Winning hearts and minds

Leadership is using our personal power to win the hearts and minds of people to achieve a common purpose. This is the definition the Leadership Trust has had on the subject for the last 30 years, and it still serves us well.
'Winning hearts and minds' is a key phrase which has come into common usage but is often misunderstood. You win people's minds by engaging with them intellectually and rationally. But you win hearts with a completely different strategy.
A manager can, for example, say to an employee: 'This is what we have to do, these are the constraints, these are the time frames, these are the resources and so on.' The employee understands but doesn't want to take part. This is where the advantage of the ability of winning hearts can come in. To win hearts you have to create feelings of ownership, of being informed, of being valued, of being empowered.

A place for pride
If you can win both hearts and minds you can generate pride, a very important by-product. Pride in what an employee can do, what they've achieved, pride in the service they deliver.
I have adopted a model of leadership from Sue Stockdale  the first British woman to walk to the north pole - who said 'leadership is about three things: vision, a passion for that vision, and action'.
A lot of organisations have two out of three. For example, they may have passion and action, but no vision. They end up doing the equivalent of saying: 'Come on! Where are we going? I don't know, but come on!'
I've been working with NHS groups, and it appears to still have a vision, and it has action, but some people have lost the passion; it's been beaten out of them by league tables and constantly being told they must perform better.
If you're leading a team it's important to check the passion of the people you're in charge of.
We have a philosophy at the Leadership Trust: 'Leadership begins with learning to know and control oneself first. Then, and only then, can we lead and enable others.'
It's easy to lead and motivate when things go smoothly, but if things get tough then we sometimes resort to telling people off, and snapping at them. You need to know your strengths, weaknesses, vulnerability and your attitudes, and then control your behaviour to be more appropriate.
As a leader you need to encourage people to bring more of their potential to work. Rather than look for things that they can't do, imagine things they could do. But to do that you need to be a 'talent scout' to spot those with potential.

Five steps
I would suggest there are five different levels of communication. Think of a pyramid; we start from the base with the basic 'Good morning, how are you?' This is termed 'ritual and cliche'. The next level is 'gossip and fact', such as talking about the weather, sport, networking, what's been on TV.
At level three we have 'ideas and judgements' where one individual tells another what they think, and uses their judgement to see if its appropriate. At this level one is looking to see how the other feels about their idea, and especially looking for a reaction, 'Are you interested? Are you engaged?'
The next level is termed 'emotions and feelings'. This is not being emotional but is expressing the feelings that help ideas emerge. The final level is achieved at that moment of perfect mutual empathy when you know what someone else is thinking and feeling.
All five modes are important. Rather than striving to use just a single level of communication, my advice is to use all five appropriately, at the right moment.
So ask yourself the questions: Where is my communication? Where does it need to be? What's stopping me getting there?
Most people can get to the level of sharing ideas and judgements without too much difficulty, but the emotional level is a very real barrier, a fear barrier. We're afraid of opening up and telling people how we feel because that information might be abused. So you must really trust people to tell them how you feel.
So how often do you have good communication with the people you work with? You may work with them for many years and never get to know them.
One thing you can do tomorrow is to say the following to an employee: 'I want to lead you in the best way I can. So tell me one thing I can do differently that will enable me to lead you better.'
Prepare yourself for a shock <2212> what they'll probably ask you to do is so simple, such a small change in behaviour. But it will make such a big difference to them and probably benefit you both. 

John White is consultant with the Leadership Trust. He was speaking at the one-day Sight Care business conference in Birmingham