By William Holden, chairman, Sewells Training and Consultancy

The big need in the world of business today is to transform performance, against the current backdrop of the most challenging economic environment any of us has ever seen.

Now, more than ever, you need leaders who ignite passion in people and create desire around your strategies and change agenda.

The ability to inspire people to reach great heights of performance and success is a skill that leaders need.

Here’s how to instil inspiration and a sense of belonging into the people you lead.

Inspirational and transformational leaders:

• feel passionately about the vision and mission of the organisation and are able to share that passion in a way that enables others to feel passionate too, believing that their work has purpose and meaning beyond the tasks they perform each day;
• help their staff connect the dots by explaining and painting the bigger picture and reinforcing it regularly;
• listen to the people in the organisation and “share meaning” through their communications – allowing the ideas and thoughts of their staff to help form the vision and mission, or (minimally) the goals and action plan. People need to see their ideas incorporated – or else understand why they were not;
• enable people to feel included and intimately connected to the actions and processes that lead to the accomplishment of the goals or the decision;
• understand that, while money may be seen as a motivator to some, it is most often praise, recognition, a simple thank you, or noticing an individual’s contribution to a successful endeavour that means the most;
• build confidence in their people and motivate them to have heart, grit, determination and character to do the hard things in times of uncertainty and adversity – and do them brilliantly and consistently day in, day out.
• The transformational leader understands it’s not going to be easy, but when the above are applied properly, on a consistent basis, the performance transformation will be outstanding.