Innervate Your Team

Top Tips: Three Keys to Innervate Your Team

Q: How can I get my team to follow my lead, rather than just nod in agreement?

A: Your team wants to know why they should follow your lead? Don't tell them; show them, by focusing on the essential, not the merely important. The three keys to innovative leadership, according to G. Michael Maddock and Ralph Louis Viton in a recent BusinessWeek article, are:


1. Focus on the essentials:

Great leaders focus on the essential rather than the important. It's easy to spend your time on the important, but doing so isn't really going to inspire anyone.


2. Stay above the drama:

Recessions/transitions/restructurings are by definition temporary. Understanding that is key to your ability to focus on the desired outcome and the kind of organisation you want to build.


3. Lean into adversity and find opportunities:

Adversity isn't going to end just because the recession does. There will always be a competitor who does the unexpected, or an environmental event you couldn't anticipate. Or, for example, a situation like that financing you were absolutely certain was locked in, suddenly isn't.