Page 210 - The extraordinary leader

New Insights into Leadership Development • 187

How Do You Inspire Others? When people think about inspiring others
to high performance, they often visualize giving people a locker-room–style pep
talk or waving a flag while leading others into battle. What might the compe-
tency companions to “inspiring others” be? Again, we did not find the obvious. 5
As we have collected further data on leaders, our insights into inspiration have
been sharpened. Leaders who were rated as highly inspirational were also rated
with high scores in three categories of behaviors. First, they readily accept their
role as leader. They recognize that they are a role model, like it or not. They
are perceived as championing change and being out front in taking initiative.
The second characteristic they possess is an awareness and comfort with emo-
tion. They understand that human behavior is driven in large part by emotion.
These leaders have also come to realize that their emotions are extremely
contagious and that they can lift people to soaring new heights or depress them
to de-spirited lows.
The third category is six rather specific behaviors that inspiring leaders
selectively use. These begin with setting stretch goals. Others include pro-
viding clarity of direction and vision, being an effective communicator, devel-
oping others, encouraging teamwork and collaboration, and encouraging
innovation. It appears that inspirational leaders have faith in the people with
whom they work.
They believe that others are capable of great accomplishments. They
believe others will work hard, follow through on assignments, and do what-
ever is needed to accomplish goals. Having positive expectations of others pre-
disposes leaders to expect more, check less, and encourage people to give their
best. Having lofty expectations of others is closely related to inspiring them.
To get a more complete overview of how leaders can be more inspiring
review a subsequent book we have written called, The Inspiring Leader. For fur-
5
ther information on our research, visit our web-site at www.zengerfolkman.com.

Leading Organizational Change—The Final Tent Pole

What Is a Powerful Way to Get Others to Change? In our analysis of
competency companions for championing change, we found that leaders who
were good at creating change also were perceived as being willing to take risks
and challenge the status quo. Most people can identify with a change effort
where some senior leaders failed to fully support the change. It becomes much
easier to get people in an organization to behave in a particular way when the
leaders act as role models of the desired behavior. In fact, some change agents