The Leadership Push

Ordinary people are everywhere. Ordinary people are imperfect. But ordinary people can do the extraordinary.

In this groundbreaking work, Bob Ramsey reveals the power of ordinary people. They can accomplish great things. But only if you lead them skillfully. You can’t lead them as you would a team of superstars. Extraordinary people can lead themselves. Ordinary people need the influence of a leader in order to accomplish great things. They need you.

In The Leadership Push: How to Motivate Extraordinary Performance from Ordinary Workers, Bob Ramsey outlines a four part blueprint to unlock the potential of your ordinary people.

PART I: “The Leading Attitude”

Part I is about the proper attitude of leadership. You can’t motivate people with the wrong attitude. Before you do anything else, you must start thinking properly about your team members. You need to adopt a leading attitude. Part I will help you to identify it and achieve it, exploring topics such as:

The understandable, but deadly, temptation to wait for superstars
Why the Buffalo Dance supercharges your influence
How to avoid the greatest attitude error of leadership

PART II: “The Köhler Effect”

Part II answers the motivation riddle. How do you motivate ordinary people to give extraordinary performances? You make them feel like important members of the team. Bob Ramsey makes a counterintuitive argument, that ordinary people work harder for others than they do for themselves. Along the way, they investigate the following issues.

Why some workers run through brick walls for their leaders while others don’t
The two essential factors of Köhler’s Cone and why each is absolutely necessary
Why leaders shouldn’t hold the hammer, even when they think they should

PART III: “The Task Triangle”

In Part III, you learn how to elevate a worker’s feeling of task importance. People need to know that their jobs matter. They need to know that they are important. And it’s your job to convince them. This means you need to delegate tasks skillfully, without diminishing their feelings of importance. In Part III, you will explore communication strategies to use before, during, and after the initial moment of delegation—including techniques such as:

How to decide who gets to hold the hammer
Why to establish a “Leadership Scoreboard”
When to take workers to the Edge of Competence
How to translate a big picture vision into extraordinary action

PART IV: “The Social Circle”

Part IV is about making people feel like members of a team. You will survey the principles of team building and the common obstacles that leaders face. You will encounter the strange influence that teamwork has on performance and the most proven techniques to encourage that sense of social belonging. Other topics include:

The hidden benefits of an atmosphere of camaraderie
How to get the Social Glue to stick between teammates
Why the “Leadership Shield” is so dangerous to motivation