How to Inspire Your Team
How do we inspire others? For many of us, inspiration comes from people we admire — family members, celebrities, philanthropists, philosophers, coaches and the like. While these people make it seem easy to persuade the masses, the truth is, learning how to inspire others isn’t quite that simple.
How do you become an inspiring person? Where does inspiration even come from, really? And is there a way to be an inspirational leader for your employees all the while garnering their respect, admiration and trust?
First, we need to talk about why inspiration is so important for team building in the first place.
How to inspire others: why inspiration is so important
Inspiration is the tool that drives all of us. When we’re inspired, we feel happy, energetic, engaged and ready to seize the moment. This is particularly great for members of a team who need to execute on an important vision.
But what makes inspiration really special? Write this down: inspiration is an internal motivator that doesn’t require external reinforcement to maintain. Unlike motivation, which comes from external factors (we feel “motivated” to do the laundry because we’re afraid we’ll smell bad at work the next day; similarly, we feel “motivated” to work on a project because we’re afraid of what might happen if we’re fired), inspiration is entirely self-directed.
Inspiration is being excited to work on something new. Inspiration is wanting to tackle a challenge. Inspiration is seeing innovative ways to address old problems.
For these reasons, all of us can probably agree that we do better work when we’re inspired, not motivated. So what does it take to inspire others?
How to inspire others: developing a suite of skills
Think of inspiration as a suite of tools at your disposal to uplift those around you. Depending on what tools and skills you possess, your courage, creativity, passion, desire or charm will help you move the court of public opinion in your favor. Some common characteristics of historically inspiring people include those who:
- Want to make a difference
- Stand up for what they believe in
- Take challenges head-on
- Deal with issues compassionately
- Argue for fairness
- Take responsibility and fault for their mistakes
- Engage in clear communication
These skills are absolutely crucial to develop if you want to be an inspiring leader. Simply put, you’ve got to put your money where your mouth is — you’re not going to be inspiring if you just want your team to work harder.
Now, onto the next, and arguably more important, part of inspiration.
How to inspire others: start with a vision
Inspiration starts with a strong, clear vision. In a team setting, that’s especially true. It takes a lot of guts and tact to be able to come up with an idea, present it before a crowd, and protect it such that it can develop in accordance with your unique, strong vision.
That’s why having a vision is so important. It gives you a baseline to work off of so that your team knows where their “North Star” is, and how to get closer to it. Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean you have to be the official head of the project at hand — even if you’re just contributing to a segment of the vision, having your own, clear idea about your role will help you inspire others to execute efficiently.
How to inspire others: determine what you absolutely can’t give up
Learning how to inspire a team requires some compromise. Even if you have the best, most wonderful vision in the whole wide world, not everybody is going to agree with every last detail of it. And that’s okay. Sometimes, you’re going to be wrong.
This is where finding the “essence” of your vision becomes important. Instead of focusing heavily on the specifics of your plan — i.e., what kind of music, food and decorations you’ll have at a party — try focusing on what the plan absolutely MUST include in order to be considered a success. For instance, maybe it doesn’t matter so much what color balloons your team chooses… but it is important that there’s enough cake for everyone to have some.
Or maybe your goal is for everyone to have a great time. In that case, your job would be to invite the best people, provide enough space for them, and leave smaller details up to the rest of your team. Food and drinks are important, sure, but it’s not going to ruin anyone’s day if you serve chocolate cake instead of vanilla.
Determining the essence of your vision helps you stay inspiring. Why? Because it allows you to accept new ideas, encourage good ideas, and let go of bad ideas. Instead of getting upset that a teammate has a different idea about the music you’ll be playing at this year’s office party, think back to your true vision, and see if it really matters if you let that coworker handle the music.
How to inspire others: combine your traits with your vision
The final step in persuading a team to work well together under your influence involves combining your natural leadership traits with your predetermined vision. Use your skills to create and deliver a vision to your team that makes sense, and then ask for input.
Allow your team to discuss. Let there be objections, complaints and new ideas. Some of them will be bad, but others will be good. In the end, what matters is that everything your team puts forward will still contribute to your overall vision.
That’s how inspiration works — when you encourage a teammate to work within your vision to achieve something truly extraordinary, people will start to see you for the inspirational leader you are.
Group Productivity: How To Inspire Your Team
How do you lead a team that has no official leader? How do you please everyone while maintaining a cohesive vision? Do you become the self-appointed leader? If so, how do you earn everyone’s respect? How do you make your ideas infectious? Navigating the world of leadership and group productivity is complicated no matter what position you’re in.