How do you bring out the best in others? First, you need to understand that human beings tend to be selfish and are driven by their own desires. As an education leader, you need to figure out what the educators in your school or district want. Recognize that this will be different for everyone. Some people will want to be praised, others will want promotions, and others are satisfied with growth opportunities.
How to inspire others
Your job is to understand the motivations of each every last one of the educators under your charge, using this information to get the best performance from them. You can do this by getting to know them on a personal level. Invite them out for lunch or just have informal conversations with them at work. As they begin to get more comfortable around you, they will give you a glimpse inside of their personality and what their motivations are. From there, you can leverage this information to help them maximize their performance.
Another consideration when attempting to bring out the best in others is knowing and understanding their strengths and weaknesses. If you don’t understand people’s strong suits, they may end up failing because the task that you assigned them is a mismatch for their skill set. At the very least, their level of success on the task will not be optimal, it will be mediocre.
This affects the production of the organization, and in the end, everyone loses. So do yourself a favor and get to know your employees and what they are capable of. Trust me, you will look like a genius when everyone is working within their strengths zone, and the organization is running like a well-oiled machine.
Concluding thoughts
Everyone wins when employees give the organization their all and work within their strengths zone. Bringing out the best in others is not as easy as it sounds, but with a little practice, you will be a master motivator in no time.
