In Leadership, Identifying Dreams That Lead To Great Results
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Summary: The importance of motivation in leadership cannot be
denied. But most leaders overlook a critical component of
motivation, the human dream. Before you can work with people's
dreams, you must identify what they dream, a sometimes difficult
task. Here's how to make such an identification.
In Leadership, Identifying Dreams That Lead To Great Results by
Brent Filson
History teaches that when people needed to do great things, a
leader first had to gather them together and speak from the
heart. This heartfelt speech was often connected to defining and
reinforcing a dream shared by both the leader and the people.
Drill down through goals and aims and aspirations and ambitions
of the people you lead, and you'll hit the bedrock of human
motivation, the dream.
For instance, Martin Luther King did not say, "I have a goal."
Or "I have an aim." The power of that speech was in the "I have
a dream".
A dream embraces our most cherished longings. It embodies our
very identity. We often won't feel fulfilled as human beings
until we realize our dreams.
If leaders are not tapping into the power of people's dreams, if
leaders are simply setting goals (as important as goals are),
they miss the best of opportunities to help those people take
ardent action to achieve great results.
But what do people dream? How can we discover their dreams?
After all, people usually won't tell you what they dream until
they trust you. They won't trust you until they feel that you
can help them attain their dreams. Knowing and sharing their
dream can cement a deep, emotional bond between you.
Here are three things you can do to get at what people dream. Be
helpful. Be hopeful. Be scarce.
Be helpful. Follow the Leadership Imperative: I WILL LEAD PEOPLE
IN SUCH A WAY THAT THEY NOT ONLY ACHIEVE THE RESULTS WE NEED BUT
THEY ALSO BECOME BETTER AS PEOPLE AND AS LEADERS.
The relationships cultivated by the Imperative lend themselves
to dream sharing and dream motivation.
Be hopeful: "Hope," said Aristotle, "is a waking dream". Nobody
wants to be associated with a leader who thinks the job can't
get done.
In the face of dire circumstances, there is usually hope to find
and communicate.
A great leader I knew who consistently had people get more
results faster, continually, had a refrain: "You may think you
can't meet the goals I set for you. But I believe in you and I
believe you can and I'll support you in every way possible so
you can."
That hopeful refrain had the power of a dream; and in the
relationships he established, he was able to identify and share
in their dreams.
Be scarce: Cultivate the art of being scarce. In other words,
give them space to get results.
Use this art the way a homeopath prepares medicine by diluting
drugs which would produce in a healthy person symptoms similar
to those of the full-blown disease.
The full-blown disease in this case is total scarcity -- meaning
the leader is never around. Not being there for the people can
be a leadership pathology. After all, in the historical example,
a leader had to GATHER PEOPLE TOGETHER -- leader had to be with
the people. Many leaders are absent without leave. One secretary
described her seldom seen CEO as follows: "He's like Elvis --
There are rumors of sightings of him. The only time we know he's
around is when we smell is pipe smoke."
But being with the people can be a fault, if the people resent
it. They make think you're trying to micro-manage them or are
snooping around trying to get the goods on them.
The art of being scarce is predicated on your giving them the
space to do well. The coach of a great Arkansas basketball team
said, "I don't want to hamper them by coaching them." Likewise,
don't hamper the people you lead by leading them in a
domineering way.
People's dreams are pathways to their inner heart and their most
ardent desires. However, most leaders don't know how to go down
those paths. Be helpful, be hopeful, be scarce will help you
walk your talk, letting people get great results though the gift
of their dreams.
2005