Pillar 3 - Lead Through Service

We are all responsible for contributing to the well-being of others. Why is serving others an essential moral competence? Think back to the biological origins of morality. We come into the world programmed to be interdependent. We would not be around today if our earliest human ancestors had not huddled together to help their fellow tribespeople survive. If we do not work to serve others, we fail to act as morally intelligent leaders. Serving others is, in fact, a great way to show integrity and to encourage others to model it in other words, to lead by example.

We grow more personally when we are giving ourselves to others. The moment we give/serve we find our relationships improve and deepen.

According to Covey: “It has generally been my experience that the very top people of truly great organizations are servant-leaders. They are the most humble, the most reverent, the most open, the most teachable, the most respectful, the most caring.”

Jim Collins, in his book Good to Great, described the highest, most pure form of leadership: The most powerfully transformative executives possess a paradoxical mixture of personal humility and professional will. They are timid and ferocious. Shy and fearless. They are rare and unstoppable… good to great transformations don’t happen without level-five leaders at the helm, they just don’t.

Being of Service

At the heart of the nurturing process is genuine concern for others. When you hear the word nurture, what do you first think of? If you’re like most people, you probably envision a mother cradling a baby. She takes care of her child, protecting him, feeding him, encouraging him, and making sure that his needs are met. She doesn’t give him attention only when she has spare time or when it’s convenient. She loves him and wants him to thrive. Similarly, as you try to help and influence the people around you, you must have positive feelings and concern for them. If you want to make a positive impact on them, you cannot dislike, despise, or disparage them. You must give them love and respect. Or as human relations expert Les Giblin put it, “You can’t make the other fellow feel important in your presence if you secretly feel that he is nobody.”

You may be wondering why you should take on a service role with the people you want to influence, especially if they are employees, colleagues, or friends - not family members. You may be saying to yourself, isn’t that something they can get somewhere else, for example, at home? The unfortunate truth is that most people are desperate for encouragement. And even if a few people in their lives build them up, you still need to become a nurturer to them because people are influenced most by those who make them feel the best about themselves. If you become a major nurturer in the lives of others, then you have an opportunity to make a major impact on them.

Check and recheck your motives as you help and encourage others. Don’t be like a little girl named Emily. Her father, Guy Belleranti, was driving the family home from church one Sunday when the five-year-old girl said, “When I grow up, I want to be like the man who stood in front.”

“You want to be a minister?” asked Emily’s mother.

“No,” said Emily, “I want to tell people what to do.”

Your goal is others’ growth and independence. If you nurture others but allow them to become dependent on you, you’re really hurting them, not helping them. And if you help them because of your desire to meet your needs or to heal the hurts of your past, your relationship with them can become co-dependent. It’s not healthy to try to correct your personal history by reliving it vicariously through others.

People rise and fall to meet your level of expectations for them. If you express scepticism and doubt in others, they will return your lack of confidence with mediocrity. But if you believe in them and expect them to do well, they will go the extra mile trying to do their best. And in the process, they and you benefit. John H. Spalding expressed the thought this way: “Those who believe in our ability do more than stimulate us. They create for us an atmosphere in which it becomes easier to succeed.”

Believe in them before they succeed: Everyone loves a winner. It’s easy to have faith in people who have already proved themselves. It’s much tougher to believe in people before they have proved themselves. But that is the key to motivating people to reach their potential. You have to believe in them first before they become successful, and sometimes before they even believe in themselves. French writer and moralist Joseph Joubert said, “No one can give faith unless they have faith. It is the persuaded who persuade.” You need faith in others before you can persuade them, to believe in themselves.” Some people in your life desperately want to believe in themselves but have little hope. As you interact with them, remember the motto of French World War 1 hero Marshal Ferdinand Foch: “There are no hopeless situations; there are only men and women who have grown hopeless about them.” Every person has seeds of greatness within, even though they may currently be dormant. But when you believe in people, you water the seeds and give them the chance to grow. Every time you put your faith in them, you’re giving life-sustaining water, warmth, food and light. And if you continue to give encouragement through your belief in them, these people will bloom in time.

Emphasize their strengths: The best way to show people your faith in them and motivate them is to focus your attention on their strengths. According to the author and advertising executive Bruce Barton, “Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe something inside them was superior to circumstances.” By emphasizing people’s strengths, you’re helping them believe that they possess what they need to succeed. Praise them for what they do well, both privately and publicly. Tell them how much you appreciate their positive qualities and their skills. And anytime you have the opportunity to compliment and praise them in the presence of their family and close friends, do it.

List their past successes: Even when you emphasize people’s strengths, they may need further encouragement to show them you believe in them and to get them motivated. Not everyone has the natural ability to recognize past successes and draw confidence from them. Some people need help. If you can show others that they have done well in the past and help them to see that their past victories have paved the way for future success, they’ll be better able to move into action. Listing past successes help others believe in themselves.

Instil confidence when they fall: When you have encouraged people and put your faith in them, and they begin to believe they can succeed in life, they soon reach a critical crossroads. The first time or two that they fail-and they will fail because it’s a part of life-they have two choices. They can give in or go on. Some people are resilient and willing to keep trying in order to succeed, even when they don’t see immediate progress. But others aren’t that determined. Some will collapse at the first sign of trouble. To give them a push and inspire them, you need to keep showing your confidence in them, even when they’re making mistakes or doing poorly. One of the ways to do that is to tell them about your past troubles and traumas. Sometimes people think that if you’re currently successful, you have always been that way. They don’t realize that you have had your share of flops, failures, and fumbles. Show them that success is a journey, a process, not a destination

Experience some wins together: It’s not enough just knowing that failure is a part of moving forward in life. To really become motivated to succeed, people need to believe they can win. Winning is motivating. Novelist David Ambrose acknowledged this truth: “If you have the will to win, you have achieved half your success; if you don’t, you have achieved half your failure.” Coming alongside others to help them experience some wins with you gives them reasons to believe they will succeed. And in the process, they sense victory. To help people believe they can achieve victory, put them in a position to experience small successes. Encourage them to perform tasks to take on responsibilities you know they can handle and do well. And give them the assistance they need to succeed.

Visualize their future success: We heard about an experiment performed with laboratory rats to measure their motivation to live under different circumstances. Scientists dropped a rat into a jar of water that had been placed in total darkness, and they timed how long the animal would continue swimming before it gave up and allowed itself to drown. They found that the rat usually lasted little more than three minutes. Then they dropped another rat into the same kind of jar, but instead of placing it in total darkness, they allowed a ray of light to shine into it. Under those circumstances, the rat kept swimming for thirty-six hours. That’s more than seven hundred times longer than the one in the dark! Because the rat could see, it continued to have hope. If that is true of laboratory animals, think of how strong the effect of visualization can be on people, who are capable of higher reasoning. It’s been said that a person can live forty days without food, four days without water, and four minutes without air, but only four seconds without hope. Each time you cast a vision for others and paint a picture of their future successes, you build them up, motivate them, and give them reasons to keep going.

Expect a new way of living: German statesman Konrad Adenauer observed; “We all live under the same sky, but we don’t all have the same horizon.” As an influencer, you have the goal of helping others see beyond today and their current circumstances and dream big dreams. When you put your faith in people, you help them to expand their horizons and motivate them to move to a whole new level of living.

Activity

Click here to download and print the "To Enlarge People" activity. 

Follow the instructions carefully.