Leadership Motivations: People Leveraging (1)

As has been discovered over the ages, it is sometimes difficult to just pin down particular qualities needed to lead people and organisations. This is because the context, situation, circumstances, and environment would do much to define the kind of characteristics that a person in a leadership position must exhibit. This does not mean that there are not some essential leadership qualities and skills that a good leader would be expected to have, no matter the scope, context, situation and environment.

Some of these leadership characteristics and skills include such qualities as sense of vision, open-mindedness, trust, integrity, empathy, knowledge, passion, humility personal awareness, among other qualities. The essence of leadership, whichever way it is viewed and applied remains to get the best out of people by effectively managing and utilising available resources at the leader’s disposal. These resources would of course include the talents and gifts of individual team members. The process and system of utilising these resources for team or corporate advantage is called leverage. 

An essential task of a good coach working with organisational (and team) leaders is to help the leaders to make the best use of the pool of “people talents” available to him. The talents of individual team members or personnel in an organisation in this regard are meant to bring about productivity and profitability. This is because it is people, more than any other resources that create real profits in any business. Even the most sophisticated machines would need the skills and intelligence of people to make them operate efficiently and effectively. Your people are your most valuable resources. 

It is for this reason that people leveraging is so important in any organisation and/or team. A successful business, leadership or executive coaching process aimed at improving and maximizing workflow efficiency in on organisation must therefore incorporate effective people leveraging techniques. There are no better ways to systemize the operations of an organisation or business than effective people leveraging. Successful personnel leverages assures of repeatable profits and business sustainability. 

For avoidance of doubt, the term “leverage” comes from the word ‘lever’. Ordinarily, a lever is simply a metal bar used for prising or moving something, especially if it is of considerable size or weight. By its action, the lever is said to offer “leverage” when it is offering special assistance in compelling the desired movement. The lever, by its action(s) essentially brings about an advantage and influences a desired change. 

Business is all about creating and benefiting from leverages. That is why in business we talk about leveraging opportunities, leveraging resources, leveraging skills, leveraging time, leveraging systems etc. And with specific regard to people leveraging, it is the responsibility of the team leader to develop systems within the team, especially if is a business enterprise to ensure effective and sustainable leverage. This of course would apply to the leveraging of the talents, skills, passion and energy or team members. 

Experience, common sense and research all support the fact that it is people that build up or pull down a potentially great business. This cannot be overemphasised, so it would make sense that a good leader builds capacity and expertise on how to leverage the abilities and knowledge of his people. As a leader, business owner or manager, it is how you approach the issue of using people to bring about profit that would determine how well you have understood the power of people leveraging. 

Unfortunately, this is not always a great area of advantage for many small businesses. This is largely because of their perceived limited influence, lack of strong market presence, insufficient resource pool, lack of superior product branding and business systemisation situations, among a few other related issues. However, it is the same small business today that has the potential to become a large corporation tomorrow. The important issue is to learn how to effectively use powerful leveraging techniques in your business.

There are three areas of people leveraging opportunities that are available to you. The first relates to your personnel. The second relates to your current customers and partners. The third relates to your business prospects or potential customers. Obviously, the most realistic way to leverage on the first group, which is your personnel, is to delegate duties to them. What this means is that as leader in your business you do not need to be hands-on regarding tasks all the time, or on a continuing basis. 

As a leader, business owner or manager, your business tends to need you to be an overseer, manager, strategist, financier, marketer, produce and much more, every minute of the day. This can be an overwhelming and extremely daunting task for any one, especially on a day-to-day basis. This fact alone suggests the need for you to seek how to make good use of other capable collaborators to complement your efforts. 

The rule is that you should not be busy doing what you can get someone else to do as well or even better than you, if given the opportunity. On the other hand, you will achieve greater all-round success and be more productive when you spend your time and energy on doing what no one else can do in your business, while you delegate what can be done by someone else. That is what people leveraging is about. You can read more about the transformational power of coaching at www.ceedcoaching.com

Emmanuel Imevbore