Welcome to the June issue of The Total Leader® Newsletter from LMI UK, The SUCCESS & MOTIVATION issue.
As we approach the half-way point of 2023, it’s a good time to pause and think about how the year is going so far. With just this month to go until the end of Q2, are you on track with your business goals? And how about your personal goals?
Are you being, & feeling, successful?
How motivated are you?
These are two important questions that we’ll explore in this issue of the newsletter and are at the core of how LMI work with leaders and organisations. When people feel successful they grow in confidence, generally feel more motivated in what they’re doing, and are able to perform at their very best.
Conversely, when people feel that their efforts, either individually or collectively, are proving unsuccessful it saps motivation, reduces confidence and negatively impacts performance and future results.
Leaders face the constant challenge of achieving results with and through people which makes understanding the dynamics of success and motivation a crucial skill.
The Success-Motivation Cycle
Barring the Champions League final, the football season has just finished (even if you’re not interested in football, stay with us – the example is a useful one)! In each league, the bottom three teams are relegated having proven themselves unsuccessful over the previous eight months or so. A similar story is repeated every season. A group of highly talented individuals experiences bad results. They lose a lot of matches! As the season progresses from its early stages through into the winter, the teams who have managed to consistently lose can find themselves deep in a rut. Occasionally a team will turn things around and go from really struggling to achieve much better results. Interestingly, there will often be a ‘critical moment’ – one incredible or lucky win that gave the team confidence and from there on they played much better, in keeping with their true abilities. For the teams that don’t turn a corner, you can see good players playing well below their abilities. Performing even simple skills can seem unattainable. A player makes a bad pass, the crowd groans, the player feels terrible and next time they receive the ball it gets even worse. The crowd now boos and the downward cycle continues. They are experiencing the failure-demotivation cycle.
Contrast this with the team that managed the turn-around. That huge against-the-odds win that their home crowd celebrated wildly. They went into training the next week feeling great. Success feels fantastic! They wanted that same feeling again next week. They trained hard. Confidence was high. They played well again next week and secured another win. This is the success-motivation cycle.
People perform at their best, and are happiest, when they feel successful and motivated. Not only are they achieving better results, but they are enjoying themselves more, building better relationships and stress levels are much lower.
The big question is how can leaders make use of this knowledge to help themselves, their teams and their organisations?
Here are a few simple suggestions:
1. Get really good at defining clearly what success looks like?
2. Take time to explore motivation (motive for action). Help yourself and the team generate personal reasons as well as business reasons why achieving the defined success matters. In all undertakings, complete the sentence, ‘This is important because…’
3. Recognise, communicate, and celebrate progress and victories – every small and large achievement on the road to the defined goal.
As people engage in goal directed action towards achieving a clearly defined, worthwhile outcome, the benefits are tremendous. Regardless of where you are starting from – it could be miles from where you want to be – and applicable to every aspect of life, engaging the success-motivation cycle helps individuals, teams and organisations unleash more of their potential.
LMI UK Team on Teesside
On the 2nd of June, members of the LMI UK team spent the day at the fabulous AV Dawson Port of Middlesbrough site on the River Tees. AV Dawson are a great example of an historic family business taking leadership development seriously throughout the organisation, living their values and their own ‘just cause’ for the good of all staff, the local community and the Teesside region. #talkingupteesside
Thanks to the AV Dawson team for an inspiring visit!
Bite-size Total Leader®
Leaders are faced continually with multiple, diverse situations and developing in all four core leadership elements gives a distinct advantage - like an actor who can convey the whole range of emotions, or a golfer who is brilliant from the rough or a bunker as well as off the tee.
In this section you’ll find practical bite-size ideas across the four elements of the Total Leader® that can help sharpen your own leadership skills in line with the topic discussed in this edition of the newsletter.
1. Personal Productivity
There is no simpler way to engage the success-motivation cycle than keeping a ‘progress & victories’ list. Write down each day the most valuable achievement of that day. Not only does this motivate, it also informs you of the activity that generated that result, of which you can plan to do more of tomorrow!
2. Personal Leadership
The LMI Effective Personal Leadership programme contains an exercise called ‘Future description’. It requires that you write a description of your life at some point in the future. A 10-year version and a 2-year version can be helpful. The 10-year version provides a further off vision and the 2-year version one that’s not very far away. Describe your working life, your family life, social life, your finances and service to society as you’d like it to be. Try it. It is extremely motivating!
3. Motivational Leadership
At the football match with a packed crowd when things are going well, every good moment receives a huge cheer or warm applause from the home supporters. Imagine if they were entirely silent except for when a goal is scored? That would be very strange! Are you giving positive feedback day-by-day, celebrating small victories and the 1% gains, or staying silent except for when a major goal is achieved?
4. Strategic Leadership
In his book ‘The Infinite Game’, Simon Sinek describes the idea of a ‘just cause’, an ideal so inspiring that people are willing to give their all to achieve it. When the success-motivation cycle is activated in ways that go way beyond profit and products, individuals, teams and whole organisations can achieve far more than ever seemed possible!
Listen to 3 minutes of Sinek explaining this idea here:
https://simonsinek.com/videos/1-just-cause/
Leadership development is not a one-off event and leadership is not simply a role or title, rather it’s a way of thinking and behaving. The best leaders are Total Leaders® and the most successful organisations develop leaders throughout the entire organisation.
Upcoming events
Foundations of Success Workshop
(2 hour online - goals / planning / time management / communication
23rd June & 19th July
“Very worthwhile and time well-spent in which I had quite a few “aha” moments, not just in the workshop session but also during the days following” (Jan 2023 delegate)
FIRST TWO PLACES FREE FOR ANY UK ORG.
Total Leader Part 1: Effective Personal Productivity kick off (Online open programme)
Next start: 12th June 2023 - Total Leader® Part 1
Life-changing productivity improvement for you and the team you lead.
LMI Live - Practical Leadership
23rd June, 12.00 - 12.30pm
Conversations about the practical application of important leadership ideas, live on our LinkedIn page.