‘Have to’ and ‘Want to’

My children are old enough to perform certain tasks, assisting with the keeping of our household.  One of them is walking the dog.  Both my daughter and my son do this faithfully most of the time, but on occasion, complaining accompanies cooperation.

Given this background, something ironic has been happening lately.  Every time I walk the dog, my daughter creeps out the door a minute or two after I have gone, and tries to sneak up on me.  Sometimes she is successful; other times I see her coming.  In either case, though, we end up finishing the walk together, talking and holding hands.

She doesn’t always like to walk the dog on her own, but most of the time when I walk the dog, she wants to join me.

What’s the difference? 

“Have to” versus “Want to.”

She follows me because she wants to, because she likes being outside, and because she likes our dog.  (It probably helps that I pick up his mess when we’re together also…)

What do your followers “want to” do?  What do they “have to” do?  More importantly, how can you help them do more of the “want to” even in the midst of the “have to?”  What would that take? 

Important caveat: we’re not talking about getting people to do things they don’t want to do because we, their leaders, want them to do it.  There’s a definition of leadership out there that goes something like: “leadership is getting people to do things they didn’t want to do, and making them feel like they want to do it.”  Total myth.  Leadership is not about persuading, or worse, manipulating, people to do things they didn’t want to do.  It is, however, about finding out what they do, in fact, want to do, and helping them to do more of that.  It is also about helping them to see connections between what they “have to” do, and what they “want to” do, so that the “have tos” become more bearable.

So maybe the better question is, “What do your followers ‘want to’ do?”

~ by stoshdwalsh on October 22, 2009.