What does it take to build an enthusiastic and energetic workforce? How can you encourage all of your team members to begin each day wondering how they can do their job more effectively? Furthermore, how can you create a sense of urgency, particularly during tough economic times?

The simple answer is strong leadership. Leaders who inspire others with a compelling purpose are necessary in order to cultivate the kind of culture in which employees look forward to coming to work. Over the next few weeks, we’re going to examine each of the four key behaviors of effective Organizational Leadership.

Inspire Others with a Compelling Purpose and Vision

People have a basic desire to be a part of something important. Most want to know that they are making a difference in the world. Strong leaders have the ability to inspire that kind of purpose by effectively communicating the importance of their organization’s mission. They provide a clear vision for the future – a future that can only be reached through the commitment, competence, and energy of everyone on the team.
There are a lot of people in leadership positions who would probably not describe themselves as inspirational. When we think of inspirational leaders, persuasive speechmakers like Martin Luther King Jr. come to mind. With his “I Have a Dream” speech, he moved hundreds of thousands of people. However eloquent, it’s not necessary to possess that exact kind of charisma. What is necessary is the ability to personalize the importance and value of your work in a genuine way. Organizational leaders must be able to communicate how their team’s work makes a difference to their organization, industry, customers, and community.

We were recently motivated by this very clear example of a leader who found a way to inspire others. This person is the department manager of facilities for a corporate campus. She leads a workforce of landscapers, maintenance workers, and janitors. Her vision is simple, “We create peace and serenity for our employees and visitors. People should experience serenity when they look out the windows at a beautiful, well-groomed landscape. They should find peace and calm with the cleanliness of the restrooms and other facilities. This peace and serenity leads to higher productivity and employee morale.”

What is your compelling purpose? How do you inspire your workforce to high performance? Share your inspirational story with us by commenting here, and be sure to visit our blog next week to learn the next key behavior for effective Organizational Leadership.

Tags: Compelling Purpose, Five Key Drivers of High Performance, High-Performance Leadership Model, Organizational Leadership, Relationship Leadership, Vision

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 at 5:02 pm and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.