This text is taken from the original draft manuscript of Influential Leadership: A Leader’s Guide to Getting Things Done and is provided here to enrich your learning on the Strategic Influencer Programme.
Before you get too carried away by your purpose, remember that Influential Leadership needs to balance longer term progress with short term results. The chief risk that you face is not being able to devote enough time to working on your purpose because of the demands you face right now. Losing your position because of poor performance is unlikely to help you progress towards your purpose – unless you are heading into a completely different arena.
Assuming that you are already working in the arena you want to develop your Influential Leadership within, pause for a moment and do an audit of where you are right now. Consider all of the important things which are going on in your life and work at the moment. Think about:
- What targets do you need to achieve at work this year?
- What missed objective could get you fired?
- What challenges and problems are you facing at the moment?
- What feedback have you had lately, from your team, peers, family, friends and line-manager?
- What are goals do you have in your personal life for this year? Next year?
- Are you facing particular difficulties or issues at work (or at home) at present which you need to resolve?
- What are others expecting of you right now?
This thinking is really important as a backdrop to deciding on your purpose and will help you to keep your feet on the ground.
Boosting your Motivation
To be an Influential Leader you need to be highly motivated in the pursuit of your purpose. This helps to generate the tenacity to overcome the inevitable challenges you will face. Problems, obstacles, delays and frustrations will need to be overcome as you strive for progress. The bigger your purpose, the high your motivation and passion will need to be. Since you have now established your purpose, or at least the one you are going to start with, now is an appropriate time to boost your motivation.
The main principle here is that you need to find a way to keep going – or perhaps many ways to keep going. Starting this book and developing your initial purpose demonstrates the beginnings of motivation, but that is unlikely to be enough to see you through to the end. When the going gets tough, you need to be ready – you need to be at your peak in motivation terms so that you have the tenacity to stick with it.
One way to increase your motivation is to develop a list of personal benefits that success will bring to you. To this you can add a list of the negative consequences or losses you will incur if you fail. Some people tend to be more motivated by the gains they could make, others by the losses. In psychology, this is often referred to as “moving towards” or “moving away” motivation. Whichever you tend towards, that’s okay – recognising it will help you to focus your thinking in a moment.
In your notebook, start with your list of potential benefits. Use these questions to help:
- How will realising your purpose/vision contribute to your bonus, pay review?
- How will it improve your career?
- How will realising your vision raise your profile?
- Will it make life easier for you?
- How will others in your life about benefit from your success?
- What problems will it solve for you?
- How will it improve the way your colleagues think about you?
- What new connections/friends will you make?
- Will it improve your personal life?
Try to make your list as long as you can, this will help later.
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Now make a list of all the things you may lose, or the negative consequences of failing to achieve your purpose:
- What will you lose if you fail?
- How will your reputation be damaged?
- Will others think you have let them down?
- Could you get fired or rejected for promotion?
- What will more senior colleagues think about your failure?
- Will you have enough excuses to get away with it?
- Will anybody buy these excuses?
- What will your partner or friends think?
Make this list as long as possible too.
Which was the hardest list to create? Which is the shortest list? Which list makes you feel most motivated to achieve your purpose? It is likely that the answers to these three questions will be the same list.
Whichever list creates the greatest motivation in your mind is the one to keep near at hand. Make sure and review it regularly to maintain and increase your motivation as you progress. Keep it close enough that you can quickly refer to it when you start to hit problems. I have noticed that these lists are almost impossible to create when you are in crisis – referring to a pre-prepared list is much easier.
Protecting Your Motivation
Without wishing to pour cold water on your motivation immediately, no matter how strong your motivation is, there will come a time, probably very soon, when it will drop. And when it does, you are going to be seeing the world in a different way. Once you’ve hit a few obstacles or had some criticism you will start to wonder whatever made you think it was possible in the first place. When you do this, your focus will shift back to more pressing priorities and your purpose will be left until another day.
To lessen the impact this can have on your motivation and progress, recognise the inevitability of your motivation sliding and plan action now. There are probably things you can do now to lessen the likelihood and/or impact that falling motivation could have. You can also plan the action you will take when the problem does hit you.
For example, actions you can take straight away might include:
- Make a list of all the reasons why you must achieve your purpose.
- Share your goal with friends who are good at supporting and encouraging you.
- Don’t share your goal with people who tend to have a negative slant on life (unless you absolutely have to).
- Find case studies where you (or others) have succeeded with similar goals.
- Raise your motivation to fever pitch by writing vision statements and benefit lists.
- Make a public commitment to your purpose — right now.
- Inspire and motivate others to believe in your purpose.
Similarly, an action plan to deploy if doubts hit you may involve:
- Re-reading your notes on reasons and benefits for achieving your goal.
- Go for a walk with a friend who you can rely on to help you recover your positive frame of mind.
- Brainstorm ideas with your team to find ways to make it happen even faster.
- Distract yourself with other work for a few hours so you don’t have time to dwell on your doubts.
- Do something fun that will put you in a positive mood.
An important point to make about this contingency plan is to write it down before you need it. If you don’t, the actual writing of the plan will be almost impossible when the doubts hit you because you will be in a negative state of mind. You may be able to find it within you to take the actions you have already laid out, but it is unlikely that you’ll be able to dream up a clever plan at that point.
What this is all about is doing everything you can to maintain your motivation and commitment until you have achieved your goal, or at least, goal realisation is inevitable. Your positive expectation and frame of mind will make a significant contribution to your success and it is worth doing everything you can to protect it.
The Gautrey Influence Blog
Ever felt overlooked, unheard, or stuck in office politics? You’re not alone. The Gautrey Influence Blog breaks down the real-world strategies behind leadership, influence, and power—giving you the tools to be heard, respected, and successful. Join 35,000+ professionals getting ahead the smart way—subscribe now..
💡 Benchmark your Influence: Take the Master of Influence Assessment (Free for Subscribers!)
👉 [Subscribe & Take the Assessment]