How Great Leaders Inspire Action

As I write this article in mid-2010, I am a 45-year old sales and marketing guy who has a deep passion for leadership development. I was born with some “pre-wired” conditioned that made me both a highly logical/linear thinker (left-brained) and also a highly relational/creative (right-brained) person who desires structure, performance, and elegance.

I was raised in a house where I was the middle child of 9 kids. I have 6 sisters and 2 brothers (three girls and one brother on either side of me.) I presently have a wife of 24 years, three adult daughters (identical twins in there) and two adult sons. I am pre-wired to be highly observational and prone to decisive deductive reasoning. I think like and engineer, yet I am also a graphic artist. I really have the “whole-brain” thing going on. It is a double-edged sword sometimes, but it also has its advantages.

I have come to understand that I was created to be a “Balanced Man.”

Perspective

I learned about leadership development as a young guy. I wrote about this first experience in being in a cauldron of family turmoil that provided my blueprints for success in an article titled “On Leadership and Doing Dishes.” I grew to take that perspective on leading people within my family to leading people in the workplace.

As a son of a salesman, I guess it might be natural that I followed in my father’s footsteps. I used my understanding of people and solutions to lead people to remedies that would help them or their organization. I love to help people and selling was a great way for me to engage that passion.

I found that a system called Solution Selling was a great way to understand how best to offer what a client might need. This technique really has a sales person acting as a trustee for their client. This training supported all the best I knew about providing ethical, honest, and authentic solutions to my clients.

When I was asked to come aboard and sell leadership development training for Dr. John C. Maxwell, I was well placed to bring all of my experience to a brand new audience for a brand new offering. In no time, I was bitten by the “leadership bug” and saw how the very best solution providers have the IDENTICAL behaviors as the best leaders.

Selling, not Telling

In my research, interviewing, and coaching experience, I have found a common thread when it comes to getting people to follow you willingly. That common thread is that make a personal decision to “get on board” your train. They WANT to follow you. Something(s) inside of them compels them to get in line behind your vision and stay with you for the journey.

This happens when a leader has a clear communication style that casts a compelling vision to a better place.

This communication style is NEVER about telling them stuff. It is more about providing information that allows them to make the decision(s) to follow you. It is about marketing the vision to their needs. It is about selling your ideas.

The Golden Circle

I tell you this because I recently stumbled into a short video that is nothing short of 18 minutes of pure gold. This piece from Simon Sinek tells how the best leaders communicate to inspire real action.

I can say no more other than watch this, enjoy, and learn…

[ted id=848]

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Tom Schulte is Executive Director of Linked 2 Leadership
He provides leadership training fit for the Blackberry-Attention-Span

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5 Comments

  1. […] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Tom Schulte. Tom Schulte said: How Great Leaders Inspire Action http://su.pr/7uHth9 […]



  2. Adi on May 13, 2010 at 7:43 am

    That is a really great talk. Thank you very much for sharing.



    • Tom Schulte on May 13, 2010 at 9:55 am

      Hi Adi,

      You are quite welcome! I have watched the video several times and I am fashioning my “selling, not telling” message with the ideas presented there!

      I actually added some text to the blog entry to help make the connection better. Check it out and share it with your network!

      ~Tom



  3. Mandy on May 20, 2010 at 12:30 pm

    this is a great clip Tom, light bulb moment on what I knew…I now know how to communicate it in a much clearer way. thanks so much for posting this



    • Tom Schulte on May 24, 2010 at 6:39 am

      You are welcome, Mandy! I am glad you liked it!



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