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Transcript
In today’s episode, we’re going to talk about one of the factors that really can determine much of your effectiveness as a leader.
Depending on this one factor, it will make you successful as a leader or it will really hurt your effectiveness and hurt you as a leader. And you’ll never get the results that you could because of this one factor, your motive as a leader.
Let me explain what I mean by that.
Patrick Lencioni in his book, The Motive, talks about two main motives that we can have as leaders. And in his book, he mostly talks about, or to CEOs, but the concept applies to any position.
The first motive
As leaders, one of the motives we can have is one of selfishness. And that’s what a lot of leaders have. And it’s kind of the mentality they have about leadership is “It’s about me.”
They think leadership is about them and the people are there to serve them. They think, especially in the higher position, that maybe that position is a reward for their hard work. So they get that position so they can kind of cruise and keep going, just kind of relax now that they’re in the leadership position, the top position.
Or sometimes people do it because of the rewards. They do it because of the perks. Maybe they want the corner office or they want people to respect them. They want the extra money. They want the, I don’t know, maybe a car that goes with, whatever it may be, people want that position, or leadership position, because they want the perks that go with it.
Or they’re about their career and they want to build up their career. So they want to be a “leader”, quote unquote, so that they can move forward in their career and that’s their goal. It’s about them.
And that can be a dangerous thing because when you have a selfish motive, when you are about you, when you’re about yourself, you’re not focused on what’s important. You’re not focused on the mission, you’re not focused on your team, you’re focused on you. And when you’re about you and your comfort and the rewards and the perks, you’re not likely to do the hard work that leadership takes.
And because of that, you aren’t going to get the results that you should get just because you have the wrong motive because you’re about you and not about what you should be about.
The second motive
Now the second motive is of service. People are about their, people are there to serve the team. They’re there to serve the mission and help their team be their best to accomplish the mission.
And part of that is doing the hard work of having those conversations that are hard. It’s holding your people accountable. It’s doing all those different things that you might need to do that you may not want to do.
Leaders have to do the hard work. And if you have the service mentality, you’re there to serve, you’re going to do the hard work because you’re about the mission and you’re about the team. If you’re about yourself, you’re not.
It may kind of seem simplistic in some ways, but it’s very important because your motive matters. Your mentality matters. If you’re about you, you aren’t going to be effective because if your mentality’s on you, you’re not going to serve and do what you need to do.
And people know when you’re about yourself. When you’re about you, people see that. That’s going to hurt your effectiveness with the team. It’s going to hurt your influence. And if you’re not doing the hard work, things, results are just not going to come like they could.
I encourage you to really examine what your motive is. Why do you want to be a leader? Why do you want to be in a leadership position?
Is it because of you and your career? Or because you want the rewards and perks or just to relax, whatever it may be?
Or is it because you actually want to serve and help your team to be the best to accomplish the mission?
Something to think about. I’ll see you next time.
