Leadership Training: How to Motivate & Increase Your Employees’ Want-to-cooperate Factor
Dr. Alan R. Zimmerman asked:
Are you a leader trying to get your coworkers to change?
Then you need to be aware of a basic motivational, psychological truth.
People only change when they WANT to.
It’s like the little prospector who walked into a saloon, wearing clean new shoes. A big Texan said to his friend standing at the bar, “Watch me make this dude dance.” He walked over to the prospector and asked, “You’re a foreigner, aren’t you? From the East?”
“You might say that,” the little prospector answered. “I’m from Boston, and I’m here prospecting for gold.”
“Now tell me something. Can you dance?”
“No sir. I never did learn to dance.”
“Well, I’m going to teach you. You’ll be surprised how quickly you can learn.”
With that, the Texan took out his gun and started shooting at the prospector’s feet. Hopping, skipping, jumping, the little prospector was shaking like a leaf.
About an hour later the Texan left the saloon. As soon as he stepped outside the door, he heard a click. He looked around and there, four feet from his head, was a shotgun in the hands of the little prospector.
The prospector said, “Mr. Texan, have you ever kissed a mule?”
“No,” said the quick-thinking Texan, “but I’ve always wanted to.”
Obviously, the prospector knew how to pump up the Texan’s WANT-TO cooperation factor. So what can you do to increase your employees’ “WANT-TO” factor?
Leadership and Motivation Training Strategy # 1: Ask brave questions.
If you’re not interested in your employees, you can’t expect them to be interested in you and your organizational goals. But if you show a real interest, they’ll move in your direction. As Dale Carnegie said, “You can make more friends in two weeks by showing interest in others than you can in two years trying to get others interested in you.”
One of the best ways to show interest is to ask more “Brave Questions.” Ask your employees:
What’s most important to you when it comes to your job, your family, your goals, or your future?
If you were leading this team, what changes would you make?
What turns on your motivation, more than anything else?
Remember, superficiality does not communicate genuine interest or pump up another person’s WANT-To factor. You’ve got to really care about the other person, and that comes through when you ask Brave Questions.
Leadership and Motivation Strategy # 2: Be likeable.
Simply put, people tend to follow people they like. And the more your employees like you, the more you pump up their WANT-TO factor.
Direct sales organizations have tapped into this principle with great success. Just think about the selling power of the Mary Kay or Tastefully Simple organizations. The home-party attendees aren’t being sold a product by some anonymous salesperson. They’re buying a product from a friend they know, like, and trust.
So ask yourself…
How likeable are you… really?
Would you like to do business with a person who acts just like you?
Do you use a warm, inviting tone and smile with ease? Or do you exhibit a hurried sense of impatience?
Do you listen with undivided attention, or do you glance at your desk and computer screen while a coworker is talking?
Leadership & Motivation Strategy #3: Exhibit authority
Before people can have a healthy want-to-cooperate factor, they’ve got to trust you and your integrity. In fact, from my 25 years of speaking experience in the corporate world, I discovered one of the most sought-after job perks today is integrity.
Here’s how you can exhibit your integrity and your authority…
Let people know about your educational background, certifications, and legitimate titles, but let them know in subtle ways. No boasting, bragging, or arrogance. When your employees know these kinds of things about you, it increases their respect for what you say and what you are requesting.
Refer to what other colleagues and customers have to say about your work. Again, be subtle. It’s a known truth that others can brag about your performance whereas you can’t and still be liked.
Make a conscious effort to dress one or two levels above those you are trying to influence. If you dress higher than that, your employees may not think you can identify with them. And if you dress below your employees, they may not take you seriously.
Dress in clothing styles and colors typically associated with authority like black, navy, or white. Research shows it does make a difference.
There’s just one caution. You can’t exhibit so much authority that people are afraid to challenge you. That would violate the second principle of “being likeable.” And that does happen.
Do you want someone to change?
To follow you?
To be more cooperative?
Then it all starts when they WANT-TO. And they will WANT-TO… if you follow these three simple leadership and motivation training practices.
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Are you a leader trying to get your coworkers to change?
Then you need to be aware of a basic motivational, psychological truth.
People only change when they WANT to.
It’s like the little prospector who walked into a saloon, wearing clean new shoes. A big Texan said to his friend standing at the bar, “Watch me make this dude dance.” He walked over to the prospector and asked, “You’re a foreigner, aren’t you? From the East?”
“You might say that,” the little prospector answered. “I’m from Boston, and I’m here prospecting for gold.”
“Now tell me something. Can you dance?”
“No sir. I never did learn to dance.”
“Well, I’m going to teach you. You’ll be surprised how quickly you can learn.”
