We've covered that leadership is getting things done through other people, notably through inspiration. We've covered inspiration and its dependence on responsibility. Now it's time to examine the next layer in the psyche of the intended inspirand -- what motivates the individual in your group whom you intend to lead.
Everyone operates off an internal priority list. Things that bubble to the top get worked on; things that settle to the bottom may not. Different people manage their internal list differently, some more consciously than others, but there is one common trait -- movement on the list generally involves investment and reward.
I had a group I led once where each week we'd get together to do the tasks needed to get an event off the ground. We organized the task list, everyone accepted tasks from the to do list, and each week most everyone would have done nothing to make progress on their tasks. Week after week this went on, no notable progress on any front.
As leader of the group, it was my job to find a way to motivate these people. Ultimately, I whined at them to the point where either irritation or guilt got them moving, and we got enough of the tasks done to get the event off the ground.
The investment was a little time, some phone calls, maybe a bit of Internet research on pricing and options. For the most part, noone's tasks were particularly large. The reward was credit for getting the task done and a better event for everything having been taken care of.
It wasn't enough.
So I whined at them, cajoled, and guilted them into getting their tasks done. I didn't adjust the investment, but I did adjust the reward. I introduced an unpleasant item (me whining at them) and that upped the ante on the reward which now included not having to put up with me whining at them anymore if they got their tasks done.
It worked. Sort of. The event happened. It was barely a shadow of what we had all envisioned in the beginning, but it did take place and some of the goals of the event were realized.
In the aftermath of that incident, I vowed I would never again resort to whining as a motivator. Unfortunately, I didn't put anything else in its place. And worse, I already had a long streak of not getting things done when I said I would -- my credibility was already strained.
With me failing to lead by example, and having removed the last functioning external motivational tool, I failed from that day forward to inspire people to keep tasks bubbling up instead of settling down for the various organizations I was running. We were down to counting on luck and their self-motivation.
With the band, the rewards included joy of producing great music, the performer's rush, money, publicity, and legacy in the form of CDs and memories. The investment included showing up to weekly rehearsals, putting up with the stresses of creative egos interacting, and lugging equipment around from time to time.
Except I wasn't getting gigs for the band; and following my example, neither did anyone else. No performer's rush, no money, no publicity, no legacy. Week after week we kept showing up, rehearsing the same stuff, and went home tired with early work days ahead of us.
Almost all investment, almost no reward.
If I'd gotten us gigs, the rewards would have been there. This would have encouraged more investment, which would have reaped greater rewards. But I didn't. I violated the implied contract, and worse, kept showing up late for rehearsals, what gigs we did get, and continually failed to memorize the new parts I was developing for our moderately complex arrangements.
It all unravelled eventually. New creative projects entered into my bandmates' lives, and they latched on. Things were exciting in those new projects, and they were not exciting in the band. We died a slow death. I failed again as a leader.
Investment and reward. A leader's job is to find what the rewards are to each of the people in the group, and to facilitate or provide those rewards in order to inspire the members of the group to rise to any challenge and work toward the group goals.
Compared to failure to inspire, it doesn't really matter if the reward is positive or negative. Positive rewards are better, but even a negative reward is better than failure. The leader *must* inspire. Which means getting in there and figuring out the investments, the rewards, and the motivators which keep those tasks bubbling up rather than settling down.
Next up: Wrapping it up.