Be a People Person

1. Relationships are the Foundation of Life and Success

People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.

Life's basis. Our success, fulfillment, and happiness are fundamentally tied to our ability to relate effectively with others. The core principle for building strong relationships is the Golden Rule: treat others exactly as you wish to be treated yourself. This means actively deciding how you want to be treated and then initiating that behavior towards others, even when they may not seem to deserve it, as demonstrated by changing a grumpy waitress's attitude through kindness.

Qualities we value. The qualities we are drawn to in others are the same ones we need to develop in ourselves to attract people. These simple yet profound qualities include wanting others to:

• Encourage you
• Appreciate you
• Forgive you
• Listen to you
• Understand you

See people as assets. Ultimately, you will either view people as adversaries to spar with or as assets to build up. Choosing to see people as assets allows you to help them realize their potential, transforming relationships into alliances where everyone benefits. The word "we" is the most important word in building these collaborative and fulfilling connections.

2. Charisma Comes from Making Others Feel Good About Themselves

Be more concerned about making others feel good about themselves than you are in making them feel good about you.

Defining charisma. Charisma is that special quality that draws people in, a personal magic that inspires loyalty and enthusiasm. While often perceived as inborn, it's a quality attainable by anyone who genuinely cares about others and works on their relational skills. It's not about selling yourself, but about selling others on themselves.

Traits of charisma. Using the acrostic CHARISMA helps define the key characteristics:

• Concern: Showing care for others' deepest needs.
• Help: Reaching out and solving problems for others.
• Action: Making things happen and avoiding being boring.
• Results: Producing success and helping others win.
• Influence: Leading others by sharing vision and credibility.
• Sensitivity: Feeling and responding appropriately to situations.
• Motivation: Giving hope to others.
• Affirmation: Building others up and believing the best in them.

Roadblocks to avoid. Developing charisma means removing hindrances like pride, insecurity, moodiness, perfectionism, oversensitivity, and negativism. These traits push people away. True charisma, rooted in humility and service, focuses outward, making others feel valued and important, which in turn makes you more attractive to them.

3. Confidence is Contagious and Essential for Stability and Leadership

Self-confidence is the first great requisite to great undertakings.

The power of confidence. Confidence is a crucial quality that makes you comfortable with others and convinces them to follow your lead. It's contagious; the confidence of a leader spreads to those around them, creating momentum. Confidence isn't fixed; it can be lost or built upon, and it has a great reward in providing stability and enabling you to stretch beyond your comfort zone.

Why confidence matters. Confidence provides stability in life, allowing you to be content in any circumstance because your strength is in God. It also stretches you, pushing you beyond insecurity to take daring adventures. For leaders, confidence is vital because it enables them to believe in others, bringing about positive change and eliciting the confidence of their followers.

Building confidence. You can develop confidence by:

• Establishing your worth based on God's value (you are priceless).
• Focusing on God, not your problems.
• Developing friendships with confident, encouraging people.
• Getting small wins under your belt to build momentum.
• Specializing in one thing you're good at.
• Developing knowledge of people and your "product" or area of influence.

4. Effective Leadership is Influence Rooted in Calling and Consistency

He who thinketh he leadeth and hath no one following him is only taking a walk.

Leadership defined. Leadership is fundamentally influence. It's the ability to rally people to a common purpose and inspire confidence. True leadership isn't just a position; it's earned by affecting the thoughts and actions of others. The followers of a true leader confirm their calling; the leader doesn't need to declare it.

Essential characteristics. Effective leaders possess five nonnegotiable traits:

• A sense of calling: An inner urging and responsibility to lead, often accompanied by a sense of victory and a desire to be used.
• Ability to communicate: Visually conveying a clear vision and building high trust with people.
• Creativity in problem solving: Using crises as opportunities for change and finding innovative solutions.
• Generosity: Serving others and giving freely, understanding that the measure of a leader is the number of people they serve.
• Consistency: Acting dependably in relation to people, principles, and projects, which builds security, provides direction, and boosts morale.

Growing people. Powerful leaders understand that a key task is finding ways to grow their human assets. Like Thomas Edison focusing on the research laboratory rather than just inventions, leaders delegate and empower others to implement and add to the vision. They translate vision into simple, clear priorities that others can understand and follow.

5. True Persuasion Helps Others Act for Their Own Benefit

You can get everything in life you want if you help enough people get what they want.

Persuasion vs. manipulation. Persuasion, derived from Latin meaning "through sweetness," is the art of convincing others that what's good for you is also good for them. It's about relating to the heart and head, not using force or intimidation. Getting someone to comply without convincing them is mere accommodation, not effective motivation.

Keys to effective persuasion. To persuade effectively, you must:

• Know precisely what you want to accomplish; a goal is a dream with a deadline.
• Place yourself in the other person's shoes, understanding what they know, feel, and want.
• Expose problems immediately to build trust and address issues upfront.
• Be prepared to take a risk and stand by your position.
• Appeal to a higher vision, helping people see how your goal aligns with what they truly want to become.
• Know when to stop; simplicity is eloquent, and hammering too long builds resentment.
• Cover your topic with enthusiasm; it can provide the edge you need.

Focus on their reasons. People are motivated by their own reasons, often emotional ones. Like the Irish servant girl who lured the calf with her finger, you must find "one of their reasons" – a way they will benefit – and they will follow. By helping others get what they want, you are more likely to achieve your own goals.

6. Respect and Trust are Earned Through Character and Accountability

Leadership is not a position that one is given. It is a position that one earns by proving faithful.

