Can Followers be Motivated by Leadership Styles?

By Bridget Gilmore

Creating a Submissive Corporate Culture

“Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord.” (Ephesians 5:22) This is exactly what companies are expecting from their followers. They are making their followers feel obligated to being loyal and have taken it out of context, just as readers of the cited scripture do. What happened to the rest of the scripture which states in Ephesians 5:21 “submit to one another out of reverence for Christ?” The command advises a two-way relationship and that part of the scripture appears to have been ignored. Companies that serve their followers will receive superior service from them if they cultivate a serving relationship.

How are results-oriented companies able to compete in a world full of results oriented businesses? They recruit followers as potential future leaders and direct them to be compliant toward a desired goal. The follower’s career path is based on the direction of the customer. The training plan is already created and the only thing the follower has to do is select “I commit” to the appropriate training plan. The follower either complies or doesn’t have a job with this type of company.

When the goal is to do what is best for the customer, the company conveys behaviors they require to achieve success in a high performance culture. This type of culture is one in which performance goals and commitments are blatantly clear. A high performance culture, according to Reid and Hubbell (March/April 2005), “is based on discipline. This discipline promotes decisiveness and standards of excellence and ensures direct accountability.” I currently work for an organization that cultivates a high performance culture. Each employee is provided with a two page template of performance goals. In previous organizations I’ve worked for, the leader would collaborate with me to determine my performance goals. In my current organization, my leader emailed me a mandatory set of goals for my review. I deleted those I didn’t agree with, put them in my final document and emailed the final document to her. Upon her receipt of my performance plan, she contacted me and stated that the goals were formatted so that they would fit neatly into my document. I was quite shocked by this. Where was the collaboration? Apparently this was a one-way relationship and I am expected to agree with the policies.
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Shifting into Gratitude

The Question of Worthiness

We all know what it’s like to finally get something we want, only to find ourselves feeling as if we don’t deserve it. Whether it’s a car, a new job, or a date with someone wonderful, we suddenly feel as if we are not up to it. Something in us wants to reject this gift from the universe, perhaps because it requires that we think of ourselves in a new way or makes us question why we should have something that others don’t have. If these feelings of unworthiness are not consciously acknowledged, they can lead us to sabotage ourselves out of the gift being offered. Perhaps the best way to avoid rejection and sabotage is to simply shift into a state of gratitude, bypassing the question of worthiness altogether.

The question of whether we or anyone else deserves something is not really in our jurisdiction. These themes play themselves out in ways we can’t fully comprehend-on the level of the soul, over the course of many lifetimes. What we do know is that the universe has its own way of shifting the balance over the course of time so that all things are ultimately fair. We can trust in this process and understand that when a gift comes our way, it is because we are meant to have it. Otherwise, it would not be available to us. Accepting the gift with gratitude and using it to the best of our ability is true humility.

When we receive a gift and find that feelings of unworthiness crop up, we can simply acknowledge the feelings and then remind ourselves that they are beside the point. We might say to ourselves, “I am meant to have this.” As we allow ourselves to accept the gift, we might feel tenderness in our hearts that naturally shifts into a deep feeling of gratitude. As we sit for a moment, consciously holding the gift in our hands or in our hearts, we say “yes” to the universe’s many blessings, and we also say “thank you.”

Do You Deserve Abundance?

By Robin Skeen

In your heart of hearts, do you truly believe you deserve extraordinary abundance in your life? Even if you would like to believe it, is there that little voice in the back of your head that whispers doubts? That voice tells you that you really do not deserve to be happy and live an abundant life filled with everything you want and need. This would never happen to you. You’re just going to keep living that same old boring life, so you may as well get used to it. That nagging voice is a product of programming. This comes from all the negative experiences in your life. It gets to the point where we start to believe that voice because it has been saying the same lies to us for years! You even end up sabotaging yourself when good things are about to happen. If this sounds like you, you could be hindering abundance from coming to you. It is time to get rid of these blocks you are unconsciously using.

Three things to remember about this negative inner voice are (1) you can choose not to believe the voice; (2) it is replaying all the negative things you have said to yourself; and (3) it is repeating all the negative things other people have said to you. To start turning this around and begin to encourage a positive inner voice, start by talking to yourself in a kinder and more loving manner. What you tell yourself will be repeated by that inner voice, so change what you tell yourself. Try not to be so hard on yourself when things don’t go exactly the way you would wish. If you consistently speak to yourself in a positive manner, that inner voice will eventually start to change.
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