Great Leaders Answer The “Why’s”

If you really want to inspire and energize your people—i.e., truly engage their hearts and minds in achieving desired results—you must provide compel­ling reasons for “why they need to do it,” “why they need to do it now,” and “why they need to do it in particular ways, when needed.”

Recently the CEO of a services organization spent an entire day with his top 100 leaders talking and answering questions about the “Why’s” of the company’s strategic initiatives and desired outcomes (Key Results): why they were important to the company and its future, why they were important to their current and prospective customers, why they were important to the people sitting in the room, why they were important to every single employee, why they were important to all of the company’s other stakeholders, and why they required certain ways of thinking and acting, including the application of key processes and systems. Afterwards participants were saying things like “I understood it before, but now I really get it. Now I’m much better prepared to help my people get it. Really understanding WHY makes all the difference.”

Unfortunately, most leaders spend 95 percent of their effort on the “What-When” and only 5 percent on the “Why.” Reverse it, spend the majority of your effort on the “Why” and you’ll begin to see your teams aligning more completely around what they need to achieve. Communicating “Why” not only clarifies the reasoning behind a purpose or desired result, but it also shows people they are worth the time and effort it takes to enroll and engage them in the purpose or desired result, to per­suade them to own it, and to make it happen. It sends people the unmistakable message that you respect and value them as key contributors in the process of making things happen.

For more information on communicating “Why” to build greater accountability and alignment for achieving results, we invite you to join the Accountability Community by visiting www.partnersinleadership.com, where you can review actual client case studies.

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