As a business owner and a leader, part of your job is to inspire your employees as well as customers so that you may accomplish your business goals. The reason is that people are likely to follow those who can motivate them to achieve their personal and career goals. Thus, for you to be an effective leader, you need to be inspirational.
Follow these tips on how you can inspire the people around you:
1. Connect with people and keep your connections.
Make an effort to meet different people, whether it is online or in person. Remember the names of the people you meet and everything you know about them. When you approach someone to ask how they're doing, don't do it to sell something or ask them to do something for you. Instead, check on them to be helpful. The message has to be that you care about them. You can reinforce your connections by making people feel important.
2. Help people meet other people.
Inspirational leaders make an effort to bring together people who have things in common, particularly their interests. By doing this, you will not only be strengthening their own network, but you will also be expanding it.
3. Always believe in the goodness of people.
There's no doubt that business is competitive, and for anyone to succeed in it, they need to act out of their personal interest. While this is a fact, inspirational leaders believe in people's good nature. For them, most people will do good when given a choice. This serves as a motivation for them to push people in the right direction.
4. Be open to people who tend to disagree or oppose.
A good and inspirational leader is someone who welcomes different points of views. To be this kind of leader, you need to know how to listen, so that you can understand why others disagree. It would just be a waste of your time to try to convince people around you that you're right. You should welcome discussions as these will help you and your team come up with the best decisions.
5. Be fearless, even when you're scared.
As a leader, you're expected to make huge and important decisions. It's only natural that you feel scared that your decisions may produce wrong outcomes. But then again, you should not let your fears stop you from doing what you think is right. If you want to serve as an inspiration, you have to be brave enough to take risks.
6. Always be grateful.
Great leaders don't brag about their skills, experience, and achievements. They don't pay too much attention to the things they have done and the things they haven't done. Rather, they express how grateful they are for their successes. They give back to the community, and they give credit where it's due.
7. Be dependable.
You can be an inspirational leader if you can make yourself available for others when it really matters. You need to be willing to share yourself with the people who may need your help, even in the most unexpected time. This is exactly what great leaders do, which also explains why they are often considered experts in career and life coaching.
Cecile Peterkin is a certified career and retirement coach, and a registered member of the Career Professionals of Canada and the International Coach Federation. She is also the Founder and Senior Career Strategist at Cosmic Coaching Centre, provider of career and life management services for middle managers and mid-career professionals across Canada, United States and Europe.