With that, the Texan took out his gun and started shooting at the prospector’s feet. Hopping, skipping, jumping, the little prospector was shaking like a leaf.
About an hour later the Texan left the saloon. As soon as he stepped outside the door, he heard a click. He looked around and there, four feet from his head, was a shotgun in the hands of the little prospector.
The prospector said, “Mr. Texan, have you ever kissed a mule?”
“No,” said the quick-thinking Texan, “but I’ve always wanted to.”
Obviously, the prospector knew how to pump up the Texan’s WANT-TO cooperation factor. So what can you do to increase your employees’ “WANT-TO” factor?
Leadership and Motivation Training Strategy # 1: Ask brave questions.
If you’re not interested in your employees, you can’t expect them to be interested in you and your organizational goals. But if you show a real interest, they’ll move in your direction. As Dale Carnegie said, “You can make more friends in two weeks by showing interest in others than you can in two years trying to get others interested in you.”
One of the best ways to show interest is to ask more “Brave Questions.” Ask your employees:
What’s most important to you when it comes to your job, your family, your goals, or your future?
If you were leading this team, what changes would you make?
What turns on your motivation, more than anything else?
Remember, superficiality does not communicate genuine interest or pump up another person’s WANT-To factor. You’ve got to really care about the other person, and that comes through when you ask Brave Questions.
Leadership and Motivation Strategy # 2: Be likeable.
Simply put, people tend to follow people they like. And the more your employees like you, the more you pump up their WANT-TO factor.
Direct sales organizations have tapped into this principle with great success. Just think about the selling power of the Mary Kay or Tastefully Simple organizations. The home-party attendees aren’t being sold a product by some anonymous salesperson. They’re buying a product from a friend they know, like, and trust.
So ask yourself…
How likeable are you… really?
Would you like to do business with a person who acts just like you?
Do you use a warm, inviting tone and smile with ease? Or do you exhibit a hurried sense of impatience?
Do you listen with undivided attention, or do you glance at your desk and computer screen while a coworker is talking?
Leadership & Motivation Strategy #3: Exhibit authority
Before people can have a healthy want-to-cooperate factor, they’ve got to trust you and your integrity. In fact, from my 25 years of speaking experience in the corporate world, I discovered one of the most sought-after job perks today is integrity.
Here’s how you can exhibit your integrity and your authority…
Let people know about your educational background, certifications, and legitimate titles, but let them know in subtle ways. No boasting, bragging, or arrogance. When your employees know these kinds of things about you, it increases their respect for what you say and what you are requesting.
Refer to what other colleagues and customers have to say about your work. Again, be subtle. It’s a known truth that others can brag about your performance whereas you can’t and still be liked.
Make a conscious effort to dress one or two levels above those you are trying to influence. If you dress higher than that, your employees may not think you can identify with them. And if you dress below your employees, they may not take you seriously.
Dress in clothing styles and colors typically associated with authority like black, navy, or white. Research shows it does make a difference.
There’s just one caution. You can’t exhibit so much authority that people are afraid to challenge you. That would violate the second principle of “being likeable.” And that does happen.
Do you want someone to change?
To follow you?
To be more cooperative?
Then it all starts when they WANT-TO. And they will WANT-TO… if you follow these three simple leadership and motivation training practices.
Car Insurance Quotes
Personal Leadership Makes Trust Possible
Paul Johnson asked:
The probability that he will go to jail for what he did is almost zero. His lack of personal leadership resulted in thousands of people feeling violated, cheated and betrayed. If his patrons trusted him before, his impersonal approach to leadership shredded that trust in a matter of milliseconds. We won’t give our support to leaders we don’t trust.
2008 is an election year in the U.S., with selection of our next President taking the main stage. We want someone we can trust to lead us for the next four years. We’re willing to give our enthusiastic support to those we trust so that we can achieve significant results together. When trust is lost, disillusionment and disappointment set in, and the result is no results at all.
Blanked After 12 Years
On May 31st, 2008, the Atlanta Journal Constitution (AJC) newspaper published “School chief makes a name shredding Clayton diplomas”. John Thompson started as the new Clayton County Superintendent on April 28th, replacing Gloria Duncan. The AJC reports that on May 29th he ordered the shredding of 3,000 high school diplomas because his name was not printed on them. The very next day, graduates attending their graduation ceremony were surprised to discover their diploma was missing. They would have to wait for them to be reprinted, to arrive in the mail weeks later.
John Thompson shredded the diplomas because he could. The powers associated with his position enabled him to do that, despite the fact that he didn’t know at the time how much the replacement diplomas would cost the county taxpayers. He made an executive decision, and his motives have been called into question.
