Whether you are the head of a division, are an officer or run your own company . . . being a good leader is probably important to you.

Leadership is so much more than regular performance evaluations and making sure that projects are completed on time. It’s about getting to know and fully utilizing the strengths, talents, gifts, and skills of the people under your charge and care.

Yes, the team’s success is your success. But it’s no longer just about you, it’s a ‘we’ thing, something you create together. Team members can raise each other up and be so much more together than they could be working alone.

And one bad apple can spoil the bunch. So,

How do you raise your team up?

How do you inspire and motivate them to be and do their best?

How do you help them to work together in harmony and unity?

Key 1: It’s not about you!

First, get out of the way and focus on your team.  Pulling together a great team is like learning to pay the guitar. At first it takes a lot of time, hours of practice. It’s always on your mind; you think, visualize and dream about playing the guitar until it becomes a part of who you are.  So it is with your team, it takes time, energy, focus and attention to get it running smoothly and to keep it going after that.

Key 2: Capitalize on untapped strengths and abilities.

You must discover each person’s strengths, talents, gifts, and skills so you can put them to good use.  How do you do this? Keep it simple. Ask open-ended questions and be genuinely curious. Be fully present and really listen to and take in what they share, noticing what they don’t say, as well.

You can send out a questionnaire and then meet with each person to talk about what they’ve shared. If you are don’t have the time or feel that a neutral professional, like a coach, would work better then hire one.

You can ask them questions:

What skills or abilities do you have that could help the team?

What are you really good at or love to do that we are not taking advantage of?

What responsibilities do you like the least? Which ones do you enjoy the most?

What do you need to succeed that you’re not getting?

Then what? If some people could use a mentor, match them with one. If some people need further training, get it for them, if possible. If some changes need to happen within the team, collaborate with your team members and make it so.

Key 3: Be Available & Hold People Accountable

Be available. That’s what your people need, not endless meetings with lots of questions to answer.  Get to know your people. Don’t smother or micro-manage them. Just treat everyone with dignity and respect; appreciate and be grateful for what everyone brings to the mix.

Hold you team collectively and individually accountable. You can do this by being a responsible, dependable, trustworthy leader.

Your people need to know that if they make a mistake, they can come to you to find a solution.  Support them. Don’t expect or demand perfection. Give them room to be creative, to bring their inspiration and uniqueness to the group, making sure they feel safe to speak up.

Remember to be adaptable.  Change is constant and inevitable. Be humble.  Know your strengths, don’t flaunt them.  Know your weakness and work on raising them up. 

Be willing to learn and grow from others; that makes you accessible, real and accountable, someone people like to be around.

There’s a lot of wisdom in Simon Sinek’s book, Leaders Eat Last.  Simon talks about how in the military, officers feed their troops first and always eat last.

This may seem counter intuitive, but it's not! Officers honor their responsibility to those who serve under them by taking care of their needs first, and we can learn a lot from them.  When we take care of our employees or team or division first, they take care of the people important to us, our clients and customers.

One way to do this is to give everyone a voice, an opportunity to be appreciated and heard.  Imagine your next meeting where you spoke last, no one knowing your views on the subject of the meeting, no thoughts or comments shared after each person speaks, no nodding your head in approval or disapproval.

Could you do this? What would happen if you did?  My challenge is to give it go.  If you really want your people to energized, enthusiastic and willing to give their best to succeed.

Can this be challenging? Yes.  For me, it felt like skiing down a mountain for the first time as a young adult.  I had just moved to Colorado and "You want me to point the tips of my skis down the mountain?  Are you crazy?"

Even if what I share goes counter to everything inside of you, pretend you have a pen in your mouth and cannot speak and watch the magic unfold. Each meeting could get better and better as your people learn the new 'rules' and feel more and more comfortable contributing.

Want specifics? Here's a step-by-step guide to running your next meeting.

Circulate a memo outlining the purpose of the meeting and what will be discussed. State the facts. Be straight forward, clear, and succinct. Don’t share any of your thoughts or feelings on the matter with anyone!

Schedule the meeting a few days later, setting time limits and parameters for the meeting.

Start the meeting by succinctly presenting the topic and welcome all discussion, all comments, ideas, innovations, concerns, and thoughts.

Allow everyone to speak.

If someone doesn’t volunteer, ask for their input.

Make sure that no one monopolizes the conversation.

Have clear boundaries and let everyone know in advance that this is a group effort, and that everyone will have equal time to participate.

Set time limits if necessary if monopolizers or know-it-alls are in the room.

Keep people on topic. If someone wanders off, thank them and let them know that this topic is for another meeting.

Thank everyone after they have shared. No feedback, verbal or non-verbal. Simply, “Thank. you, Frank. Julie, what are your thoughts on the matter?”

Be genuinely curious. Ask open ended questions:  Tell me more about that?” “What do you mean when you say…..” “Thanks for sharing, Indra. I’m curious how that would affect…..” “Joe, do you have any thoughts about that?”

Keep the meeting flowing and moving forward. Specifically asking different people in the room for their input or comments based upon what someone else has shared can be a great way to be inclusive.

