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The Importance of Understanding What Motivates Your Team.

Effective leaders inspire others by balancing intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation, driven by factors like autonomy and purpose, fuels passion. Extrinsic rewards maintain morale. How can you tap into your team's motivations to achieve success?

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Great leaders create more leaders, not followers. Great leaders have vision, share vision, and inspire others to create their own.” – Roy T. Bennett

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It is apparent to me that great leaders can inspire and influence those who follow them, in this process, I have noticed that followers feel empowered to lead and innovate. Empowerment to act and grow is a key aspect of leadership that cannot be underestimated. To empower, I feel it important to first look at motivation and the way that others feel motivated. Motivation is the will to succeed and the desire to do well, this is an integral part of leadership development. You cannot lead someone who doesn’t want to be led.

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Whilst being motivated would be widely seen as necessary for a leader to succeed, considering motivation in two different forms, intrinsic and extrinsic, can help us consider how those around us, and ourselves, may be motivated.

Intrinsic motivation is the will to succeed by changing oneself from within and extrinsic motivation is the performance that is driven by external rewards.

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I wish to make the point here that individuals must be motivated from within and then they must be rewarded with external benefits and benefits to achieve the best results in organisations. This is clear from the emphasis that HR managers and senior executives place on matching rewards with performance that is first driven from within. This validates the importance of have strong core values that drive action and integrity to the way you behave.

In a recent study on students completing their schooling. It was found that there are six common intrinsic motivators that foster self-motivation and deep engagement:

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·     Autonomy

·     Belonging

·     Competence

·     Purpose

·     Fun

·     Curiosity

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I feel that employees who are only motivated by external rewards do not make great leaders and conversely, employees who are not rewarded for their performance stagnate and lose morale. Hence, the strategic fit between intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation must be just right for organisations to get the best from their employees. This is the reason many organisations go the whole distance in aligning incentives with performance. I think that unless employees are motivated from within, incentives and rewards can only help that much and unless high performers are rewarded appropriately, intrinsic motivation withers away. Therefore, I think there is a balance to be struck and that balance will be different for everyone so as leaders we must invest time in getting to know our colleagues to know what truly motivates them, some may benefit from financial rewards, others may be motivated by opportunities that are given to them because of positive, hard work.

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Culture = Values + Behaviour.

 

The culture of an organisation should be stated and clear for colleagues to find alignment. It is my opinion that employees that resonate and can connect with the values and the culture of an organisation will find intrinsic motivation to excel and progress because they will find energy in the alignment between how they feel personally and how they connect with the organisation.

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Having a higher vision for ourselves to succeed will filter through to small daily habits that lead to better performance and it’s in marginal gains that we find the drive to greater heights and higher performance.

As many theorists have pointed out, once the need for wealth and status is achieved, the higher needs of self-actualisation or the need to be driven by vision appears. Hence, I feel that intrinsic motivation is the driver for success as leaders and the rewards must match this.

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Understanding the way others and ourselves are motivated can be informative to the way we behave and act. Tapping into that motivation can help increase the vision of others and set goals higher.

Are you aware of the way your team are motivated, and is your team aware that you are aware?

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Want to contribute your thoughts? Join the conversation here

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