Managers and Executives
3 to 5 days
Coaching or workshop up to 12 people. Physical or remote
French/Englsih
Phil Jackson,(Los Angeles Lakers and Chicago Bulls head Coach between 1987 - 2004), won 11 NBA championships – the most in NBA history.
He became known for inspiring his players year after year. For example by giving each one of them a specific book that would help him be a better teammate, decision-maker, leader, etc... on the basketball court. The attention he took in choosing that book showed the players how well he knew them, how much he took interest in them, that he was able to take time for them, that he cared and had a true desire to help them develop on many levels (not only basketball). His successes and capacity to retain such amazing players such as Michael Jordan or Scottie Pippen, over long periods of time, was greatly due to his capacity to inspire his team members with these kinds of gestures.
But what exactly is Inspiring Leadership? Can I be inspiring? How can it help my team? How can it help me?
What exactly is Inspiring Leadership?
Inspiring leadership is about understanding how important it is for any individual to have meaning in what they do, whether they work in an NGO or high stakes business environments heavily focused on KPIs. It's about making sure your message is not only heard but actually listened to. It's about enabling people to be impressed by their own skills, their own qualities by helping them discover and express their talents whenever possible. It's about fostering high levels of engagement and motivation. It's about creating a user experience for your team members...
Ask someone about their best memories with a leader... There's a very good chance the word inspiring will come up.
Can I be inspiring?
We all have a pre-conceived notion of what it is to be inspiring. Whether it is through a TED talk that we watched, a famous leader that we admire, an athlete who has over-achieved etc...
But as we all have different strengths and express them accordingly, we can all be inspring but in different ways.
So what makes a leader truly Inspiring is when:
How can it help my team?
The leverage we have as leaders should never be underestimated. Therefore everything we do and say will have a considerable impact on our team members. Consequently it is only natural that we act in a way that benefits them without of course losing sight of the end goal and business objectives.
So if I, as a leader, am able to inspire my people, I am at the same time empowering them, motivating them, creating more autonomy, more responsibility, more personal satisfaction in their job and more creativity.
Focusing on and obtaining high levels of operational efficiency is a cornerstone for any leader in a business environment. But achieveing that doesn't necesarily make us a leader that will be remebered, a leader that will retain and attract talent, a leader that will engage, a leader that will be recognized in the long run.
By adopting an Inspiring Leadership posture we go from managing objectives/KPIs to truly and powerfully leading people.
How can it help me?
At the beginning of the 1997-98 season Phil Jackson was informed by the Chicago Bull's management that no matter what he would not be renewed as head coach the next year... So the question quickly arised: How could he lead a group that knew that he was leaving? How could he still have leverage on these amazing professional athletes, how could he keep his credibility, how could he motivate and engage them when his own boss was showing him the door and the players would not see him again after this season?
Inspiring them was the first step he took.
He arrived in the lockeroom that year with 3 words written on the wall:
"The Last Dance". These 3 words became the purpose of the season. Through his communication he gave strong purpose to the season and was able to turn it into a journey, a challenge that mobilized the whole team.
He gave a speach to explain what this meant for him/for them and for the rest of the season everybody on the team was galvanized by this objective of making the last dance the most beautiful one ever.
And that's exactly what happened since they won the NBA title that year...
So, what's in it for you as a leader?
The 3 pillars of your journey to Inspiring Leadership:
Positive Leadership
"Correct your weaknesses just enough so you don't lose... develop your strengths so you become unbeatable"
Create a culture and a dynamic where individuals are highly engaged and empowered by their strengths.
As leaders we are constantly faced with problems and errors that we need to correct. We tend to equate performance and excellence with the correction of these flaws. For 40 years Appreciative Inquiry has been used by NASA, British Airways, The US Navy, American Express... in order to solve problems, innovate and explore high performance... through positivity
You go in the direction of what you study. If you study the problem you will become an expert of what doesn't work. If you study excellence...
Communicate to inspire
Impact techniques, breaking predictability, using contrast, metaphores, storytelling, call to action, expressing your BIG IDEA...
We have modelized what highly inspiring speakers and leaders do through their communication
Understanding how you can inspire through concrete, operational tools and concepts to increase your capacity to capture attention, give memorable interventions, motivate, convince and make people want to change course and follow you.
Giving Meaning
We have entered the era of the "WHY" where purpose is everything.
Whether it's a product, a project, a service, a mission or leadership in itself, identifying, understanding and expressing purpose is everything.
This purpose goes beyond the operational objective (meet a deadline, increase margins, create a new offer...). It is the reason, the guiding light that pushes a team to move forward no matter what.
In business environments we tend to focus heavily on WHAT there is to do and HOW we should do it. But without a strong WHY it is difficult to inspire others, create high levels of engagement and motivation in the long run.
Phil Jackson's "The Last Dance" (see above) was his WHY. It could have been a sad, tedious and negative situation. But through his powerful communication, his positivity, his ambition and his capacity to give strong meaning to that season he created a relentless group that gave him all they had.
Never understimate the power of an Inspiring Leader...