Three Factors Of Leadership Motivation

Leaders do nothing more important than get results. But you can't get results by yourself. You need others to help you do it. And the best way to have other people get results is not by ordering them but motivating them. Yet many leaders fail to motivate people to achieve results because those leaders misconstrue the concept and applications of motivation.

To understand motivation and apply it daily, let's understand its three critical factors. Know these factors and put them into action to greatly enhance your abilities to lead for results.

1. MOTIVATION IS PHYSICAL ACTION. "Motivation" has common roots with "motor," "momentum," "motion," "mobile," etc. - all words that denote movement, physical action. An essential feature of motivation is physical action. Motivation isn't about what people think or feel but what they physically do. When motivating people to get results, challenge them to take those actions that will realize those results.

I counsel leaders who must motivate individuals and teams to get results not to deliver presentations but "leadership talks." Presentations communicate information.. But when you want to motivate people, you must do more than simply communicate information. You must have them believe in you and take action to follow you. A key outcome of every leadership talk must be physical action, physical action that leads to results.

For instance, I worked with the newly-appointed director of a large marketing department who wanted the department to achieve sizable increases in the results. However, the employees were a demoralized bunch who had been clocking tons of overtime under her predecessor and were feeling angry that their efforts were not being recognized by senior management.

She could have tried to order them to get the increased results. Many leaders do that. But order-leadership founders in today's highly competitive, rapidly changing markets. Organizations are far more competitive when their employees instead of being ordered to go from point A to point B want to go from point A to point B. So I suggested that she take a first step in getting the employees to increase results by motivating those employees to want to increase results. They would "want to" when they began to believe in her leadership. And the first step in enlisting that belief was for her to give a number of leadership talks to the employees.

One of her first talks that she planned was to the department employees in the company's auditorium.

She told me, "I want them to know that I appreciate the work they are doing and that I believe that they can get the results I'm asking of them. I want them to feel good about themselves."

"Believing is not enough," I said. "Feeling good is not enough. Motivation must take place. Physical action must take place. Don't give the talk until you know what precise action you are going to have happen."

She got the idea of having the CEO come into the room after the talk, shake each employee's hand, and tell each how much he appreciated their hard work - physical action. She didn't stop there. After the CEO left, she challenged each employee to write down on a piece of paper three specific things that they needed from her to help them get the increases in results and then hand those pieces of paper to her personally - physical action.

Mind you, that leadership talk wasn't magic dust sprinkled on the employees to instantly motivate them. (To turn the department around so that it began achieving sizable increases in results, she had to give many leadership talks in the weeks and months ahead.) But it was a beginning. Most importantly, it was the right beginning.

2. MOTIVATION IS DRIVEN BY EMOTION. Emotion and motion come from the same Latin root meaning "to move". When you want to move people to take action, engage their emotions. An act of motivation is an act of emotion. In any strategic management endeavor, you must make sure that the people have a strong emotional commitment to realizing it.

When I explained this to the chief marketing officer of a worldwide services company, he said, "Now I know why we're not growing! We senior leaders developed our marketing strategy in a bunker! He showed me his "strategy" document. It was some 40 pages long, single-spaced. The points it made were logical, consistent, and comprehensive. It made perfect sense. That was the trouble. It made perfect, intellectual sense to the senior leaders. But it did not make experiential sense to middle management who had to carry it out. They had about as much in-put into the strategy as the window washers at corporate headquarters. So they sabotaged it in many innovative ways. Only when the middle managers were motivated - were emotionally committed to carrying out the strategy - did that strategy have a real chance to succeed.

3. MOTIVATION IS NOT WHAT WE DO TO OTHERS. IT'S WHAT OTHERS DO TO THEMSELVES. The English language does not accurately depict the psychological truth of motivation. The truth is that we cannot motivate anybody to do anything. The people we want to motivate can only motivate themselves. The motivator and the motivatee are always the same person. We as leaders communicate, they motivate. So our "motivating" others to get results really entails our creating an environment in which they motivate themselves to get those results.

For example: a commercial division leader almost faced a mutiny on his staff when in a planning session, he put next year's goals, numbers much higher than the previous year's, on the overhead. The staff all but had to be scrapped off the ceiling after they went ballistic. "We busted our tails to get these numbers last year. Now you want us to get much higher numbers? No way!"

He told me. "We can hit those numbers. I just have to get people motivated!"

I gave him my "motivator-and-motivatee-are-the-same-person!" pitch. I suggested that he create an environment in which they could motivate themselves. So he had them assess what activities got results and what didn't. They discovered that they spent more than 60 percent of their time on work that had nothing to do with getting results. He then had them develop a plan to eliminate the unnecessary work. Put in charge of their own destiny, they got motivated! They developed a great plan and started to get great results.

Over the long run, your career success does not depend on what schools you went to and what degrees you have. That success depends instead on your ability to motivate individuals and teams to get results. Motivation is like a high voltage cable lying at your feet. Use it the wrong way, and you'll get a serious shock. But apply motivation the right way by understanding and using the three factors, plug the cable in, as it were, and it will serve you well in many powerful ways throughout your career.

2004 © The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

=====================================================

PERMISSION TO REPUBLISH: This article may be republished in newsletters and on web sites provided attribution is provided to the author, and it appears with the included copyright, resource box and live web site link. Email notice of intent to publish is appreciated but not required: mail to: brent@actionleadership.com

The author of 23 books, Brent Filson's recent books are, THE LEADERSHIP TALK: THE GREATEST LEADERSHIP TOOL and 101 WAYS TO GIVE GREAT LEADERSHIP TALKS. He is founder and president of The Filson Leadership Group, Inc. ? and has worked with thousands of leaders worldwide during the past 20 years helping them achieve sizable increases in hard, measured results. Sign up for his free leadership ezine and get a free guide, "49 Ways To Turn Action Into Results," at http://www.actionleadership.com

Supervisor Training: Helpful Tips to Lead Your Pack

A new supervisor is hired to anchor a gardening project... Read More

The Top 10 Questions for Socially Responsible Leaders

The assets of your business traditionally include property, plant, equipment,... Read More

Charismatic Leadership

What motivates people to work and to achieve? What circumstances... Read More

Always Be Open To Learning

"We should not only use all the brains we have,... Read More

Three Factors Of Leadership Motivation

Leaders do nothing more important than get results. But you... Read More

7 Excellent Ways To Improve Your Leadership Skills!

Did you know that there are 7 really effective yet... Read More

3 Aspects of Developing Leadership Skills

Everyone knows that great leaders are made, not born. However... Read More

The Power of the Leader Within - The Keys to Martial Arts Life Mastery, Key#1

"What do you want to be when you grow up?"Remember... Read More

Transformational Leadership

"What is leadership?" When this question is asked most of... Read More

Boy Scouts of America and Leadership Coaching

The Center for Management and Organization Effectiveness talks with Dennis... Read More

Act on Some of the Facts

Making any decision without having all of the information and... Read More

Leadership

Webster's defines leadership as : "1. the office of position... Read More

Asking for Help

For many of us, asking for help is a difficult... Read More

7 Core Elements Of Your Vivid Vision!

What you are about to read may be found in... Read More

The Personality of Leadership

Have you ever wondered what type of person or personality... Read More

Fighting the Gravitational Pull of Positional Leadership

A little on leadership?Many people enter the leadership world through... Read More

The Flexible Leadership Workshop

The Leadership ChallengeLeaders in today's society are faced with an... Read More

The Best Ways To Multiply The Extraordinary Leadership in Your Organization

Extraordinary Leaders are those who understand that in order for... Read More

In Leadership, The Eight Ways Of Right Action (Part 1)

The ancient Greeks had a saying: "When Aschines speaks, the... Read More

Exceptional Leadership Inspires the Best Effort in Others

There is a steady stream being written and taught about... Read More

Ten Qualities Of A Great Leader - Plus 1

Great Leaders are optimists first and foremost. Their tendency is... Read More

The Leadership Vacuum

In today's fast moving, ever changing, and highly competitive world... Read More

Your Ultimate Leadership Feedback Loop: Their Leadership

Life on our planet flourishes through feedback. If life forms... Read More

Mentors and Coaches: How to Be A Great Mentor

Though out your career you may be asked to become... Read More

In Leadership, The Eight Ways Of Right Action (Part 2)

In Part 1, I said that leaders who can't have... Read More