Extraordinary Leadership in Australia and New Zealand: The Five Practices that Create Great Workplaces

Chapter 6 Encourage the Heart

OVER THE YEARS, we’ve asked thousands of people, ‘Do you need encouragement to perform at your best?’ When we started asking the question, we didn’t know what the answer would be. What we found was that only about 50 per cent answered affirmatively. The rest explained, ‘Well, the reason I didn’t say yes was because I don’t need encouragement. After all, I am an adult’. Or ‘I don’t need encouragement. I’m a professional. I do my job well regardless of what others say’.

We realised that perhaps we weren’t asking the question in the right way. So we changed the question and asked, ‘When you get encouragement, does it help stimulate and sustain your performance?’ Would you be surprised to learn that nearly 100 per cent of the respondents said, ‘Yes. When I get encouragement, it does help me to perform at a higher level’? If this is true, then it must also be true that everyone does need encouragement! Sure, not everyone needs or wants the same level, type or frequency of encouragement, but no-one wants to feel that their efforts are inconsequential, invisible and make little-to-no difference. Exemplary leaders provide encouragement.

Knowing this, exemplary leaders are constantly on the lookout for ways to Encourage the Heart of individuals who are living the values that have been agreed to and achieving the goals that have been identified. When at their personal best, leaders find ways of building the inner strength necessary for people to struggle ...