Leading when others have given up hope

If you have shouldered leadership responsibility for any reasonable period, you would have faced situations that tried your ability to sustain your hope that certain members of your people will change for good. Nurturing followers into leaders is demanding ad burdensome. Bringing about a change in people's behavior is not the easiest thing to achieve despite being the most significant contribution a leader can make to the lives of her people. It can be frustrating and you are tempted to lose hope in the possibility of change in some people.

True leaders are 'merchants of hope'

Leaders have a daunting task to accomplish. They are not to be quick to write off any of their people as hopeless. However rebellious, complicated, or seemingly unwilling to change some of their followers may be, a true leader knows that keeping hope alive is important. When hope is lost, the leader has lost the follower. The leader-follower relationship suffers perhaps an irretrievable breakdown. In fact, some of such followers may never recover from that encounter. Their fate in life could be sealed, unfortunately.

If you give up on your people or any member of your team too quickly, it is a sign that your leadership is weak. There is too much at stake in the call to lead people to give up on them. Every person can change and will change under the right kind of leadership. That should be the motivation if you are a true leader. If those who nurtured you did not give up on you, you should extend the same courtesy to those you lead.

The leader who loses hope

Leaders do lose hope in their people, and some do so quickly. They have high expectations of transformation from their people, forgetting what it took them to become the leaders that they are today. Some simply lack the ability to tolerate goofs from their people and others are simply impatient in their quest to see their people deliver sterling results.

The leader who is quick to lose hope betrays one major shortcoming in their ability to perform the role as is expected. Such a leader does not understand the power of her word.

Today's leaders and contemporary leadership development curriculum pay too little attention to the crucial role that the leader's words play in their quest to get their job done, and well for that matter.

Nothing is more powerful in a leader's arsenal than the content of the words that the leader speaks. Not even the call to be an 'example' comes close in my view.

Let me draw your attention to my source of inspiration for leadership - wisdom from the word of God. Consider this truth for example to understand the power of the words of a leader:

“For there is hope for a tree, If it is cut down, that it will sprout again, And that its tender shoots will not cease. [8] Though its root may grow old in the earth, And its stump may die in the ground, [9] Yet at the scent of water it will bud And bring forth branches like a plant.

Job 14:7-9 NKJV

A 'tree' referred to in the above quote can be seen as a follower under the watchful care and nurture of a leader. The temptation is to write off a tree that is 'cut down.' One would believe that it is over for that tree, just like a leader would be tempted to believe that it is over for a follower who is in such a situation, disconnected or challenged in some seeming manner.

The counsel here is that such a follower has hope. And by implication, the farmer (leader) tending the tree (follower), should keep hope alive!

The basis for keeping hope alive is what the quote refers to as "the scent of water." At the scent of water, hope will kick in and drive a process of transformation that will eventually fulfill the joy of the farmer. The tree will ultimately produce branches and then fruit for harvest.

That means, through the 'scent of water' the leader can still mold the uncooperative, challenging, or rebellious follower into a credible and productive successor leader.

The power of the leader's word

The "scent of water" refers to the word spoken by the leader. In the Bible water typically stands for the word that we speak. Following the scripture quoted earlier, the leader's attention is drawn to the solution source for the problem at hand - words. Specifically, the leader is challenged to fall back on the use of her words to restore hope, arrest the imminent failure, and set forth a renewed process of transformation. That is what the word of the leader does. It is what a leader who understands the power of her words will and must engage to handle such situations where others would certainly have lost hope.

Actually, it is an ignorant farmer who would lose hope when the tree is cut down! A knowledgeable farmer would know exactly what to do. She would fold her sleeves and set forth a strategic 'watering' program for the tree, knowing very well that's what it would take to ultimately get things back in shape. Leaders who give up hope because their followers challenge them in ways they find disappointing may well be ignorant of the power they possess and can unlock to still get on top of such situations.

If you are a true leader and have firm control over your constituency, your words will command great power. Such power has to be leveraged to handle the cases of outlier followers who pose a challenge to your success. Find out here how to call the shots as a leader.

Meanwhile, hear this truth:

Where the word of a king is, there is power; And who may say to him, “What are you doing?”

Ecclesiastes 8:4 NKJV

A leader whose words mean nothing to and carries no weight before her team is weak. The words of the leader are powerful words. They are meant to be and every leader must take the requisite steps to ensure that they are. Whenever a leader loses the power of her words, she has lost her most important instrument for achieving effective leadership.

It is the power that the word of the leader carries that makes the 'scent of water' so crucial in the rescue of the tree that is cut down. By purposefully engaging her words in her interactions with her challenged follower, the rescue effort will prove to be a success. The words that we speak to followers as leaders are far more powerful than most of us understand them to be.

Words rule the interaction between the leader and her follower more than any other thing. They, therefore, provide the most reliable, available, and potent means of influencing followers to change. Through those words, followers are shaped into great personalities and successor leaders.

The leader who knows how to use her words, unleashing the multidimensional power therein will not lose hope. She will use her words to keep hope alive in the follower as well and with time bring about the behavioral transformation of her desire in the follower.

The irony of the leader's words

Words are like 'seeds.' When they are spoken, they produce a specific effect in the lives of those who care to receive and believe them. Whether the words spoken are value-adding or destructive, each would achieve a relevant effect on those who embrace them. That's how powerful words are.

It is, therefore, a sad thing when a leader utters words that have no value. Some words are called 'idle words.' They are not spoken to achieve any particular value-adding purpose in the lives of those who hear them. Leaders who speak with little thought given to the effect of their words on their people can pose a big danger to them.

The leader's words must never be idle. Again, the interaction between leader and follower being ruled by the leader's words is too significant to be dominated by idle words.

Leadership is a very serious business. The words of the leader are too crucial for handling that business successfully. The leader must be intentional in her use of words. Every word spoken or communicated to the follower must serve a value-adding purpose.

What to do when others have given up hope

It should never be over in a leader's quest to nurture her followers until she has engaged the power of her words to address the situation. When followers prove to be difficult and the leader is tempted to lose hope, as some others may have done, it is time to resort to that powerful instrument - the leader's words.

A leader in such a situation needs to reexamine how she has been using her words. It is time to be more intentional and to use her words more purposefully than ever before. If you are a leader just assuming responsibility for a team that has been written off by management or your colleagues, one labeled as useless and unproductive, or perhaps a team that others believe is too set in their ways to change, you should resort to a strategic engagement of your words to handle the team.

However bad the situation with followers or team may be, the leader must keep hope alive, work to restore hope in the people also, and use words to release the power that brings about the desired change in their lives.

Again, it must be emphasized that when you engage your words in situations like this, it must be accompanied with a lot of patience. A tree that is cut down has suffered a major setback. It is not in a condition where its health can be restored quickly. It will take time to grow. Even the water that is required is a 'scent' and not a 'bucket-full.'

That means that the leader must be intentional in the use of her words, patient to allow her words to sink and the follower to respond gradually, and persistent to enable continuity and build momentum in the change process. Expectations from management have to be properly managed accordingly so that no one is expecting magic from the leader.

So how have you been using your words? Have you been so frustrated with some followers that you have lost hope in their ability to change? Do you understand the power in your words?

Next week, I will address the characteristics that make the word of the leader so powerful and why a leader cannot afford to be ignorant of these empowering insights.

Olatunji Sobodu

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