7 Steps to Inspire Your Teams

Motivation is good, but inspiration is better.

Inspired teams achieve amazing results. They're more engaged, feel more empowered and consequently need less motivation or management. Creating inspired teams should be the goal of every business leader, and it's not as difficult as you might imagine.

Here are seven simple step that you can follow to create an inspired team.

1. Ignite their passion.

Passionate people go the extra mile; they work longer and harder to achieve their goals, and as Leaders, we need to ignite that passion.

The good news is that it's contagious, so we need to start by finding our own passion.When we are passionate, and we show that and communicate it enthusiastically to our teams, it will become infectious.

But it needs to be genuine, you can't fake passion, people will see that from a mile away.

2. Nurture self-belief.

People become inspired when they believe that they will be successful.

It encourages them to start and gives them the confidence to continue when then the going gets tough.

To do that we need to nurture their self-belief, build their confidence in their abilities. When people believe that they will be successful, it increases their probability of success and can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

3. Show what’s possible.

In addition to building the belief in their abilities, we also need to build their confidence in the plan. When we can show people how they will be successful, then they just need to execute the plan to succeed.

People are not afraid of hard work, they're afraid of failure. When they can see how they will be successful, they will execute with enthusiasm.

4. Provide purpose.

People are much more inspired when they are trying to achieve things which are important, it gives them a sense of purpose, and a stronger desire to be successful.

We need to find the purpose and create the desire within our teams.

5. Invite participation.

It’s impossible to force a team to be inspired, so we need to invite them to participate, give them an opportunity to achieve something special, something astounding. I have found as a leader I always get better results when I ask rather than tell people what they need to do.

When people accept the invitation, then they also accept partial accountability for achieving success, and when people accept accountability the probability of success increases.

6. Recognize achievement.

I love recognition it's such a powerful tool and it has so many positive benefits. Recognition is one of our basic needs as it fuels our self-esteem, also what get's recognized gets repeated, so it's win-win.

Look to some early wins, some quick successes and then recognize achievement, the more achievement we recognize, the more inspired the teams will become as they start to see themselves progressing towards the goal.

7. Empower your teams.

The more empowered your teams are, the more ownership they take.

The best way to empower your teams is to make sure that they have all the tools the need for the job and then allow them to determine the best way to achieve the result. When we allow people to determine how to achieve outcomes the become involved and when they are involved it increases ownership and commitment.

When we create inspired teams, it has many benefits.

They become self-starters, they take ownership and accountability for success. They become solution orientated, build momentum and need much less management. It creates a healthy environment which is more engaged, more fun and less stressful for everyone involved.

And last but not least it generates better results.

If you you liked this article and you would be interested in having me come and speak at your organization or event email me at [email protected]

Here are some links of me speaking at events around the world

Narrative Conference Cairo

TedX Belfort

Readers Legacy Las Vegas