Monday, August 20, 2012

Leadership : Inspiring Speech


In the book, Lessons From the Top: The Search for America's Best Business Leaders, Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks, made the following observation:

"I think it's very difficult to lead today when people are not really truly participating in the decision. You won't be able to attract and retain great people if they don't feel like they are part of the authorship of the strategy and the authorship of the really critical issues. If you don't give people an opportunity to really be engaged, they won't stay."

As an entrepreneur with employees, one of your primary goals is most likely to attract and keep motivated workers. And to keep a motivated workers you must be able to INSPIRE.

An Inspirational leader has a vision in which he strongly believes. He will become an effective leader if he is able to communicate this vision to his followers. He must be able to articulate clearly the needs of his people and visualise their future and communicate guidelines and limits so that they are able to reach their goals.

Inspiration does not come easily to everyone but when you are responsible as a leader, it becomes necessary for you inspire others.

Neil Paulsen is a senior management lecturer at the University of Queensland. One of the modules he teaches is ‘inspirational leadership’. When someone asked him what it takes to achieve that status.
“A person cannot inspire others unless they are clear about who they are, what they value, and what they are trying to achieve in the world,” he said. “This type of leadership requires courage, tolerance, authenticity, humility, and a significant degree of self-awareness.”
If you hire people just because they can do a job, they’ll work for your money. But if you hire people who believe what you believe, they’ll work for you with blood and sweat and tears.” (Simon Sinek)

On that note, i would like to share with the Tribes on one of the video that i used as a case study with my audience. An inspiring speech by Charlie Chaplin


I'm sorry. But I don't want to be an emperor. That's not my business.

I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible - Jew, Gentile, Black Man, White. We all want to help one another - human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone - the way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men's souls, has barricaded the world with hate. Has goosed us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical; our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness.

Without these qualities life would be violent and all will be lost. The airplane and the radio have brought us closer together - the very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men; cries out for universal brotherhood, for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world. Millions of despairing men, women and little children; victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. For those who can hear me I say - do not despair - the misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed. The bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress.

The hate of men will pass and dictator's die. And the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish. Soldiers - don't give yourselves to brutes! Men who despise you, enslave you, who regiment your lives - tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel. Who drill you, dives you, treat you like cattle, use you as canon fodder. Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men. Machine men, with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don't hate. Only the unloved hate. The unloved and the unnatural.


Soldiers! Don't fight for slavery, fight for liberty! In the seventeenth chapter of St. Lucas it is written, the kingdom of God is within man - not one man, not a group of men, but in all men - in you! You the people have the power - the power to create machines, to create happiness. You the people have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. And in the name of democracy, let us use that power, let us all unite.

Let us fight for a new world; a decent world, that will give men a chance to work, that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power, but they lie. They do not fulfill their promise. They never will. Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfill that promise. Let us fight to free the world.

 To do away with national barriers. To do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason. A world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness. Soldiers in the name of democracy, let us all unite!!!



 And some food for thoughts ;)