The Art of Inspiring Others to Action By Example

Leaders make a difference because they are different themselves. A leader’s function is to influence and inspire the people who look to them for direction, guidance and support. What sets great leaders apart from the masses is not their sex, age, or occupation. Nor is it their level of education, how much money they earn, where they came from, or whom they know. What sets true leaders apart is their awareness of, and sensitivity to, the needs of others.

Effective leaders inspire others to aim higher, work harder and smarter, accomplish more in less time, and enjoy doing it. When a successful network marketer winds up in the winner’s circle, you can rest assured it wasn’t by accident. It was because you and your team collectively did their job.

A key element at the heart of effective leadership is vision, which can be defined as “seeing with your imagination.” As a leader, it’s essential to know precisely where you are going, and even more importantly, why you are going there. Why do you want what you want? What compels you to do what you do? Your vision can be small or earth shaking, but it must be absolutely clear. As a leader, the clarity or fuzziness of your vision and your commitment to that vision has a direct and vital effect on those on your team.

Leadership is not a position, but rather an action. A leader is simply someone who has the courage to be the example for others to follow. A leader lives constantly under a microscope. Nothing a leader does or says will escape the scrutiny and examination of followers. As a leader your team’s activities and attitudes will simply mirror the example you have set for them. If you don’t return phone calls promptly for instance, your are teaching your team members by our own example, not to follow up.

So, as an aspiring leader we must ask ourselves repeatedly, “what message am I sending? What example am I setting? What environment am I creating?” When you as a leader set out to make a difference your beliefs, words and actions inspire others to follow your example. As a leader, setting the example comes first and foremost. In short, you as the leader are accountable.

As a leader being first or setting new records should not be the objective. There will always be someone who will break your record. It’s who you are and how you live that counts. The position doesn’t make the person. The person makes the position. People are not going to accept you as their leader because you are the number one distributor/associate in the company. They are going to accept you because of the type of person you are deep down inside. Regardless of how good you are in business, people see you first as a person. Your morals and integrity, your relationship with others, everything you are counts. If you are going to be an inspiration for others to follow, they have to first be convinced that you have something valuable to offer them. They’ve got to want to follow your lead in order for you to help them.

So before you can become a great leader, you’ve got to become a great person. A leader has to be a person with real character, who truly projects honesty, integrity, commitment and sincerity. These are important because it is the foundation on which you will build everything else in your life as well as your business.

So, put your principles first. When you do, you’ll find that a lot of your difficult decisions will be already made for you based upon your principles. Let everyone in your organization know what principles and values are important to you. When you stand for something other than just success or money you’ll find that people will want to follow you, because you are someone they are proud to call their leader.

We all want those on our team to provide the highest level of service to their team members and customers. Service is an attitude, not a department, and effective leaders know that service always starts at the top, with just one person: You. A true leader’s slogan should be, “Service starts here.”

The way a leader develops his team is similar to the way a farmer plants his crops. The farmer plant seeds and each one is unique, and according to the law of averages, some will grow and some won’t. The farmer can, however increase his averages and increase his yield, simply by increasing the nourishment and attention given to his crops. It’s your job as a leader to nourish your team and to keep a constant eye out for the weeds of fear, doubt, rejection and other types of negativity that will smother your harvest.

Thus, it is absolutely essential that you, as an effective leader, take full responsibility for everything! Responsibility is defined as “the ability to respond” or “response-ability.” As leaders our job is to influence behavior and performance, regardless of the goal; in other words, to lead. So we must never point toward someone else or an outside circumstance as the cause of our problems. That is called a pointer, not a leader. We must take full responsibility for our own actions, how we perform as a leader, and the overall performance of each individual within our organization.

Author's Bio

Jim Britt

Jim Britt, entrepreneur, author, speaker, and peak performance specialist, is a seasoned organizational executive, a noted success counselor, and an internationally recognized leader in the field of personal-empowerment and peak performance training.

He is author of numerous best selling books and programs including, “Rings of Truth,” “Unleashing Your Authentic Power,” “The Power of Letting Go,” “Freedom,” “Money, How to Earn it, How to Make it Grow,” “Do This. Get Rich-For the Entrepreneur” and his latest, “Do This. Get Rich-For the Network Marketer.”

Throughout the World Jim has shared his business success principles and life enhancing realizations with thousands of audiences, totaling over 1,000,000 people from all walks of life. jimbritt.com

Nothing Happens in Life or Business Until Somebody Says Yes!

Think about this: even when there is no one else involved in a decision, like whether you’re going to exercise today, you still have to say yes to yourself to make it happen. And if you don’t enjoy the activity, there’s probably an internal conversation going on where you have to give yourself a very persuasive argument to get to that “yes”!

How do you get to the point of saying yes to yourself or having someone else say yes to you? You’ve been doing it naturally, without any conscious thought, since you were a toddler convincing another child to give you the toy he or she was playing with.

