Encouraging The Heart

Encouraging the Heart: A Leader's Guide to Rewarding and Recognizing Others

Presentation Date: November 5th, 2005

Recommended Length: One hour minimum, One hour 15 minutes maximum

Recommended Content

* Key take-aways

* Practical applications

* Entertaining

* interactive

Presentation Outline:

0:00-0:05 Introduce ETH, Concept of Caring Leader (5 minutes)

0:06-0:10 Most Meaningful Recognition, Need for Encouragement (5 minutes)

0:11-0:50 The Seven Essentials of Encouraging the Heart (40 minutes total)

* Open Discussion Idea Exchange

* Answering of Reflection Questions

* "A + B" Role Playing Game

* End with video summary (2 minutes)

0:51-0:55 Finding Your Voice as a Leader (5 minutes)

0:56-1:00 Implementation Strategies (5 minutes)

1:01-1:05 Summary (5 minutes)

1:06-1:10 Questions (5 minutes)

In a Nutshell: Creating a workforce that cares

Book Outline:

* Chapter 1 - Concept of the caring leader

* Chapter 2-10 - Outlines "seven essential principles" for encouraging workers. Essentials are interrelated and overlapping. It is really all about caring for people.

* Chapter 11-12 - Personalizing process and offers strategies to implement

Overview:

Book's goal is to reveal the key to unlocking the high achiever within, by what Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner call "encouraging the heart."

Reflects upon one of the most elusive aspects of leadership - caring - and offers a deeper understanding of how and why it works. Premise is employees perform best when their contributions are genuinely appreciated. However, Kouzes and Posner assert most executives have not mastered the decidedly soft-management skill of "encouragement" that fosters such behavior. They advocate mutual respect and recognition of accomplishments to motivate and encourage others to be their very best. More importantly, they extend a set of principles, practices, and examples that show how to energize people to excel and then reach for even greater heights. Kouzes and Posner maintain that people will aspire to higher standards of performance when they are genuinely appreciated for their dedication and publicly recognized for their extraordinary achievements. And through the uplifting stories of ordinary people in leadership roles, the authors demonstrate just how this is done. They also offer over one hundred and fifty ways readers can immediately apply the process themselves.

Chapter 1: The Heart of Leadership - The Need for Encouragement

"Perhaps the greatest risk we take as leaders is losing the interpersonal safety zone."

Selected from pages: 6-14

There's more to the explanation of why we don't give and receive more encouragement than the basic assumption that it's part of the job. That's too easy an answer; it doesn't get at the root problem.

Expressing genuine appreciation for the efforts and successes of others means we have to show our emotions. We have to talk about our feelings in public. We have to make ourselves vulnerable to others. For many of us--perhaps most of us--this can be tough, even terrifying.

We've been misleading ourselves for years, operating according to myths about leadership and management that have kept us from seeing the truth.

First, there's the myth of rugged individualism. There's this belief that individualistic achievement gets us the best results. "If you want something done right," we hear, "do it yourself." We seem content to believe that we really don't need other people to perform at our best.

The fact is, we don't do our best in isolation. We don't get extraordinary things done by working alone with no support, encouragement, expressions of confidence, or help from others. That's not how we make the best decisions, get the best grades, run faster, achieve the highest levels of sales, invent break-through products, or live longer.

We've also operated under the myth that leaders ought to be cool, aloof, and analytical; they ought to separate emotion from work. We're told that real leaders don't need love, affection, and friendship. "It's not a popularity contest" is a phrase we've all heard often. "I don't care if people like me. I just want them to respect me."

We've all heard the dismissing comment made by many in the managerial ranks that "I don't care what people think of me." Well, it may indeed be true for them, but it's not true of the best leaders. The best leaders want to be liked, and they want openness from other people. Not caring how others feel and think about what we do and say is an attitude for losers--an attitude that can only lead to less and less effectiveness.

Expressing affection is important to success, and we have high needs for it; it's as if we're all trying to hide something that we all want. We have a secret we're afraid to reveal because it might make us look soft or wimpy or who knows what. The secret is this: we all really do want to be loved.

It is impossible to escape the message here that if people work with leaders who encourage the heart, they feel better about themselves. Their self-esteem goes up. These leaders set people's spirits free, often inspiring them to become more than they ever thought possible. This, indeed, may be our ultimate mission as leaders.

To awaken vitality in others . . leaders have to cross a certain boundary between themselves and their associates. Sometimes it's not easy, because most of us have been raised to believe that it's important to maintain a buffer of "safety and good sense" between ourselves and the people who choose to follow our leadership. Perhaps the