Be an Inspiring Leader

The Inspiration Code: How the Best Leaders Energize People Every Day – Kristi Hedges (AMACOM)

Quick show of hands, how many of you have worked for someone like this; you are speaking to your company leader and they are looking off into the distance or depending on the setting seemingly looking for someone more important than you that they can speak with?

Or how about the one that you want to wash your hands after meeting them because they are about a sincere as a slimy eel or the one who is listless and apparently doesn’t have much time or energy for you as an employee, let alone as a person?

If you are a leader and any one of these examples sounds at all like you, then you should seriously consider picking up a copy of executive coach Kristi Hedges new book, The Inspiration Code: How the Best Leaders Energize People Every Day. Hedges outlines some pretty straight forward strategies for leaders to become inspired leaders; those folks who truly make an impact not only on their business but on the folks they lead.

Hedges has spent time not only coaching leaders, but also studying successful leaders actions to see what it is that do and what sets them apart from the rest of the pack. From there she has been able to qualify and quantify what they do and boil it down into a series of steps that she labels the Inspire Path:                                                                           

• Present: Focused on the person in front of them, not distracted, visibly stressed, or locked into an agenda. They are truly open to new ideas.
• Personal: Authentic and real, and perhaps most important they LISTEN. They know how to find and expand potential.
• Passionate: They infuse energy, calibrate it, and manage it as one of their greatest skills. This is a critical step! Most often my first question to leaders or those who want to move into a leadership role is; what are you passionate about?
• Purposeful: They are intentional and willing to have courageous discussions about purpose, and role model how to live into their own.

The great thing about this is that while it is couched as a way to crack the secret of being a great leader; much of this stuff is really not hard to do. Hedges gives you the steps in the process put these things into action quickly and to sustain them so you can have a real, measurable impact.