If you want to get results from your team there are two ways to do it. One, push and demand your team to deliver. Two, encouragingly influence and inspire your team so they respond positively and deliver.

Some leaders mistake influence and inspiration as a passive and ineffective approach. They consider the demand and push approach to work better. However, for long-term results, the influence and inspire approach is not only sustainable but also leads to empowerment and growth of the team.

Inspiring and influencing your team includes:

⁃ Involving your team in setting goals.
⁃ Discussing the roadmap of how to go from where they are to where they need to reach.
⁃ Setting the team up for success by being a servant leader.  In other words, being there for the team to provide mentoring, coaching, guidance.
⁃ Praising good work with specific and sincere compliments.
⁃ When teams mess up to understand the rationale of their approach. Then, offer what could have been done differently and how they can approach a similar situation in the future.
⁃ Encouraging collaboration and teamwork.
⁃ Allowing a buffer so that corrections can be made before the deadline.

Influencing and inspiring the team makes the team step up their game and deliver superior results.

Push and demand requires continuous policing from leaders and may bring results in the short term, but is not a good long-term strategy.