100 Ways to Motivate Others : How Great Leaders Can Produce Insane Results Without Driving People Crazy

ai
,
ki
, and 
do
mean 
blending
our inner forces, not force against force. And every move
in aikido comes to that point, where both the aggressor’s
ki and your own ki are blended. Right at that point, when
the two are in alignment, I have control over the other
person and what happens to him and his body. Totally. It
takes no effort. Because we’re in complete alignment.
The application to motivating others is profound, be-
cause I don’t really want to resist what my people are doing

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or saying. I want to guide their natural inner energy to-
ward a mutual goal, theirs and mine. I want to receive and
guide my people’s natural energy. I don’t want to oppose
it or make it wrong.
90. Become Conscious
A boss creates fear, a leader, confidence. A boss fixes blame, a
leader corrects mistakes. A boss knows all, a leader asks questions.
A boss makes work drudgery, a leader makes it interesting.
—Russell H. Ewing, Author
If I’m an unconscious manager, can I be taught to be a
true leader?
Of course I can. If you are going to turn me into a true
leader, you begin by making what is unconscious (my com-
mitments and operating principles as a leader) become
conscious and clear. That’s step one. That process is as
simple as teaching me how to use a computer program.
Perhaps you hold a leadership meeting and state very
clearly why and how you intend to lead. You make every-
thing clear. If there are other leaders in the room, even
leaders whom you lead, you invite them to do the same.
The more open we all are about how we intend to lead, the
more motivated our people will be.
One of the exercises we like to do in our leadership
seminars is to ask people to write down the name of some-
one in their lives whom they admired and respected as a
leader. It may be their grandmother, an old platoon leader,
or a former teacher or manager. Some people write down
Become Conscious

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a leader in history who had an influence on them, such as
John F. Kennedy or Winston Churchill.
You might want to do this exercise right now. Think
of someone in your own life you respected as a leader. Jot
the name down. Now, write three qualities about that per-
son that you admired the most. Don’t read on until you do.
Okay, now look at those three qualities. They may be
anything—honesty, openness, a total belief in you, creativ-
ity, nonjudgmental teaching style—whatever the three quali-
ties are, look at them. More than likely, and more than nine
times out of 10, these qualities are 
now in you 
as a leader.
And these are the three things your people would say about
you
! Look at them. Is it not true? Are they not who you are?
This is a powerful exercise because it shows you how
you have already internalized and modeled yourself after
the leaders you admired. But until now, it has been sub-
conscious. The trick is to make it conscious, and be very
awake to it every day.
There is nothing so disheartening as a leader having a
perceived hidden agenda, which comes from overly un-
conscious values at play. It discourages your people when
they have to guess where you’re coming from every day.
Far better to have both you and your people fully 
con-
scious
of what you stand for.
91. Come From the Future
The very essence of leadership is that you have to have vision.