It happens fairly regularly. I’ll hand my business card to someone, wait a beat, and watch them smile as they read my title – Chief Encouragement Officer.
I started my business, Giant Leap Consulting, in 2002. My personal and business mission is the same – to help people and organizations be more courageous. It was as clear to me then as it is now: fear is bad for business. As a consultant, I had seen the debilitating effect of fear on performance and morale. Too many leaders, unfortunately, use fear-stoking as the primary means of prodding results. I decided that I would dedicate my career to changing that.
Having worked with thousands of executives across the globe in the last decade, I’ve come to believe that everyone, regardless of where you sit in the organizational hierarchy, can be a chief encouragement officer. Here’s what it entails:
- Promote Purposeful Discomfort – Growth and development are a function of discomfort. One of the best things you can do for your career is to purposely seek out situations that put you in over you heads. Not so far out into the deep waters that you drown, but enough that you have to stretch on your tippy toes to breath.
- Focus On Opportunity, Not Risk: – Too many leaders hyper-focus on risk mitigation and not enough on opportunity optimization. Focusing on mitigating risks puts an emphasis on reducing the likelihood of bad outcomes. Focusing on opportunity can increase the likelihood of the best possible outcomes. Focus on the good you want instead of the bad that you don’t.
- Drive Out Fear – Edwards Deming, the famous quality pioneer, exhorted leaders to drive out fear. Good advice. Workers don’t care about what keeps you awake at night. They care about what gets you up in the morning. Give people permission to be courageous. Recognize and reward them when they do things that are difficult, challenging, and scary.
Being a chief encouragement officer doesn’t mean being soft, “nice,” or likeable. It doesn’t mean being a rah-rah cheerleader. Patting people on the backs, when done too much and without sincerity, is just another form of leadership manipulation – trying to get people to perform through trickery.
Being a chief encouragement officer means holding the interests of others and the interests of the goals of the organization as equally important. Goals provide momentum and direction for organizations and workers. But without motivated and committed employees, goals will not be accomplished. Goals are the end, people are the means, and chief encouragement officers are loyal to both.
Being a chief encouragement officer at the top of organizations also means activating the courage that lives inside your employees – quite literally encouraging them. It makes no difference if they hesitate and gulp when faced with big challenges or changes, as long as they keep moving forward, they are being courageous. Because courage isn’t fearlessness. Courage is fearfulness – to take action despite being afraid.
Photo Credit: thetaxhaven
