations.
  • This process starts with you.  Don’t just deliver upon expectations; think about what you can do to truly delight your customers (both internal and external).  Make this your personal mantra!