The credibility crisis. A lack of morality and ethics creates a significant credibility problem, especially among leaders. Leaders are on the frontline and susceptible to falling, and their fall can damage many followers. Leaders are held to a higher standard and judged more strictly because they have been given much.

Building trust through character. Trust depends little on status or position, but heavily on character. A person of integrity has a value system, determined by their walk with God, against which all life is judged. Authenticity, not image building, is key. This involves:

• Making decisions based on what is right.
• Being consistent regardless of who you are with.
• Directing credit to God.
• Allowing God to work through you to change others.

Safeguards for leaders. To maintain credibility and trust, leaders must:

• Keep their personal walk with God current and disciplined.
• Keep priorities straight: God first, family second, ministry/career third.
• Ask difficult questions about motives, methods, and timing.
• Be accountable to someone in authority.
• Be sensitive to what God is saying through others in the body of Christ.
• Avoid being overly concerned with image building or overly impressed by signs and wonders alone.
• Avoid being a loner; team up for support and accountability.
• Be aware of and honest about their weaknesses.
• Keep their commitment and heavenly vision constantly before them.

7. Encouragement is the Key to Helping Others Grow and Succeed

Encouragement is your key to helping other people succeed.

The power of encouragement. Encouragement is like a gentle rain that causes steady growth. It's the greatest management principle because you get the kind of behavior you reward. People spend time doing what benefits them most, and encouragement is a powerful incentive. It's more art than science, requiring sensitivity and skill.

Rewarding desired behavior. To be an effective encourager, identify and reward behaviors that contribute to long-term success and quality. Look for:

• Positive attitudes
• Loyalty
• Personal growth
• Creativity and applied creativity
• Risk-taking (within reason)
• Decisive action
• Simplification
• Quiet, effective producers
• Quality work
• Teamwork

Top rewards. While money and recognition are powerful, other meaningful rewards include time off, a piece of the action (responsibility), favorite work assignments, advancement, freedom/autonomy, personal growth opportunities, special time together, and thoughtful gifts.

Becoming an encourager. You can learn to encourage by:

• Appreciating people for who they are, not just what they do.
• Anticipating they will do their best, raising their expectation level.
• Admiring their accomplishments with specific praise.
• Accepting personal responsibility, taking the heat when things go wrong and giving credit when things go right.

8. Handling Difficult People and Criticism Requires Perspective and Skill

The effect of difficult relationships—whether they make us or break us—is determined, not by the treatment we receive but by how we respond to it.

Navigating challenges. Difficult people are inevitable, but you can choose how to react to them. Your perspective on yourself and others, your understanding of the relationship process, and how you handle problems are key. Often, our relational problems stem from unresolved issues within ourselves.

Understanding difficult types. Identifying common difficult personalities helps in dealing with them:

• Sherman Tank: Intimidating, aggressive. Strategy: Stand up directly on crucial issues.
• Space Cadet: Lives in their own world. Strategy: Don't evaluate leadership by their response; find areas for them to work alone.
• Volcano: Explosive, unpredictable. Strategy: Remain calm, remove from crowd, let them vent, focus on facts, hold accountable.
• Thumb Sucker: Pouts, self-pitying, manipulative. Strategy: Make them aware moodiness is a choice, expose to real problems, ignore pouting, praise positive actions.
• Wet Blanket: Constantly negative, impossibility thinker. Strategy: Don't reinforce excuses, kindly point out hindrance, encourage risk of positivity.
• Garbage Collector: Dwells on past hurts, negative. Strategy: Confront their representation of others, challenge generalizations, expose if necessary.
• User: Manipulates for gain, avoids responsibility. Strategy: Set limits, require responsibility, use a firm "no."

Handling criticism. Criticism is a cost of leadership and change. Learn to interpret its motive (constructive vs. destructive). Tips for taking criticism:

• Don't take yourself too seriously; laugh at your blunders.
• Look beyond the criticism to the critic's character and motive.
• Watch your own attitude; don't let a chip on your shoulder reveal pride.
• Realize good people, even Jesus, get criticized.
• Stay physically and spiritually in shape to handle pressure.
• See if there's a crowd behind the critic; is it a pattern or isolated?
• Wait for time to prove them wrong if you're confident in your decision.
• Surround yourself with positive people.
• Concentrate on your mission and learn from mistakes, don't dwell on them.

9. Developing a Winning Team Requires Unity of Purpose and Communication

The glue that holds a team together is unity of purpose.

Beyond uniformity. Wearing the same uniform or working in the same place doesn't make a team. True teamwork, like the builders of the Tower of Babel or John Wooden's UCLA Bruins, requires a common goal and the ability to communicate that goal effectively. Unity of purpose is the essential ingredient.

Key ingredients for teamwork. Building an effective team involves:

• Common Goal: The team must have a clear, shared objective that everyone understands and is committed to.
• Communication: The goal must be communicated effectively and constantly reinforced so everyone is aligned.
• Unity of Purpose: This is the emotional and intellectual bond that holds the team together, ensuring everyone is pulling in the same direction.

The power of "we". A winning team understands that success is a collective effort. Like the basketball player needing ten hands to score, individual achievements are enabled and amplified by the support and contribution of the entire team. The focus shifts from "I" to "we," recognizing that the team's potential is far greater than the sum of its individual parts.

Building the team. Leaders foster teamwork by casting a compelling vision, ensuring clear communication channels, promoting a sense of shared purpose, and celebrating collective successes. They understand that a unified team, even with imperfect individuals, can achieve seemingly impossible feats.

Last updated: June 11, 2025