Individual Leadership: How Leaders Use Emotion to Drive High Performance

Aristotle pointed out thousands of years ago that emotion was a key driver in moving others to action. As the maxim suggests, logic makes us think, but emotion makes us act. So, if you want to get your people aligned, focused on the top priorities, and working the way you want them to, you need to understand how to effectively use emotions to work to your advantage. When I speak about this topic, I go out of my way to point out that I’m not talking about excessive displays of emotion, oversharing of personal information, or getting into therapy sessions with colleagues. Rather, it’s about connecting with our teams, our peers, and our bosses as humans with emotions, not task-focused automatons.

My latest article for HBR, Motivating People Starts with Building Emotional Connections, was among the most popular last month. It outlines some strategies for how leaders can better connect with their teams.

And if you liked that one, here is another article I wrote on a similar topic a few years ago.

Organizational Leadership: Addition By Subtraction

Meetings take up a big chunk of your day. I’ll save the “spend less time in meetings” content for another day. But if you are going to have the meeting, I typically counsel clients on three ways to improve meetings. It’s addition by subtraction.

1. Reduce the number of people. If someone isn’t there to participate by adding a valuable perspective or playing a key role in collaboration, they probably don’t need to attend. Too many people are present because we don’t want to upset them by not including them, or because we simply want them informed. There are other ways to do both. More people in meetings rarely makes them better.
2. Reduce the number of topics. As topics increase, meaningful discussions and decisions decrease. A meeting isn’t required to deal with every topic. But if the content does require a meeting, at least give sufficient time to consider it fully and determine clear next actions or decisions to move the topic forward. Otherwise, why cover it?
3. Reduce unproductive conversations. We’ve all seen conversations that ramble on, miss the point, take wasteful tangents, and cover areas of extraneous detail or low relevance. Pay close attention to what’s being discussed, and don’t be afraid to keep people on point by redirecting focus. Identify repetitions and digressions and place them in the “parking lot” before they’ve stolen 15 minutes or more. This is a major part of leading a meeting effectively. Not all interruptions are rude. Interruptions can be professional, polite, and provide a moment to refocus. 

Leadership in the World: Inflation and Recession

I see writers and news anchors discussing whether recession technically means two consecutive quarters of economic decline as measured by the GDP. And plenty of others discussing whether inflation is bad.

But it’s impossible to deny these are the two biggest economic factors facing your business in the second half of 2022. Regardless of definitions or pundit opinions, here is where you ought to be focused as your costs increase and demands for your goods decrease.

1. Expand margins by creating more value. Identify opportunities to do more for customers. From the sales process to your offerings, ask yourself where you can provide greater support, more insight, a better experience, or something different than the competition.
2. Reduce waste. Massive amounts of time, money, effort and energy are wasted every day on things that don’t matter. This is not about simple cost-cutting. It requires you to be clear on where resources are being spent without a good return. That’s what enables you to invest where you need to.
3. Invest in sales strategy and process to acquire more of your ideal clients. Few problems can’t be solved with more of the right kind of revenue.

Reflections: Knowing versus Doing

There is a chasm between understanding what to do and being able to do it. The only way to make it across that chasm is practice. 

Stumbling on the directions for walking a tightrope made me realize this in a poignant way.

1. Find a horizontal cable that can support your weight.
2. Stand on one end.
3. Step forward by placing one foot directly in front of the other.
4. Repeat.
5. Don’t fall.

Easy to understand, right? It kind of makes the point with humor. Knowing something and being able to do it are worlds apart. And the only way to do it. Practice.

We also know that it’s not practice that makes perfect (or even good). It’s practicing with someone who has enough expertise to help us identify what works and what doesn’t, no matter what we are trying to improve on. 

Just because you know what to do doesn’t mean you are good at it. Where are you trying to improve? Can you find someone who knows how to walk that tightrope to help you practice?

LinkedIn Live: Motivating People Starts with Building Emotional Connections

Join me on Tuesday, August 17, at 10am Eastern to discuss how motivating people starts with building emotional connections.