Leadership 101: How to Beat Your People

humility

Leaders: When your people are not performing their tasks or jobs; not living up to expectations; and not providing you the bottom-line value that you hired them for, you might need to take drastic actions. You might need to rediscover an old-fashioned way to get things done. You may want to subscribe to a very old trick that still works today…

You may want to try good old-fashioned humility. That’s right, humility. It is one of the greatest secrets to motivation that has ever existed. It is a trick that gets into people’s heads and they can’t help but follow your lead. It works every time. And they never see it coming.

(But sssshhhhh, you can’t tell them that you are doing it. That would be anti-humblism.)

Here is what the old-timers know: Any one can fashion their leadership ways into being unattractive and undesirable to follow. This can be seen in just about any organization. These are the leaders who play the me-first game. It’s a dreadful match that they can never really win. There may be short-term gains along the way, but the scoreboard in the me-first game always kills them in the end. The names for these characters who play this type of match are something like:

The Know-it-All
The Over-Achiever
The Boastful Braggart
The Unavailable
The Apple-Shiner (aka b-noser)
THE Expert”
The Win-Lose Architect
The Politico
The Complainer
The Temptress
The Knucklehearted
The Blowhard
The #^*&#&%!

These are leaders who try to win at a losing game. They are competing in the wrong game and competing with the wrong people. Rather than working with their teams, instead, they try to prove their greatness, or their cunning, or their positional authority when they shouldn’t be doing that at all.

These poor folks have allowed a natural self-preservation mechanism that exists in everyone to turn into full-blown self-centeredness because they don’t know the real benefits of a better formula. Essentially, they become worthless as leaders and nobody really wants to follow them.

A Better Way
There is an alternative to the me-first game that leaders can win. Anyone can be a winner at being an effective leader by competing in a better game. This is where you want to win as a leader if you truly want to be influential. This is in the game of servant leadership.

You want to beat your employees with this every day!

Rather than competing to win at the me-first game, compete in the Game of Helpfulness. In the Game of Empathy. In the Game of Selflessness. In the Game of Team. In the Game of Sacrifice. In the Game of Vision. In the Game of Integrity. In the Game of Trustworthiness. It is way more fun and everyone gets more stuff done.

This is where you want to be seen as a winner. If you continually strive for things of a greater good by modeling excellence in humility and servanthood toward the people you lead, then your folks will want to compete in that arena to try to beat you. This is healthy competition that provides that win-win-win-win-win for everyone.

So, beat your employees for better performance! They will love it!

So what game are you playing today with your people? Are you in the right arenas where you are setting an example worth following? Are you competing to show how to get things done without making yourself the center of attention? What “tricks” have you employed to get people to think outside of self and focus on larger goals? I’d love to hear!

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Tom Schulte is Executive Director of Linked 2 Leadership and
CEO of Recalibrate Professional Development in Atlanta, GA USA
He can be reached at [email protected] 
Image Source: fortunecity.com

L2L Contributing Author

3 Comments

  1. Janet Schlesinger on May 7, 2009 at 1:04 pm

    Thanks Tom, for the GREAT article. I agree that humility is a key leadership quality that generates amazing results and dedication. You sure know how to get the message across!



    • Tom Schulte on May 8, 2009 at 7:57 am

      Thanks for commenting, Janet! You are too kind! I appreciate your taking the time to jump in the deep end here and swim around. Check out today’s article by Eleanor about humility and LeBron James. It is really good! ~Tom



  2. […] 101: How to Beat Your People From the Linked2Leadership blog, by Tom Schulte […]



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