In the leadership field, you may have noticed how many ideas are simple, yet difficult to put into practice. Which is why what I’m about to share with you today is a real pearler (that’s Australian slang for very impressive). It’s straight from my award-winning PhD research.

I was amazed to discover this. It really is a surprisingly easy solution to help people do even better. It’s what I found to be the key difference between those who were thriving at work and those who were not. In a word, it’s hope.

Not just any old hope. It’s not hoping for the best.

It’s setting a goal for yourself and then bringing a combination of both ‘willpower’ (the agency or will to get there) and ‘way power’ (pathways/how to get there). This notion of hope is based on Professor Rick Snyder’s definition. He wrote a book on it.

But what I found is that it’s not hope in any old way. It’s hope under certain conditions. And those conditions involve you as their leader.

Here’s what they are:

• Firstly, you as their leader have to believe in them. You believe they have the ability to do the work or the capacity to grow into it. And if you don’t, I’d encourage you to consider helping them to move on to another role where they can do better for themselves. You’ll squash them otherwise – their dreams, their well being and their ability to perform.
• You then ask them, ideally before they’ve even proven themselves, what they want from working here. About their career aspirations. Then you tell them directly how you can help them get there. How you see that happening for them. And most importantly, you follow through. You open the doors, you provide the opportunities. Whether they be on the job, secondments, access to relevant training or a coach. You do what you can and you let them know what you’ve done. You keep the channels of communication open and use them often.

What you’ll find is that they’ll bring the will when you provide the way. They’ll be forever grateful and your engagement scores will skyrocket. At least, that’s been my experience.

How about yours? What have you done as a leader that’s reaped rewards above and beyond for your people? Share, so we can all learn, in the Leave a Reply comments section.

Photo credit: Clark Tibbs on Unsplash