Do Ask, Don't Tell
Do Ask, Don’t Tell
I once heard someone remark that the most valuable aspect of art cannot be explained. I think the same is true of leadership. The greatest qualities of leadership are those that cannot be analyzed or described.
Still, while I recognize the enormity of this subject, I believe there are specific and essential leadership characteristics that, if understood, can help anyone lead more effectively. Here is my definition of moral leadership:
“Moral leadership is to inspire, influence and empower people to self-actualization
and the accomplishment of mission.”
In this post, I want to unpack the first aspect of moral leadership as I understand it: INSPIRE.
Leadership begins from the premise that you want people to follow you because they want to follow you—not because they have to follow you. If a leader can stimulate the want-to in a follower—the desire to follow the leader to create a preferred future—that leader is well on his or her way to moral leadership. Good leaders inspire followers.
Frances Hesselbein says that she has a tattoo on her shoulder. It’s a leadership-defining truth that Peter Drucker taught her:
Leaders of the past tell. Leaders of the future ask.
She’s kidding about the tattoo. She’s serious about the defining truth.
Inspirational leaders paint a picture of preferred futures. They constantly remind people what’s at stake. Any nonprofit that is organized around higher purposes gives leaders and extraordinary platform for inspiration:
In other organizations the person who has position has incredible leverage. In the military, leaders can use rank and, if all else fails, throw people into the brig. In
business, bosses have tremendous leverage in the form of salary, benefits, and perks. . . .
But in voluntary organizations the thing that works is leadership in its purest form.1
Leaders in the for-profit world or any other leadership effort should similarly view inspiration as a fundamental tool.
Every wise leader, whether a manager, a military officer, or a mother—regardless of the power of the position—should consider how to lead those who follow him or her as if inspiration were the only leadership leverage. This is not to say that other available motivational tools should be abandoned. By virtue of position, some leaders can and should offer rewards and exact consequences. But you—whatever your level of authority—must begin with the conviction that you want people to follow you because they love following you.
Good leaders inspire people. They breathe life into individuals and groups. They animate organizations. They breed the contagion of enthusiasm. They excite people to dream the dreams, take the risks, and make the sacrifices that are necessary to create better futures.
George Washington’s leadership over the Continental Army in the American War of Independence is a breathtaking illustration of inspirational leadership. Perhaps his supreme challenge was that, in a way unique in history, he was leading people who were free.
There was a critical juncture in the Revolutionary War when a spirit of defeat overwhelmed many of General Washington’s soldiers. As the hope of independence and the daunting reality of war collided, many soldiers refused to reenlist when their enlistment periods ended. Consequently, these discouraged troops abruptly began to abandon their posts in droves.
A people unused to restraint must be led, they will not be drove. —George Washington
In retrospect, this was clearly a pivotal moment in the history of the world. The fate of several billion futures rested on the exhausted shoulders of George Washington and his motley crew of soldiers. So what did he do? He inspired his troops with a speech:
My brave fellows, you have done all I asked you to do, and more than could be reasonably expected, but your country is at stake, your wives, you houses, and all that you hold dear. You have worn yourselves out with fatigue and hardships, but we know not how to spare you. If you will consent to stay one month longer, you will render that service to the cause of liberty, and to your country, which you can probably never do under any other circumstance.3
And one by one, his men started to step forward, united by the call to freedom and a purpose for which to give their lives. In his book 1776, David McCullough wrapped up his thoughts about this famed leader’s abilities by concluding, “It was Washington who held the army together and gave it ‘spirit’ through the most desperate of times. . . . Above all, Washington never forgot what was at stake and he never gave up.”4
That is leadership! Leaders can’t drive people; they must lead them. How do you lead a daughter in college who can legally make her own decisions? Or an employee who is smarter than you in his area of expertise? Or a potential donor who will share her resources only when and where she is moved to do so? Jim Collins wrote, “You are a leader if and only if people follow your leadership when they have the freedom not to.”5
Who comes to mind when you think of an inspirational leader? Drop a comment and inspire us with their story.
John Maxwell, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2007), 18-19.
David McCullough, 1776, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005), 293-294.
Ibid 285-86.
Ibid, 293.
Jim Collins, quoted in Leading Beyond the Walls, ed. Frances Hesselbein, Marshall Goldsmith, and Iain Somerville (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 1999), 19-28.
Adapted from Live Ten (Thomas Nelson) by Terry A. Smith. All rights reserved.
Have you downloaded my FREE Hospitable Leader Sermon Series Download Kit? It has everything you need to plan, host, and deliver a sermon series that emphasizes hospitable leadership.
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash