Four Great Ways to Motivate Your Team for Success

Leaders intrinsically know that motivation comes in many shapes, sizes and colors.  Growing up, I was highly motivated to attend Boy Scouts on Monday nights because I wanted to achieve the next merit badge and I enjoyed having fun  with my friends.

In managing a City or County team, it’s important to continually leverage various motivational approaches so your team is inspired to do great work each day.

Below are four common ways in which most people are motivated:

• Having clear goals
• Receiving regular performance feedback
• Being coached to help make progress toward goals
• Receiving private or group recognition

You may not think that having clear goals and giving feedback (yuck!) is motivation but it actually is.  Most people WANT to know where they stand and where you expect them to be in 30, 60 or 180 days.   We all desire clarity and focus and having clear goals and regular feedback is a simple way to do that. 

Coaching and recognition are similar.   These two approaches to feedback are very powerful and let others know they are important and valued.   If you feel invested in and coached, wouldn't you feel more important? 

Because each leader has his or her own style of leading, they may be more comfortable providing motivation in one way over another.  As a leader, however, it is important for you to move beyond your own individual style and provide other types types of motivation that appeal to your employees so that they can thrive and give their best work.

In doing this your organizational culture will improve and you and your team will achieve more of your important goals.

In our next blog, we’ll talk about a different kind of motivation – one that creates an environment that leverages each team member’s unique style.   Stay tuned.

If your team could benefit from leadership workshops on topics like this, just let us know by visiting LeaderGov.com. 

You can also sign-up for LeaderGov's weekly video leadership lessons for insights like this at www.leadergov.com.   If you have questions, feel free to call us at 678-833-4310 or email [email protected].