As leaders, we so often focus on the what the when and the how. The Colonel said, “If you can give them the why, the what and the how are gonna follow naturally.”
As we move further into the 21st century, the necessity of employees’ engagement becomes increasingly relevant. The 20th-century concept of doing a task or a project just because your boss told you to is an antiquated and ineffective way to achieve productivity. Without a solid “why,” you often end up with half-baked outcomes, shoddy performance, and minimal loyalty.
The Colonel understood this ahead of his time. He was a master at connecting the “if you do this, then this will happen” dots for his daughters and his staff. My sister and I are very different people. As kids, my sister was intellectual and focused, while I was flighty and social. The reasons she did something (maybe earning more allowance to put toward that car she’d been saving up for) were very different from the reasons that I would do something (getting permission to join my friends at the park or the pool and stay there an hour longer than normal). Dad knew that and would position our incentives accordingly.
If you can communicate why your team wants to (or needs to) do something, give them the “what’s in it for them,” and then the means for achieving that task or project will usually come from them. It’s imperative, therefore, that you get to know your team well because one person’s “why” may be very different from another person’s. One size does not necessarily fit all.
A leader’s job is vision building and casting. That vision has to be based on their “why,” not just yours. It’s not essential for the leader to know the exact processes used to achieve that vision, especially if you’ve empowered your team to make their own decisions and find their own path to the outcome you have established. Give them the why – and the what and the how will follow naturally.
Read Lauren’s Whitepaper on The Nine Essentials of Significant Leadership.
