Episode #114: Persuasive Leadership

To be successful in business today, we need to be able to access the full capability of our team. The boss can’t do it all by themselves and they don’t want to have to be the brains of the outfit, constantly having to tell people what to do and how to do it. We need to tap into the creativity of our people and that makes all the difference.

The tried and true leadership model of “do what I say or else” is a personal favourite of people who actually can’t lead. This is the military model, which works when the bullets fly and your death is a requirement to achieve the broader objective. This is a ridiculous model for business and yet it lingers on.

Leaders and managers have different roles. Managers are there to manage the processes of the organization, to make sure what needs to be done is completed, in a timely fashion and correctly. Leaders do all of that too, but they have an additional roles of setting strategy and developing people. This is where the “my way or the highway” breaks down.

We respect knowledge and ability more than we respect position power, degrees or degrees of self-aggrandisement. The thing we respect most though is how much interest the boss has in helping me to grow in my career. How much sympathy and understanding has the boss for my personal situation at home, because of my aging parents requiring care or my marriage is hitting a rocky patch, or my kid is having problems, etc.

Persuading people of the “why” is leading today, not just pointing out the “what” or the “how”. Apart from professional salespeople who move up into management, there are probably few leaders who are any good at persuading anyone of anything. They are usually poor presenters, especially the technically oriented types.

They are working off the old paradigm of “I am smarter than you, that is why I am the leader and so do what I say”. If we want our organisations to be powered by just the brains and experience of these few leaders that is fine. If we want to bring the entire power of our teams to the battle front line with our competitors, it is not sufficient.

We need as many engaged brains as possible assembled and working on the problems facing us. The spark of creativity is not solely located in the leader’s brain. The youngest, newest employee may have keen insights and openness to new possibilities that the leaders who have moved far from the frontline cannot even recognise any more.

The point is how to persuade our staff to think, to be creative, motivated, to come up with better ideas than our rivals. The issue is how to get them to engaged completely rather than simply working at a mediocre rate, collecting their pay and then switching on their brains as they hit the building exit.

The technical person who as leader gets a rush of blood to the head and starts telling the why will sometimes assume that having told the team the why, they are good to go. One of the surprising things about leadership is that you have to keep telling your people the same things over and over again and you cannot assume they ever fully get it.

So we need to make time available to explain the why to people, keep repeating it and to find ways to tap into the full power of the brains populating our organisation. Drop the “I know everything, now do this” approach and take on the “what do you think” alternative instead.

If you can make the switch you will have more success, because you are able to out think the opposition.