INTRODUCTION

COURAGE. ENCOURAGE. Two words, same origin: heart.

To quote a classic Broadway musical refrain, "You've gotta have heart. All you really need is heart.Miles 'n miles n' miles of heart."1

There's no bravery or boldness without heart. There's no spirit or support without heart. There's no sacrifice or soul without heart. Nothing great ever gets done without heart. You've gotta have heart.

At the heart of leadership is caring. Without caring, leadership has no purpose. Without showing others that you care about them, they won't care about you. Leadership is a relationship. It's personal, and it's interpersonal. In the most basic sense, it requires a connection between leaders and constituents over matters of the heart.

We need heart because the struggle to make extraordinary things happen is arduous. Our research tells us that if we're going to make it to the summit, we need someone figuratively, if not literally, standing nearby and shouting, "Come on, you can do it. I know you can do it!"

That's not something we readily admit; we often think we can do it alone. But we all really do need encouragement to do our best. Encouragement boosts performance, strengthens our resolve, and improves our health. Otherwise, why perform in front of an audience? Why not just sing in an empty room, play in an empty arena, or sell only to yourself? We need the applause. We need the enthusiasm and the energy from others. To do our best, we need to feel connected to others and, in turn, they to us. Greatness is never achieved alone.

Encouraging the Heart is about the leadership practice that connects us. It signals and documents that we're in "this" together-whatever the project, program, campaign, neighborhood, congregation, division, or endeavor. Social capital joins financial and intellectual capital as the necessary ingredients for organizational success. In creating social capital, leaders encourage the heart so that people will want to be with and for one another.

When leaders commend individuals for honoring the organization's values or achieving its goals, they foster courage, inspiring them to experience their ability to deliver-even when the pressure is on. When we recognize people for their contributions, we expand their awareness of their value to the organization and their coworkers, imparting a sense of social connectedness that all humans seek. While we may all be connected by being human, leaders make sure we're truly in touch with one another.

The world has changed since discovering, understanding, and appreciating the importance for leadership of Encouraging the Heart more than four decades ago and writing an earlier edition to enable others to engage more effectively in this vital leadership practice. Yet this essential leadership practice could not be timelier or more needed. Nothing on the horizon suggests, moreover, that its importance will diminish.

The Heart of The Matter

Encouraging the Heart discusses the principles and practices that support the basic human need to be appreciated for who we are and what we do. It's about how leaders can apply certain behaviors, principles, and practices to their daily work. This is not a book about glad-handing, backslapping, gold stars, and payoffs. It's about the importance of linking recognition, rewards, and appreciation to standards of excellence. It's about ensuring people know the significance of what they do, why it matters, and its purpose. It's about understanding why encouragement is essential to sustaining people's commitment to organizations and outcomes. It's about acknowledging that it requires hard work to make extraordinary things happen in organizations. It's about finding ways to enhance your ability in-and comfort with-recognizing and celebrating the achievements of others.

Encouraging the Heart originates in our research on the practices of people when they function at their best as leaders. Since our studies began more than four decades ago, we've collected thousands of personal-best leadership case studies and analyzed behavioral leadership data from more than five million respondents from around the globe across various individual, functional, and organizational demographics.2 We've consistently found that when making extraordinary things happen, leaders:

• Model the Way
• Inspire a Shared Vision
• Challenge the Process
• Enable Others to Act
• Encourage the Heart

All of The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership® are essential. They all contribute to explaining why leaders are successful. Each plays a distinct part, and none alone is sufficient. We wrote a book, The Leadership Challenge, about all five practices and their impact on engagement and performance. So why have we written a book about only one practice, Encourage the Heart? There are four reasons.

The first is practicality. Over the last few decades, many books have been published about reward and recognition, but they have mostly focused more on techniques than on the underlying principles. We wanted to offer a set of behaviors, principles, practices, and examples to provide leaders with a repeatable process and essential actions they could apply in their own settings.

The second reason is principle. For too long now, we've heard the human side of business referred to as the "soft" side, and encouraging the heart seems about as soft as you can get. Some of our clients even told us the phrase encourage the heart wouldn't work in their organizations or cultures and asked if we could change the practice's name. We never have, and we never will. In this book, we will demonstrate that encouraging the heart is not soft; we will also show how powerful a force it is in achieving high standards and stretch goals. If you're after results, then you'd better start paying attention to encouraging the heart.

Third, our work is evidence-based. We've researched leadership for more than forty years and gathered data from millions of leaders an their constituents about The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership.3 When we write about leadership and what leaders should do to make extraordinary things happen, we are not simply making assertions based on opinion. We can support what we say with data. We wanted to ensure that in the most recent years-characterized by many challenges, conflicts, and division- the practice of Encourage the Heart remained valid and impactful. You'll find that data in the chapters of this book.

The final reason we chose to write Encouraging the Heart is because we wanted to add our voices to the discussion of soul and spirit in the workplace. Leaders create relationships, and one of these relationships is between individuals and their work. Ultimately, we all work for a purpose, and that common purpose must be served when encouraging individuals and groups. Encouraging the heart only works when there's a good fit between the person, the work, and the organization.

To this final point, it is interesting to note that the word encouragement has its root in the Latin word cor, which literally means "heart."4 So does the word courage. To have courage means to have heart. To encourage-to provide with or give courage-means to give others heart. Richard I, king of England from 1189 to 1199, was glorified for his courage. What did the troubadours call him? Richard the Lionheart.

The heroic tradition from which this language comes tells us that when discussing courage and encouragement, we don't simply mean the sentimental notion expressed on contemporary greeting cards. Rather, in this context, the word heart brings forth images of courage when faced with significant challenges, hope when confronted with tremendous difficulties, and the fortitude to reach inside and give your best even when faced with overwhelming odds. Heart involves strength and toughness. It involves leaders' awareness of their responsibilities to those they're entrusted to lead and the values of the organizations that select them. It involves forcefully imparting cherished values to those who look to them for leadership.

But heart, cor, has a double meaning. From its root also comes the word "cordial." Encouragement is about being generous and charitable.5 It's about having a "big heart." When leaders encourage their constituents' hearts, they also show how profoundly grateful they are for the dedication and commitment others have shown to the cause.

Encouraging the heart, then, is about the dichotomous nature of leadership. It's about toughness and tenderness, guts and grace, firmness and fairness, fortitude and gratitude, passion and compassion. Leaders must have courage themselves, and they must impart it to others. This book is about how leaders effectively give of their hearts so that others may more fully develop and experience their own.

Who Should Read this Book?

As with our other books The Leadership Challenge, Credibility, Everyday People, Extraordinary Leadership, and The Truth About Leadership, this one is written to assist people in furthering their abilities to lead others in making extraordinary things happen. Whether you're in the public or private sector, whether you're an employee...