Leadership Without Excuses: How to Create Accountability and High-Performance (Instead of Just Talking About It)

CHAPTER 7USE THE OTHER F-WORD TO TAP HIDDEN SOURCES OF MOTIVATION

Here’s some good news: When it comes to creating compelling consequences, you have more options than you realize. This is so because your greatest source of power is your ability to change how people feel. And as a leader, you have enormous capacity to do just that among the people on whom you depend for high accountability and performance.

Before we proceed, we’ll concede that this insight has provoked a negative visceral reaction in many of the leaders with whom we’ve shared it over the past decade or so. And we know why: In serious business settings, it’s taboo to talk about feelings—a mushy word that evokes rainbows, unicorns, and Johnny Mathis. Our maxim “feels” like something ...