When I ask participants in my workshops to describe their best bosses and leaders over the years, they talk of leaders who brought out top performance in them, and who somehow caused them to reach further than they thought possible. That is inspiration in a nutshell.

Yet, when the authors of the book Work of Leaders surveyed 13,000 leaders and asked them to self-rate on the adjectives associated with inspiration, the results were decidedly NOT inspiring. 87% of the leaders rated themselves pretty low on this scale (see below).

Source: The Work Of Leaders: How Vision, Alignment and Execution Will Change the Way You Lead By: Straw, Scullard, Kukkonen and Davis
Wiley: 2013

Could you be a little more inspiring?

Asking leaders to be more inspiring is a bit tough because it’s hard to know how to do that. Perhaps, instead of trying to be more compelling, magnetic or captivating, you can try to remove the aspects of your leadership that are UN-inspiring.

Are your meetings boring beyond words? Change the format.

Do you lecture people or complain a lot when you get stressed? Change it and be a better listener.

Do you shut down and become emotionally unavailable when you are super busy? Be human instead, and let others have a chance to relate to you.

Sometimes being an inspiring leader has to start with removing leadership habits that kill inspiration in the first place.

“Inspiration” definition– Merriam-Webster Dictionary

: something that makes someone want to do something or that gives someone an idea about what to do or create : a force or influence that inspires someone