A Must Read! Encouraging The Heart

One of the biggest challenges we face today in the modern workplace is to become leaders that better the team around them. Encouraging the Heart by James Kouzes and Barry Posner examines how modern-day leaders must foster a culture of encouragement and motivation in their organization to become successful. There are three main key points that you should take away from this extraordinary read.

The first take away is that encouraging leadership really boils down to 7 essential rules that a leader must follow to create a positive work environment. The first rule is to set clear standards, meaning that you as a leader must continue to instill in your staff what you are doing and why you are doing it. The second rule is to expect the best. This simply means that you as a leader must believe in your staff and encourage them to produce the best quality work that they can. The third rule is pay attention. As a leader you must focus on even the most minute detail just so your staff knows that you are invested in the work as much as they are. The fourth rule is personalized recognition. This means that you must not follow a cookie cutter way of acknowledging your employees and their accomplishments; you must change and personalize everyone’s recognition so that they know you put thought and effort into it just the same way they put thought and effort into their job. The fifth rule you must follow is to tell the story. When you are giving recognition for your employees excellent service you must tell them what they so you may teach them what you consider excellent work and what they should continue to do in the future. The sixth rule is to celebrate together; do not recognize your employees in private, make it a public affair in front of all the staff. This will encourage not only the staff member who is receiving the award to work harder but all the other staff who are seeing them get praise. The seventh and quite possibly most important rule is to set the example. You as the leader must take initiative and follow the seven essential rules of encouraging your staff as well as being the best possible leader that you can but not for you but for your team.

The second take away you should get from the book is the encouragement index. This is a questionnaire of 21 questions that allow you to self-evaluate how great of a leader you really are. This is a crucial step in the pathway of becoming a great leader because this will let you know where you are excelling and more importantly where you need to improve to better encourage your staff. In fact, after you take the question here it even gives you advice on how to become a better leader based on your score range index.

The third takeaway that you should really pay attention to in the book comes from the story of a third grader. She simply says, “I listen with my eyes and my heart, not just my ears and my brain”. Her simple words say the most. As a leader you must not only try to listen to your employees but to understand what they are saying and what their viewpoints are. This will create an environment where everyone feels motivated and encouraged to do the best they possibly can.