5 Steps on How To Motivate Your Team As a Leader
Leadership and management skills are not coded into our DNA. Even the best leaders must hone their skills over time with hard work. Study, research, experimentation, and sometimes… trial and error. During these tough times, you’ll question everything you knew about how to motivate your team as a leader. Even during the optimal times, keeping a motivated team is one of the greatest challenges.
During a crisis, the great leaders will separate themselves by remaining the driving force of a motivated team. In this blog post, we’ll go over the types of motivation, how to keep happy employees, and different ways to achieve employee satisfaction.
What Actually Motivates Team Members?
Ask any team leader what motivates workers, and he or she will often create a list topped by “recognition of good work.” Sure, that makes sense. We all love praise. But have you talked to your team about what truly makes a positive impact on their motivation? Their answers may be very surprising and certainly enlightening. Understanding both intrinsic motivation (internal drivers like personal goals and sense of purpose) and extrinsic motivation (external rewards like bonuses and recognition) is a crucial first step for a good leader.
A few years back, a couple of writers from Harvard Business Review conducted an extensive study about this subject. The results were revolutionary and changed the way that we see managers and leaders. The researchers had hundreds of employees complete journal entries at the end of each workday. In this entry, they were asked to judge whether it was a “Good Day” at work or a “Bad Day.”
The results were quite surprising.
The Major Component of a “Good Day” at Work Was Progress Made in Meaningful Work
I’ve been a leadership coach for over 25 years, so knowing how to motivate your team as a leader was in my job description. When I started coaching high-level leaders and managers, my main coaching style focused on improving people skills. The reason was simple: people who work for you will always do a better job if there is a high level of trust and respect between each other and between them and the leader. A good leader who builds a high level of trust tends to have a more productive workforce and a positive work environment.
The HBR study took this to a much higher level. It explained why this coaching style works.
The “Good Workdays” most often included making progress in meaningful work. In contrast, “Bad Workdays” were those where the team member feels like they experienced setbacks. The happiness of the team members wasn’t related to the success of a meaningful project — just progress toward desired results. When people are moving toward a meaningful goal, they are happier than when they experience a setback. This sense of progress contributes to job satisfaction and keeps energy levels high.
How Managers Can Help Team Members Progress in Their Meaningful Work
The study also mentioned additional items that led to “progress” or “setbacks.” These are things that came mostly from the leader of the group or the other members of the group. Items related to the project or the meaningful work itself were listed as either a “Catalyst” or an “Inhibitor.” A Catalyst would be any external thing that led to more progress on the project. An Inhibitor was any external thing that made the project harder. These would include adequate resources to do the job or support from other team members, which are essential for a healthy work environment.
The final item that either led to happiness was “Nourishers” versus “Toxins.” Nourishers included praise or positive comments about the work of the team member. Toxins included anything negative aimed at the team member.
To make this whole thing really simple, if you want to motivate your team, you want to encourage positive things related to the meaningful work and the person. You also want to diminish the negative things that can lead to a setback for the project and the team member. This approach is one of the best ways to ensure a motivated workforce.
Examples of How to Keep People Motivated in a “Normal” Time
If your team thinks that the work they do is insignificant, morale will always be a challenge. For instance, when I was in high school, I worked at a fast-food restaurant. Serving fried chicken seemed pretty insignificant. However, the store I worked in had scored 100% on the last five “secret shopper” visits. Our boss told us that we had tied the longest-running 100% results in the region. If we scored just one more, we would break the record. He worked out a trade with the movie theater in the mall to reward the entire team with a movie night if we broke the record.
When the boss pinned the 100% secret-shopper report to the bulletin board, the whole crew applauded. He had turned a typically mundane activity into a team-building event that enhanced employee engagement and offered development opportunities.
The key to making work significant is to do two things. First, you have to establish mile markers along the way. Second, as a leader, you have to encourage the sharing of success stories within the group. It is great when the boss praises an individual, but when coworkers do it spontaneously, the praise is magic. Sometimes it is as simple as saying, “I’m glad you told me about that. Would you mind sharing that with the group at the next staff meeting?” This promotes a supportive team environment and a sense of ownership.
How Do You Motivate Your Team During a Time of Change or Crisis?
The opposite of everything we just covered is true as well. Making progress in a project, solving a tough challenge, or completing a difficult task can add to a team member’s satisfaction. However, experiencing a setback can be demoralizing. It often takes more positives to overcome even a single negative.
“Negative events generally have a greater effect on people’s emotions, perceptions, and motivation than positive ones, and nothing is more demotivating than a setback—the most prominent type of event on knowledge workers’ worst days.”
So, what happens when a series of negative setbacks are strung together? Keeping morale up can be more challenging, especially during difficult times.
Satisfaction Comes from Activities Like:
- Making progress at work
- Figuring something out
- Completion of difficult tasks
Luckily, difficult challenges are plentiful during a crisis.
Necessity Is the Mother of Invention
When Covid-19 first hit, we noticed that a few of our clients with upcoming meetings started postponing them. A couple of weeks later, they started canceling. It was a huge challenge for a company that specializes in making meetings more fun and in-person training classes.
One of these clients who had to cancel her program asked us if there was any way to do a team activity virtually. I got my entire team together on a Zoom call. “For the most part, Zoom calls are really boring and really one-sided. How can we make a Zoom call with over 100 people be fun and interactive?” On the team, I had experts with many different backgrounds. One was a technology expert. Another was an expert at improvisational comedy. About half were professional speakers.
We started by looking at programs that might most easily lend themselves to virtual delivery. We settled on adapting our team escape room. It took a few weeks to perfect the process, but when we finished the first Virtual Escape Room, we got overwhelmingly positive feedback. I remember saying to one of my instructors, “Man, I may never leave my office again.”
Morale shot through the roof. We all knew we were part of something special. What made the process so inspiring was that each person on the team felt instrumental in the success, contributing to a healthy and productive work environment. Creating that feeling is how to motivate your team as a leader!
Follow These 5 Steps to Motivate Your Team During a Crisis
1. Talk to Your Team Members One-On-One As Often as Possible
When your team members get discouraged, you as the leader have a powerful role in helping them stay focused. Sometimes it is just a simple positive affirmation like, “I know what you are required to do is hard, but I know you will figure it out.” However, when morale is low and stress is high, every day without a positive interaction with the leader has the potential to lead to a “Bad Workday.”
2. Set Mini-Goal Mile Markers
Break your big goals and projects into bite-sized pieces. As the team accomplishes these mini-goals, praise them. If a marathon only had a start and a finish, most people would quit very quickly. Mile markers are important to morale and are an effective way to keep motivation high.
3. Make Sure Your Team Has the Resources and Support They Need
I did a virtual meeting for a team a couple of days ago for a client who wanted to improve team communication. One of the team members was using a laptop so old that it didn’t have a camera or an internal microphone. How can you expect your team to function in a post-Covid world without the proper tools? Providing the right resources is essential for maintaining a positive work environment.
4. Try to Minimize the Setbacks as Best You Can
Anticipate how your current plans can run off the rails and have a Plan B or a Plan C. In 2020, you might want to have a Plan D, E, F, and G as well… Just in case.
5. Be the Motivating Force in Your Team
Realize that your team will be deflated by things that are outside of your control. You as the leader can motivate your team by showing how even the negative things that happen can be either a learning experience or an opportunity for growth. This positive attitude can make a significant impact on team morale and productivity.
Now, go motivate your team!
