User or Leader?

Who are the people that are on your team? Do you realize that each of them has a personal mission? Why are they on your team? Why do they come to work each day and support the mission that you have established (you have done this, right)?

Using the gifts and talents of the people that are on your team is not what is necessary for your goals to be achieved. However, allow each person to see how the time that they spend actively working towards your mission is helping them to achieve their own mission or story, and you will find that you have people that are passionately bought in to delivering the best that they possibly can. They will give you everything.

If you are just using the gifts, talents, strengths, and abilities of the members of your team, for the actualization of your mission, you are a user. People will become tired of your rhetoric, and will become restless as they will feel as though they are not achieving what it is that they are here to complete (and they would be right for feeling this way).

If you can truly identify the individual mission that each member of your team comes to the table with, and then provide them a platform to deliver on the mission that they have been designed for, you are a leader. People will be engaged, and will passionately deliver on the goals that are necessary for your mission to reach fruition. And sometimes, you surprisingly may find someone who has the exact same mission that you have been created with.

Knowing the mission that your team members (and even customers) are designed for, and showing them how helping you achieve the mission that you have will help them to complete the mission that they have been created for, will lead to far greater impact and loyalty than if you simply use them for what they have.