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Blog – Inspiration Research

One hour of your time – have you been inspired by someone?

Inspiration is a small and uneccessary aspect of leadership. If you have it, you are probably lucky or just highly developed as a human. But do our coachees develop inspiration in others? A key to this which I borrow from coaching senior executives for over a decade is the observation that inspiration, like charisma or ‘a brand’, mainly works easily in a new environment. This blog is part of our ongoing ‘Human at Work’ (©AngusMcLeod2011) series. If you do grow and develop inspirational charcteristics then these will invariably have more impact if you take them into another arena of work – by moving job into a wholly new environment. In other words, people often put us in boxes and once in, it is darned hard to get out! Yes, there are exceptions and these exceptions are themselves typically ‘exceptional’ e.g. where an individual comes to sudden prominence by doing something truly remarkable.

Now we have a chance to learn more about inspiration and the character of it in a more structured way by participating in the research work of Laura Murphy. If you have felt inspired by someone at work and both you and your ‘inspirer’ are potential interviewees (about an hour each) then do please contact Laura as below.

Laura Murphy is undertaking research on inspirational leadership with a view to publication and is focusing on the values aspect of leadership instead of looking at the usual leadership traits and styles.  She wishes to identify people who have been inspired by someone they have worked with and to interview both the inspired and “inspirer”, separately. In some instances the two would have been in the same company at the time and for others the “inspirer” was someone external to the company. If you are willing to be interviewed or just want to find out a bit more before you commit yourself, then Laura can be contacted on info@mtc2.co.uk.  She’s already interviewed a number of people but the more she can speak to the more robust the research.

Here’s a link so you can find out more about her:  http://www.mtc2.co.uk/about-us/associates/profiles/Laura-Murphy.xalter

I would encourage you to help Laura in expanding the research in this new and exciting area of work.

Angus

Visiting Professor of Coaching and,

External Supervisor of Research at Birmingham City University