LEADERSHIP CAPSULE
... equipping leaders with tools, skills, and weapons to provide effective leadership for nations to ultimately fulfill the Great Commission

Thursday, March 16, 2017

TITLE : Relationships 101: Become An Encourager

1 Corinthians 13:7 Amplified Bible (AMP)

"Love bears all people [regardless of what comes], believes all things [looking for the best in each one], hopes all things [remaining steadfast during difficult times], endures all things [without weakening]."

#2 Become An Encourager

We are still considering the second section of this series, the building blocks of relationships. Yesterday I shared that to be an encourager is to believe the best in people. The word encourage and believe goes together. Today I want to give you an acrostic of the word believe. This will help you to become a better leader but before
then let's look at the meaning of "encourage"

What does it mean to encourage?

The word encourage is made of the prefix, en meaning to cause to be and the word courage means power, strength or ability. To encourage someone means to impart, instill or give somebody support, courage, inspiration or hope. The word encourage or encouragement contains the word courage. Thus it means people find courage when you encourage them. It also mean they loose courage when you discourage them. And this is seen most in our words.

There isn't a person in the world who doesn't have the desire to be someone, to have significance even the least ambitious and unassuming person wants to be regarded highly by others. Anybody who helps or encourage somebody Influences a Lot of bodies. It is often impossible to quantify the impact that our interactions or conversation with someone can have. "What you give toone person overflows into the lives of all the people that person impacts". While that can bring a great deal
of satisfaction, which is a great reward in itself, it will often result in direct benefits from the grateful recipient.

So then, how can we become more effective encouragers, and increase our ability to believe in others.??

Let's consider the following seven suggestions, forming an acrostic from BELIEVE:

B -elieve in them before they succeed

It's easy to believe in someone who has demonstrated their ability or great attitude. This isn't what i'm talking about. The challenge is to put your faith insomeone who is untested. "But that is the key in motivating people to reach their potential. You have tobelieve in them first, before they become successful, and sometimes even before you can persuade them to
believe in themselves.

E-mphasize their strengths

Some people believe that they should point out other people's weaknesses and try to help them to addressthese. I used to believe that also but now i disagrees and suggests focusing on people's strengths produces greater results. If someone believes that they havewhat it takes to accomplish some task, they are more likely to succeed than if they are focusing onaddressing their perceived weaknesses. Praise for positive abilities and skills should be both public and
private.

L-ist their past achievements

Helping people to recall their past successes can be a great source of encouragement. Many people lack theability to recall their past achievements, or may not be able to see the link between a past achievement andthe current task.We can get courage from the past.

I-nstill confidence & courage when they fail

Many people give up easily at the first failure. Encouragement especially kind words at this critical point can make a huge difference. A
good way of handling this is to tell of your own past failures. I often share my past failure with the people i train, teach or lead or close to me, it doesn't make me feel good tho but they get encouraged from my past failures. Often people won't realise that you have alsomade mistakes and had failures, but have managed to move on beyond them. This can be a huge source ofencouragement to people.

E-xperience some wins together

Assisting people to successfully complete a challenging task can be a huge boost to their belief in their ownability. Help people to achieve small successes and you build their ability to conquer larger problems. Boththeir faith, confidence levels and their skills are boosted in this way.

V-isualise their future success

Vision is the ability to see the future before it comes into being. This is one of the greatest asset any leader can have. In fact leadership is impossible without vision because all leaders exists to fulfill a unique vision.

I read a laboratory experiment which got me inspired where rats were dropped into jars of water. If the jar was left indarkness the rat would swim for just over three minutes and then give up and drown. If there was a ray of
light shining into the jar the rats could keep swimming for 36 hours! That's a powerful illustration of thepower of hope or vision. If we "cast a vision... and paint a picture of their future success" for people it will give them
a great source of inspiration, encouragement and motivation.

E-xpect a new level of living

We all live under the same sky, but we don't all have the same horizon. Encouraging people to stretch themselves and expand their horizons will help them to move on to a new
level of effectiveness and achievement.