Wrapping up the meeting after everyone has shared, go around the room as ask each person for their ‘take away’. "Jennifer, what's your takeaway for today's meeting?"  Or just ask a few key people if that's not possible because of time constraints.

Thank everyone for their input. Then briefly share your thoughts and feelings on the matter. Your vision. How you see things, giving yourself permission to change what you are going to say based on the great ideas and comments you have heard!

Close the meeting by either making a decision or letting everyone know that you will ponder all that has been shared and get back to them shortly.

The bottom line is to come to the meeting open to what everyone has to share as if you know nothing, open to all possibilities. The youngest, most inexperienced person there could be the one to offer the best idea.  And, in so doing you build openness; your people feel heard. They are a part of the decision-making process! And that builds trust and buy in to what you ultimately decide.

How do you inspire others to do what needs to be done, to achieve the impossible?  

You have faith. You embody faith. It’s a part of who you are. 

When you hold faith beyond the moment, you instill that faith in those around you. With that unwavering faith, you can lead people to greatness.

Winston Churchill had this ability. When people were around Winston, they felt like they could do anything. That’s the mark of a great leader. No one thought Great Britain and the Allies would win WWII, but win the war they did!

Faith is about knowing that no one is an island, that together is better, helping you accomplish what you couldn’t do alone. Great leaders use faith motivated by the highest good of all concerned to galvanize those around them to action.

How do you get faith?

You convince your subconscious mind. Perhaps you read affirmations aloud with passion until your subconscious mind returns your belief to your conscious mind and your heart as faith. 

You can deepen this process by acting as if the object of your desire, faith, is a reality now -- feeling, seeing, and knowing that you have faith.

Be careful. Your subconscious mind will just as readily translate into reality destructive thoughts as uplifting ones. Whether it’s true or not, you will believe whatever you repeat to yourself over and over again. 

If you always tell yourself that you’re stupid, you will believe it. If you believe that you are doomed to failure, you will fail.

Your experience will vary based on your beliefs. Whether you are bitter or better for an experience is determined in large measure by your faith. Your dominating thoughts mixed with emotion magnetically draw similar thoughts to you.

Like attracts like. If you believe you are successful, you are. Even in the face of failure, you will feel optimistic and see your situation as an opportunity to learn and grow.

Faith is the starting point for making your desires and goals a reality. Faith is the basis of all miracles which cannot be explained by the rational, thinking mind. Faith connects you directly with Infinite Intelligence and gives life, power, and action to your thoughts. 

Follow Winston Churchill’s example, make faith your antidote to failure, your key to success, your basis for inspiring others in a way that makes the world a better place because you are in it.

What does it mean to lead from the heart, to lead from a space of equanimity, kindness, or calm assurance?  It means motivating people from love, not fear.

When we motivate people with fear, "Get this down now or else!", we make them feel small and useless, afraid of doing something ‘wrong’, afraid of giving it a go and making a mistake, afraid of doing anything that could make leadership or their immediate superior mad.

Fear causes people to doubt themselves, to feel anxious and alone.  Fear encourages your people to be suspicious of one another, not knowing who might be a back stabber or tattle tale.

When we motivate your people with love, they feel more belonging, that they fit in and have a purpose at work.  They feel more valued and respected.

People want to fit in, to belong, to feel like their contribution matters. When people feel like they belong, they participate and become a part of the community.  They reach out and work as a team. They have each other’s backs and have the backs of the ones directing them, because their leaders, bosses, superiors have their backs, and that’s their natural, genuine response. Kindness and consideration beget more kindness and consideration. 

This is about being a doormat. When we lead from the heart, we still need to have clear, strong appropriate boundaries. The people and teams that work for us still need to know what's expected of them, the standards of excellence that they need to uphold, individually and collectively.

When we as leaders are responsible to all members of our group and they are individually responsible to and for each other, everyone learns from one another.  It saves time and supports success on all levels, from financial success to mental health success to emotional maturity success. 

More prosperity, more happy and content people, more acting like responsible, caring adults instead of kids having a tantrum or demanding to get their way.  This is about honoring our ability to lead, our unique gifts as well as the positive qualities, strengths, and abilities of everyone who works for or with us.

It's about recognizing and rewarding value, acknowledging your own strengths and weakness and have a healthy sense of humility, being willing to learn from and listen to others.  Knowing that we don't know everything, that we still have a lot to learn, and being open to learning from those around you; practicing and living this is a huge step forward on the road to excellence as a leader.

It's about having the courage to face whatever presents and trusting in our ability and the ability of those around us to succeed.   The only thing others can use against us is our own fear, and we can choose not to buy into that.  We can choose and re-choose to be motivated by love.

Love can move mountains in business and life.  It can inspire, uplift and motivate everyone around us simply by the calm, self-assured presence that we hold.

Simon Sinek's books, Start with Why and Leaders Eat Last are great reads, giving us the specifics we may need to have a clearer, more grounded picture of the long-term benefits of leading from the heart.  Leading from the heart may mean not following the crowd, debunking the theory of strength in numbers and learning to more deeply follow and honor the guidance that comes from within.