Great Leaders Believe
One of the most powerful ways leaders motivate and engage others is through positive communication of belief in an employee’s potential.
Zig Ziglar was an average salesperson for many years. He was in a company with 3000 other salespeople. He had good discipline and training but he was mediocre… until his sales supervisor challenged him one day: “Zig, I want to tell you something about yourself that I don’t think you see… I truly believe you could be one of the great ones in this company… If you only believed in yourself.”
He related that this statement hit him with tremendous force. It challenged him to step up in a way he had never considered. Was there a hidden potential in him that he was not aware of? Is it possible that others were seeing in him something he was blind to?
Most of us have barely scratched the surface of our real potential. It’s rarely who we are in life that holds us back… it is usually what we think we’re not. Our fears can become the anchors that hold us back. Self-doubt whispers its familiar phrases to us:
- I can’t do that
- I’m not smart enough for that
- I haven’t had enough education
- I don’t speak well
After the powerful affirmation from his sales manager, Zig Zigler said he had an intense self-talk with himself. He was going to put aside his fear and strive in a new way to be one of the best in the company. It was no surprise to his supervisor, in the following year, he was the number one salesperson in a company, with over 3000 salespeople.
Nothing significant had changed in this discipline or training… but something profound had changed in his heart. Someone had believed in him, encouraged him, and affirmed him in a way that motivated him to believe in himself.
He did have the ability, talent and drive it took to reach the top! But it lay for years under a cloud of self-doubt…until someone believed in him.
He said, “Sometimes it takes someone believing in you for you to believe in yourself.”
Great leaders believe. They see an ember of potential and fan it into a flame through encouragement and positive affirmation.
Zig Ziglar went on to become the #1 motivational speaker in America, in decades past. His sales transformation was evidence that he had barely scratched the surface of his real potential.