Upward Turns Outward
We can’t deny it is human nature to be selfish. Abraham Maslow’s pyramid illustrating the hierarchy of human needs acknowledges that we are driven at a primal level to satisfy our needs for food and shelter. We must selfishly take care of ourselves and what we need to survive before we can think about others’ needs. Unfortunately, some never choose to think of others even after they are far above survival level. Until we put aside our selfishness and develop an outward view that considers others’ personal needs before we consider our own, we can’t be trusted with a leadership role.
Selfish people can never develop trust with others. They take actions that serve themselves and then find ways to rationalize them. They offer explanations that often sound hollow to everyone but them.
- “We either give them two diplomas or get the right one mailed. We decided to have them wait for the right one.”
- “I took the initiative and I did it.”
- “It’s no harm. It’s just a sense of pride, and they will have it soon.”
These don’t sound like explanations, but excuses. If you are ever tempted to offer an excuse, it’s probably time to offer a sincere apology instead.
It’s Your Life to Lead
Personal leadership is all about how you lead yourself in your own life. It’s about the decisions you make and the actions you take, whether people are watching or not. It’s about learning to trust your own actions so that others can learn to trust you. It’s about developing the habit of doing the right thing all the time, even when it causes you inconvenience, expense or embarrassment. Here are three tips to help you develop your own personal leadership.
1. Serve Others before Yourself
While your self-interest and self-preservation are important, get in the habit of first considering how a situation or decision will impact others involved. Look for ways to give before you find ways to receive.
When Davidson College made it to the Elite Eight in the NCAA basketball tournament this past spring, the trustees of the College offered to give any student who wanted to travel to Detroit to see Davidson play Wisconsin a ticket to the game, bus transportation and 2 nights lodging. The trustees knew that this opportunity may not come again to the College for a long time, and they wanted their students to have powerful memories of the experience. They gave to the students without expectation of receiving anything in return, because that’s what they want their students to learn. Should you ever meet a Davidson grad (from any year) ask them what they think of their school experience. “Trustee” — what an appropriate title. Nearly 300 students took them up on their offer.
2. A Deal is a Deal
Follow-through on agreements you’ve made, even if they seem trivial or insignificant. If your voicemail greeting says you will call back anyone who leaves a message, either call everyone back or change your voicemail greeting. Inconsistency is the enemy of trust.
Often we are paid to deliver a service. Many of us make a deal to receive a paycheck in return for performing a job. Make sure you’re living up to your end of the bargain by delivering good service to your employer.
Some employees (like school superintendents) are expected to deliver service across multiple key groups: in this example, to students, to parents, and to taxpayers. Serving multiple groups before serving yourself requires a high degree of personal leadership. Thinking selfishly for even a moment can rapidly extinguish trust with one or more of your key groups. Keep your deals, and do well the jobs you are paid to do.
3. Better Kind than Right
Often we find ourselves in situations that offer us two paths. One path will give us an opportunity to say something like, “I’m right, you’re wrong, and I can prove it.” The other path gives us an opportunity to decide that proving ourselves right in this situation isn’t worth causing another person pain or embarrassment. Dr. Wayne W. Dyer suggests that often it is better to be kind than right.
Debates can be healthy, and sometimes it is necessary to clearly establish right from wrong. Other times, who is right really doesn’t matter. For example, a friend recently remarked about how overpaid CEOs are. While I was prepared to debate it from the other side, I chose not to because the outcome would be neither productive nor supportive of our relationship. While I didn’t agree with him, I chose to be kind when I could have been right.
Take Trust Personally
Trust is central to all our important relationships. Some try to dodge trust issues by insisting on written contracts. Personal leadership puts its trust in personal behavior, not a piece of paper.
It takes time to learn to trust others, whether we’re hiring them, electing them, or marrying them. Trust is earned over time, yet it is lost in a moment of irrational behavior. Always strive to do the right thing by considering others before yourself. Then others will consider you a leader worth following.
Copyright 2008 Paul Johnson
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The probability that he will go to jail for what he did is almost zero. His lack of personal leadership resulted in thousands of people feeling violated, cheated and betrayed. If his patrons trusted him before, his impersonal approach to leadership shredded that trust in a matter of milliseconds. We won’t give our support to leaders we don’t trust.
2008 is an election year in the U.S., with selection of our next President taking the main stage. We want someone we can trust to lead us for the next four years. We’re willing to give our enthusiastic support to those we trust so that we can achieve significant results together. When trust is lost, disillusionment and disappointment set in, and the result is no results at all.
