Motivation for Leaders

Becoming a „positive authority“

In his book “First, break all the rules”, What the World’s Greatest Managers do Differently, Prof. Dr. Marcus Buckingham presents the latest findings of the Gallup Institutes’ 10 years research of over 200,000 corporations.
Significant in these results is that they show that the most successful corporations always have what their staff judges as being a „happy working atmosphere“ and that this is in most part created by their immediate bosses, i.e. the middle managers withom they have a good personal communication.


Aim:

In this seminar-workshop participants will learn the theory and practice of motivational communication.


Content:

Perception

  • How you perceive your staff as a group and as individuals
  • How unconscious attitudes and immediate experiences affect perception
  • Selective perception
  • Perception of verbal, para-verbal and non-verbal signals
  • What is “intuition“? When can it help and when does it hinder?

Recognizing and Dealing with Emotions

  • Recognizing important emotional signals (distress, conflict, dissatisfaction...)
  • Dealing with emotions (your own and others) with humour, empathy and composure
  • Extending your “emotional repertoire“
  • How to deal with “chaotic” or unclear situations, such as a financial crisis, fusions or restructuring which can lead to emotional upheaval in your staff
  • Exercises in spontaneity; getting spontaneous reactions “right!”


Who is the boss? Practising positive authority

  • Recognizing the role of status and group-dynamics
  • Developing a “positive high status role”
  • Learning “speech acts” such as saying no diplomatically
  • Reacting to negative status games such as victim power, mobbing, destructive rivalry...
  • Establishing rules while maintaining flexibility and avoiding the “I must be liked” trap


Using fun as a motivating tool

Richard Branson, founder of Virgin (records and airlines) once said that an exciting atmosphere is the best motivation and that stress is not a result of too much work but of too little passion!! 
We know now that humour and fun have a positive influence on the brain and that they increase concentration and the will to achieve and to cooperate.
Humour brings warmth into a group and can stimulate cooperation, energy and achievement.
It also enables us to be more direct, to provide staff with more challenges and to give criticism in such a way that it is acceptable.
Although it’s true that some people have more of a “natural sense of humour” than others, everybody can learn to use fun and humour as a leadership tool.
Humour has to do with being relaxed and confident, with accepting that mistakes are made and by learning to take a generally positive view of the challenges which face us in our daily lives. These will be practised throughout the seminar.


Didactic Method:

The seminar will have both theoretical and practical inputs, whereby the emphasis will be to speed up the process of becoming a positive authority by taking part in as many “dry exercises” as possible and receiving feedback from the group and from the trainer.
They may also bring their own experiences and challenges to the group.
The aims are to facilitate self-reflexion and to give participants a variety of tools for their everyday work. They will be encouraged to try out new methods, become aware of their behaviour patterns and develop a leadership style which will motivate their staff and encourage them to think and act with self confidence and creativity - Video-analysis may also be used.


* The specific content of each seminar is worked out according to the needs of the participants.