Leading versus coercion

June 2, 2015 by Joshua
in Leadership

The leadership I practice, teach, and coach begins with the other person’s interests. Students and clients hear me say “Put their interests first while you lead them” a lot (usually followed by “the rest of the time know and act on your interests, but put theirs first when you’re leading them.”).

Working with their interests means working with what they care about which means working with their values. So I often ask the following to contrast with leading without knowing their interests and values:

If you want to lead someone against their values, what are you doing?

If you want to lead someone with their values, why would you have to convince them of anything?

I find having people share their relevant motivations and then leading them is both most effective for the leader and creates the most meaning for the rest of the team.

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