Blanked After 12 Years
On May 31st, 2008, the Atlanta Journal Constitution (AJC) newspaper published “School chief makes a name shredding Clayton diplomas”. John Thompson started as the new Clayton County Superintendent on April 28th, replacing Gloria Duncan. The AJC reports that on May 29th he ordered the shredding of 3,000 high school diplomas because his name was not printed on them. The very next day, graduates attending their graduation ceremony were surprised to discover their diploma was missing. They would have to wait for them to be reprinted, to arrive in the mail weeks later.
John Thompson shredded the diplomas because he could. The powers associated with his position enabled him to do that, despite the fact that he didn’t know at the time how much the replacement diplomas would cost the county taxpayers. He made an executive decision, and his motives have been called into question.
Upward Turns Outward
We can’t deny it is human nature to be selfish. Abraham Maslow’s pyramid illustrating the hierarchy of human needs acknowledges that we are driven at a primal level to satisfy our needs for food and shelter. We must selfishly take care of ourselves and what we need to survive before we can think about others’ needs. Unfortunately, some never choose to think of others even after they are far above survival level. Until we put aside our selfishness and develop an outward view that considers others’ personal needs before we consider our own, we can’t be trusted with a leadership role.
Selfish people can never develop trust with others. They take actions that serve themselves and then find ways to rationalize them. They offer explanations that often sound hollow to everyone but them.
- “We either give them two diplomas or get the right one mailed. We decided to have them wait for the right one.”
- “I took the initiative and I did it.”
- “It’s no harm. It’s just a sense of pride, and they will have it soon.”
These don’t sound like explanations, but excuses. If you are ever tempted to offer an excuse, it’s probably time to offer a sincere apology instead.
It’s Your Life to Lead
Personal leadership is all about how you lead yourself in your own life. It’s about the decisions you make and the actions you take, whether people are watching or not. It’s about learning to trust your own actions so that others can learn to trust you. It’s about developing the habit of doing the right thing all the time, even when it causes you inconvenience, expense or embarrassment. Here are three tips to help you develop your own personal leadership.
1. Serve Others before Yourself
While your self-interest and self-preservation are important, get in the habit of first considering how a situation or decision will impact others involved. Look for ways to give before you find ways to receive.
When Davidson College made it to the Elite Eight in the NCAA basketball tournament this past spring, the trustees of the College offered to give any student who wanted to travel to Detroit to see Davidson play Wisconsin a ticket to the game, bus transportation and 2 nights lodging. The trustees knew that this opportunity may not come again to the College for a long time, and they wanted their students to have powerful memories of the experience. They gave to the students without expectation of receiving anything in return, because that’s what they want their students to learn. Should you ever meet a Davidson grad (from any year) ask them what they think of their school experience. “Trustee” — what an appropriate title. Nearly 300 students took them up on their offer.
2. A Deal is a Deal
Follow-through on agreements you’ve made, even if they seem trivial or insignificant. If your voicemail greeting says you will call back anyone who leaves a message, either call everyone back or change your voicemail greeting. Inconsistency is the enemy of trust.
Often we are paid to deliver a service. Many of us make a deal to receive a paycheck in return for performing a job. Make sure you’re living up to your end of the bargain by delivering good service to your employer.
Some employees (like school superintendents) are expected to deliver service across multiple key groups: in this example, to students, to parents, and to taxpayers. Serving multiple groups before serving yourself requires a high degree of personal leadership. Thinking selfishly for even a moment can rapidly extinguish trust with one or more of your key groups. Keep your deals, and do well the jobs you are paid to do.
3. Better Kind than Right
Often we find ourselves in situations that offer us two paths. One path will give us an opportunity to say something like, “I’m right, you’re wrong, and I can prove it.” The other path gives us an opportunity to decide that proving ourselves right in this situation isn’t worth causing another person pain or embarrassment. Dr. Wayne W. Dyer suggests that often it is better to be kind than right.
Debates can be healthy, and sometimes it is necessary to clearly establish right from wrong. Other times, who is right really doesn’t matter. For example, a friend recently remarked about how overpaid CEOs are. While I was prepared to debate it from the other side, I chose not to because the outcome would be neither productive nor supportive of our relationship. While I didn’t agree with him, I chose to be kind when I could have been right.
Take Trust Personally
Trust is central to all our important relationships. Some try to dodge trust issues by insisting on written contracts. Personal leadership puts its trust in personal behavior, not a piece of paper.
It takes time to learn to trust others, whether we’re hiring them, electing them, or marrying them. Trust is earned over time, yet it is lost in a moment of irrational behavior. Always strive to do the right thing by considering others before yourself. Then others will consider you a leader worth following.
