Enlisting Others

en·list: engage (a person or their help or support)

Next week there is a good chance there will be a new project, initiative, or undertaking my team will need to tackle. I bet you are faced with the same situation. To tackle these challenges, we need to mobilize people to create extraordinary results and unite people to turn these challenges into successful opportunities. We all need more problem-solvers not problem-makers. And we all have bosses who need to know we are working more efficiently. We don’t broadcast it, but the challenge we as leaders deal with is to figure out how to meet the organization’s objectives with a very high level of success.

Because quality matters to our bosses and our customers, we fall back on what got us noticed for leadership potential to begin with – we do the work ourselves. We think: “There’s too much on the line here and as the old saying goes, if you want it done right, you do it yourself.” Even today I am tempted to stay later, come in earlier, put my touches on the work so I feel it is right. I often do this by sacrificing what I should be doing. The new projects, ideas and initiatives don’t stop coming. The struggle to enlist others to help takes too much of my time I say.  Working longer is a path to fatigue and discontent, I know there is a better way, so do you.

“You can’t command commitment; you have to inspire it. You have to

enlist others in a common vision by appealing to shared aspirations.”

~The Leadership Challenge – Kouzes and Posner

Enlisting Others is a key practice outlined in The Leadership Challenge model by James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner. This practice emphasizes the importance of building a shared vision and rallying individuals around that vision to create a sense of passion, purpose, and commitment. Having a common purpose that you and your team really do is vital to motivating and inspiring results. We want to engage others so that they have a desire to work with us. Doing that begins with clearly communicating what the final picture will look like and inviting others to join us on our journey to success.

In my situation, we don’t just cut grass, pull weeds, and maintain a beautiful campus. What we really do is recruit great students to go to school on our campus so they can learn, grow and graduate to do great things in the world. We call this “cultivating greatness.” That’s our vision, our common goal that we achieve together.   

“No matter how grand the dream of an individual visionary, if others don’t see in it the possibility of realizing their own hopes and desires, they won’t follow voluntarily or wholeheartedly.”

~The Leadership Challenge – Kouzes and Posner

Enlisting Others means capturing hearts as well as minds. Most people crave to be part of something significant and ground-breaking. When enlisting others, it is our job to help our people see how our work is aligned with the organization’s vision. As a leader, I talk about the vision often. Is the work you do special or important to someone? I know it is. Help your people feel special and excited about being on the team. In doing so you will be enlisting others to make your organization a big success.

I look forward to hearing how you and your team enlist others in doing the great work you do.

Jeff