Bill Gallagher shares a formula for inspiring leadership: describe where things are now, show where they'll go if nothing changes, then paint a passionate vision of what could be. He uses the Mahalia Jackson and Martin Luther King Jr. story as an example, and says genuine enthusiasm works whether you're raising money, finding partners, or selling.
Hey, everybody. Bill Gallagher with another conversation about developing your leadership. This one about being an inspiring leader. Whether you are now or would like to be, or would like to be more inspiring or that's always seemed out of reach for you. I got something for you. Maybe the most unrecognized leadership coach of all time is Mahalia Jackson. Gospel singer Mahalia Jackson was standing near Martin Luther Mar. That's a mouthful for me. Martin Luther King, Jr. On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial as He addressed the 250,000 people gathered for the March on Washington. And she shouted over his speech from the background, tell him about the dream, Martin. Tell him about the dream. That is brilliance, right? Again and again, I worked with leaders who hold back what's exciting to them, who hold back what's inspiring, who try to be responsible and businesslike instead of really being unleashed and passionate about things, Right? So I think more and more we can unleash that. Now, this dream segment, Martin Luther King Jr. Had been using and sharing some versions of beforehand, but they hadn't really planned the speech for the day. Now, with all these people gathered, he heard the call and he spoke about this thing that she recognized was powerful and of the moment, Mahaling Jackson realized, and he launched into this I have a dream. And he did that version that turned a good speech into maybe one of the greatest speeches of all time. Certainly well regarded, a brilliant speech and a masterpiece of rhetoric. And here's the thing. Even if you are not a brilliant orator, well trained, with a background and all that, you can tap into some of that stuff as well. For you, the first thing is being lit up yourself. So if you're not excited about anything, don't try to inspire people. Wait until you are actually inspired by something and you're just wishing you could get that on some other people. The simple formula is this. If you'll talk about first, the way things are today, you know, I look around and I see this, and. And then you could even extrapolate it out. And if things keep going the way things are, like it's going to be like this, and you can kind of take out the logical, predictable world that stands in front of us in any subject area, in any kind of thing that you might consider, and then talk about your dream, your vision for what could be with your product, service, project, initiative, like whatever it is out in the world, what difference would that make? What might be possible if everybody was working towards that common vision? And that really simply is that. So you want to allow yourself to talk about the way things are, the way things are going, what could be if your project, vision, product was realized in the world, what you see about it, and actually express something like share some emotion, get passionate, let people see what it is that you really care about. That's a very simple formula that's reproducible again and again and again in raising money, in finding business partners, in selling new clients, in all matters, you can be more inspiring, and it's a great place to start out. That's been helpful for you. My name is Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach, host of the Scaling Up Business Podcast. Our show comes to you every week, at least once a week here. Wherever you're getting this, stay tuned. Keep scaling. Talk to you again next time.