Copyright 2008 Paul Johnson
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Leadership Pictures - Use Leadership Pictures to Be a Good Leader
Gregory Frost asked:
Pictures of great leaders get plastered over the newspaper everyday, and it is just impossible to use these pictures as inspirational pictures. However, if you are really serious about using leadership pictures to make you be a good leader, then you can try using pictures that are from online photo books like photo bucket and image share. It might sound impossible to you that such random pictures might spur you to be one of them. If you are still having doubts about the capability and reliability of these leadership pictures, then read up.
The idea of using leadership pictures to be a good leader is somewhat similar to the idea of using self-hypnosis tracks influence the brain to make the person be the good leader that he ought to. The only difference is that these self-hypnosis tracks are more interactive and the positive affirmations are embedded directly into the subconscious mind.
Using the leadership pictures would definitely require more effort. When pictures of leaders get plastered all over your room, your subconscious mind will get tuned such that you will be able to see yourself in place of these leaders. The other alternative method is to use subliminal audio tracks. Subliminal audio tracks use positive affirmations and soothing sounds to send the message to the subconscious mind while in pictures, the images of leaders will act as the positive affirmations that will help to tune the mind.
You might be immune with the pictures of leaders over time. You might even be oblivious to the existence of these leadership images but believe it or not, your subconscious mind will continue to take in all these images of leadership and tune your brain accordingly.
If you are looking for a great leadership picture, then you might want to choose pictures of successful businessmen or inventors. Pictures of Einstein for example will signal to your brain immediately that he is a successful person.
Putting a couple of pictures of great successors of life does not hurt. In fact, these pictures will eventually become your role models. While it might sound a little bit kiddish, the idea of keeping pictures of great leaders can make you think big and start acting “big” too. This would mean that in the long run, your mind would be tuned to go the extra mile when it comes to work. Your subconscious mind will feel that there is a need to be like the leader in the picture and you will subconsciously be able to do greater things and behave in like a leader-kind of way.
Otherwise, you can definitely try the home made self-hypnosis methods, which involve a lot of relaxation, and tuning of the mind, personally. However, this would require a lot of discipline, focus and effort.
It is easy to be a leader but it takes great effort to be an excellent one. However, do not fret if you are still not improving in your skills despite pasting a dozen over of pictures of leaders. Not everyone is born to be a leader, but you can definitely try to be a better leader, by slowly trying to improve your standards and your ability to lead.
Home Insurance Quotes
Pictures of great leaders get plastered over the newspaper everyday, and it is just impossible to use these pictures as inspirational pictures. However, if you are really serious about using leadership pictures to make you be a good leader, then you can try using pictures that are from online photo books like photo bucket and image share. It might sound impossible to you that such random pictures might spur you to be one of them. If you are still having doubts about the capability and reliability of these leadership pictures, then read up.
The idea of using leadership pictures to be a good leader is somewhat similar to the idea of using self-hypnosis tracks influence the brain to make the person be the good leader that he ought to. The only difference is that these self-hypnosis tracks are more interactive and the positive affirmations are embedded directly into the subconscious mind.
Using the leadership pictures would definitely require more effort. When pictures of leaders get plastered all over your room, your subconscious mind will get tuned such that you will be able to see yourself in place of these leaders. The other alternative method is to use subliminal audio tracks. Subliminal audio tracks use positive affirmations and soothing sounds to send the message to the subconscious mind while in pictures, the images of leaders will act as the positive affirmations that will help to tune the mind.
You might be immune with the pictures of leaders over time. You might even be oblivious to the existence of these leadership images but believe it or not, your subconscious mind will continue to take in all these images of leadership and tune your brain accordingly.
If you are looking for a great leadership picture, then you might want to choose pictures of successful businessmen or inventors. Pictures of Einstein for example will signal to your brain immediately that he is a successful person.
Putting a couple of pictures of great successors of life does not hurt. In fact, these pictures will eventually become your role models. While it might sound a little bit kiddish, the idea of keeping pictures of great leaders can make you think big and start acting “big” too. This would mean that in the long run, your mind would be tuned to go the extra mile when it comes to work. Your subconscious mind will feel that there is a need to be like the leader in the picture and you will subconsciously be able to do greater things and behave in like a leader-kind of way.
Otherwise, you can definitely try the home made self-hypnosis methods, which involve a lot of relaxation, and tuning of the mind, personally. However, this would require a lot of discipline, focus and effort.
It is easy to be a leader but it takes great effort to be an excellent one. However, do not fret if you are still not improving in your skills despite pasting a dozen over of pictures of leaders. Not everyone is born to be a leader, but you can definitely try to be a better leader, by slowly trying to improve your standards and your ability to lead.
Home Insurance Quotes