Incentiving New Behaviors: What Leaders Can Learn from The Book 48 Laws of Power
- Stephanie Bickel
- 5 days ago
- 3 min read
By: Stephanie Bickel
Great leaders do more than communicate clearly. They influence behavior, shape culture, and create momentum through what they recognize, reward, and reinforce.
Many leaders feel stuck because they do not fully understand the rules of influence.
Once you learn them, you will be surprised by how much time, stress, and miscommunication you can eliminate. This is the foundation of powerful leadership.
As we enter December inside Speak by Design University and focus on Incentivizing New Behaviors, we are studying Robert Greene’s The 48 Laws of Power through an ethical, leadership-communication lens.
This book is often viewed as strategic, bold, and yes, occasionally controversial.
Yet behind every law is a practical idea about how humans respond to incentives, recognition, and influence. When applied through an ethical leadership lens, these principles can help managers build trust, inspire performance, and maintain momentum.
Below are three of our favorite insights. Each one supports what we teach inside SBDU: leaders shape behavior through the incentives they create.
When you recognize what you want to see, people repeat it.
When you stay silent, people stop doing it.
1. Never Outshine Your Leader
This law is often misunderstood. It is not about shrinking yourself. It is about elevating others.
High performing leaders know how to shine the light on their manager, their peers, and their teams. When people feel capable, supported, and seen, they deliver stronger results.
The incentive here is recognition. When you celebrate their thinking, invite their ideas, and position them as co-creators, they contribute more fully to the work.
Inside Speak by Design University, we teach leaders how to communicate upward with clarity, confidence, and composure. The same skill applies here. Show that you are capable, but do not remove your leader’s sense of ownership. Influence grows when people feel valued, not overshadowed.
Leadership takeaway:
Turn every success into a shared win. Incentivize initiative by giving credit out loud.
2. Create Cliffhangers
Incentives are not always rewards. Sometimes the strongest incentive is curiosity.
Leaders often overwhelm their teams with information. When everything is shared at once, momentum drops. People lose the sense of anticipation, progress, and discovery that keeps long-term projects exciting.
Cliffhangers are a communication strategy.
Reveal the vision in stages.
Share your plan in chapters.
Give people the next step, not all the steps.
This creates sustained engagement and keeps your team leaning in.
We practice this skill through structured messaging formats. A well-timed pause, a preview of what is coming next, or a staged rollout of new initiatives can build commitment more effectively than a fully disclosed plan.
Leadership takeaway:
Invite curiosity. Let people see what is coming next without showing the entire blueprint.
3. Earn and Embrace Attention
Attention is a leadership responsibility. When you lead people, their energy follows what you notice.
To incentivize strong behavior, you must make progress visible. Celebrate accomplishments publicly. Highlight milestones, new clients, deals closed, or improvements in communication.
Make success easy to see.
Leaders who do this consistently create upward momentum.
Energy rises because people want to be part of something growing.
Recognition becomes a performance accelerant.
At Speak by Design, we call this “managing the spotlight.” This is not about self promotion. It is about narrative leadership. When people can see the positive movement around them, they stay engaged, confident, and committed.
Leadership takeaway:
Shine a light on progress. When success is witnessed, it grows.
Why This Matters for Incentivizing New Behaviors
As we study Incentivizing New Behaviors in Speak by Design University this December, these principles help leaders understand how subtle communication choices shape performance.
Your words are incentives.
Your recognition is an incentive.
Your silence is an incentive.
Every interaction teaches people what to repeat and what to stop. When you use influence responsibly and intentionally, you help others rise.
Mastering these laws does not make you forceful. It makes you intentional.
That is what ethical influence looks like at the highest level.
Get the One Page Summary of Our Favorite Laws
We created a concise one pager of our top favorite 48 Laws of Power principles that support ethical, high impact leadership. It is designed for quick reference before meetings, presentations, and difficult conversations.
If you'd like a copy of this one pager, send us an email at team@speakbydesign.com.
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