How do you think you got a date each time you’ve wanted to go out with someone new?

How did you convince your last employer they should hire you for the job instead of another, equally qualified person? How do you get your kids to do what you want them to do? Or do you?

Remember that time you really wanted to eat at your favorite restaurant, and everyone else in your group had different ideas? You convinced them by talking about how great it was, the atmosphere and the particular dishes you thought they would enjoy, didn’t you? The way you talked to them was based on the rapport you had with each individual and the group. You took their personal preferences into consideration and gave them the benefits of your restaurant based on their needs and desires. You thought you were being nice, and you were right.

You know how to persuade people to see your point of view and how it benefits them, don’t you? You got them to say yes. That’s called sales.

Don’t be afraid of the word sales. The truth is you’re already much better at sales than you give yourself credit for. In fact, you spend quite a bit of your time every day in sales. Just look at the sales talents you just discovered. It’s how you get a date, a job, a spouse, a client. It’s the basis of every relationship you have because sales is nothing more than good communication skills used for a specific purpose.

Does that shock you? I can hear you reading this and saying to yourself, “She isn’t talking to me—I don’t like sales, and I would never trick people like that.”

There are three myths about sales I’d like to dispel.

1.Most people don’t consider themselves to be in sales if they aren’t employed as a salesperson.
2.Sales is hard edged, manipulative, unpleasant, and confrontational—with a winner and a loser.
3.If you are nice and considerate to people, it will be taken as weakness.

Those statements couldn’t possibly be true if you look at the way you use persuasive communication skills, otherwise known as sales, in your day-to-day life. Sales is persuading people to go along with what you want because it’s to their benefit—as in the case of your children—or showing someone how you have the best solution to her problem in business. Just like you did with your restaurant choice.

No tricks.

Isn’t true business development about building relationships with your clients? So, in reality, relationships are relationships, whether business or personal. It’s really all the same at the most basic level. Learning the techniques and strategies of persuasion is of great benefit to you in all the relationships in your life because the success and well-being of all relationships is based on the ability to understand and be understood, which comes down to good communication skills.

Are you a parent? Do all your kids happily cooperate with you? They can if you learn how to appeal to them each in the way they best receive information. It may look like they enjoy being difficult, but to a large extent, it’s more likely that you have different personality styles, and that’s where your communication problems come in. What is a carrot to you, in terms of the carrot/stick theory, may look more like a stick to someone with a different style. Once you know how to reach them and speak to them in a way that works for them, things will be much more relaxed in your relationships.

Wouldn’t it be great if your spouse always understood what you were trying to say, and wouldn’t your life be easier if your kids or your employees actually took the action you wanted without having to say it more than once? What would it be like if you could get things accomplished in a way that seemed effortless?

This isn’t a dream; it’s a very attainable reality. The first step is to understand that there are four major personality styles, and a lot of communication conflicts can be resolved by acquiring a good working knowledge of how each personality best receives information and what criteria they use to make decisions.

If that’s a piece of knowledge you don’t yet possess, learning to communicate effectively with people who have different personalities from yours could literally change your life, not to mention lead to a huge increase in your income!

If you have your own business, I’d like to help you become so sought after that people come to you asking to do business. That requires two things.

1.You have to set yourself apart from everyone else.
2.Your potential clients need to recognize that you are different.

Chances are you aren’t the only person doing what you do in your area. You probably have some competitors. Ask yourself these questions.

Why is someone going to do business with me rather than someone else?
What do I have to offer that my competitors don’t?
Why are people making a tremendous amount of money very quickly and easily, while I’m working really hard and not getting their results?
What are they doing differently?

Let’s say you’re an accountant and you want to get 10 new clients.
How are you going to approach these prospective clients?
Do they already have an accountant and you want them to move over to your company? Are they people who aren’t yet sure they need an accountant?
Why should they do business with you rather than the brother-in-law of their best friend? What do you do to serve your clients that your competitors don’t?

One thing we know is that people will do business with someone they like and trust over someone they feel no allegiance to, every time. So the question is, How do you develop that kind of rapport in a short amount of time? The same is true in your personal relationships. The more rapport you have and the closer someone feels to you, the more likely you are to get to “yes” with him.

Now that you know you really do have persuasive sales skills, ask yourself what level they’ve reached and where you could use some additional fine-tuning. Your financial independence and peace in your home could be the result.

Author's Bio

Lynn Pierce

With over 25 years in sales and marketing, along with 30 years studying human behavior, Lynn Pierce, “The Sales Therapist,” mentors entrepreneurs and information marketers to reach the pinnacle of success. Tell Lynn what the life of your dreams looks like, and she’ll create the blueprints to get you there, along with the sales system to fund it. Lynn Pierce’s personal growth and business acceleration systems help her clients get three times the results in half the time with one tenth of the effort. Claim your free minicourse, “9 Steps to Getting to YES Without Selling,” at http://www.LynnPierce.com.