As a young manager, I focused much of my leadership effort on motivating my employees. My goal was to increase the employee’s level of engagement and their desire to excel, which, I expected, would increase my team’s productivity.
I read many books on how to engage with and motivate employees. Unfortunately, trying to implement the techniques I had learned from reading the books didn’t yield the level of results I’d hoped.
As it turns out, motivating employees is a lot more complicated than I had initially realized. It was only later in my career that I discovered the real secret of increasing the level of engagement and productivity. I found that the secret to motivating my employees did not lie in my ability to motivate others but in my ability as a leader to inspire them.
Motivating Others
Generally speaking, motivation takes one of three forms; fear, incentives, or attitude.
Fear
Fear is a common motivator. You may have heard a parent say to a child, “Clean your room, or you will not go to Billy’s party,” so, in essence, you’ve listened to fear being used as a motivator.
Managers also use fear as a motivator in the workplace. A manager might threaten, “If you don’t get production up 10%, I’ll find someone who can!”
Incentives
Incentives are considered to be a more enlightened motivator when compared to the use of fear. Dad might say, “We can go to the ballgame tomorrow if you finish your chores today.”
The incentives that companies tend to offer to motivate their employees take many forms. Common incentives include things like contests, increased commissions, pay raises, a certificate or a plaque, and so on.
Fear and incentives are external motivators. The disadvantage of using fear and incentives as a motivator is they are temporary and often negative.
Attitude
Attitude motivation is classified as self-motivation. The internal drive causes us to try new things, challenge ourselves, set goals, and strive for success.
Self-motivated people do not wait for an external stimulus to act. Self-motivated people respond to challenges by setting and working toward personal goals.
Leaders can shape and sometimes channel employees’ self-motivation, but they can’t initiate it because it is internal to the employee.
Sadly, a leader’s ability to motivate employees was minimal back when I was a young manager, and it isn’t any more effective today. If it were, we wouldn’t keep seeing studies revealing that 67% of American employees are either “not engaged” or “actively disengaged” at their workplaces. Net, only 33% of employees are “engaged” at work!
It is time we stopped trying to motivate employees and become leaders capable of inspiring employees!
Inspiring Others
Imagine the impact on productivity if even 50% of employees were engaged in the workplace! A study by Bain & Company found that “inspired” employees were twice as productive as employees who were merely “satisfied.”
We are mixing and matching studies here, but if an “inspired” employee is “engaged,” then the folks at Bain are really onto something.
The real key to increased productivity lies not with trying to motivate employees but with leaders who are capable of inspiring employees.
The next phase of Bain’s research looked at what makes an inspiring leader. Their study found 33 characteristics common among inspiring leaders. These 33 characteristics were grouped into four buckets:
1) Leading the Team
The characteristics grouped in the “Leading the Team” bucket include Vision, Empowerment, Focus, Direction, Co-creation, Harmony, Servanthood, and Sponsorship.
2) Connecting with Others
The characteristics grouped into the “Connecting with Others” bucket include Vitality, Humility, Empathy, Development, Assertiveness, Listening, Expressiveness, and Commonality.
3) Developing Your Inner Resources
The characteristics grouped into the “Developing Your Inner Resources” bucket include Stress Tolerance, Self-regard, Self-actualization, Emotional self-awareness, Flexibility, Independence, Emotional expression, and Optimism.
4) Setting the Tone
The characteristics grouped into the “Setting the Tone” bucket include Worldview, Openness, Shared ambition, Responsibility, Follow-through, Unselfishness, Recognition, and Balance.
If you’ve been counting, you noticed only 32 characteristics listed in the four buckets. The 33rd characteristic is Centeredness. Centeredness is the ability to engage all parts of the mind to become fully present. Centeredness is the essential characteristic of leaders who inspire and the only one that is considered mandatory. Being centered, says Bain, is a precondition to effectively using one’s leadership strengths.
The Most Powerful Combination
The next step in Bain’s research sets out to determine what combination of these characteristics is the most powerful. No one is a superstar in all 33, so there must be an ideal combination that makes for the most inspiring leader.
The surprise of their research was beyond centeredness; no specific combination of other characteristics was better than another! The key to being an inspiring leader is to have more than one characteristic as a strength. For example, a leader with one strength in any of the four groups is likely to inspire 62% of people. Two strengths bump you up to 67% of people. Three strengths inspire 82% of people, and four strengths make you inspiring to 91% of people.
So, to become a leader who inspires others, you need to get centered first. Then look at your strengths among the list of 32 characteristics and pick 3 or 4 to leverage. It doesn’t matter what they are. It doesn’t matter which bucket they come from. It only matters that you have strength in 3-4 areas.
When you have strength in multiple areas, you will be a leader capable of inspiring others!
Join the Conversation
As always, questions and comments are welcome. Which of these characteristics of inspiring leaders resonates the most with you? Can you see yourself developing strengths in 3-to 4 of them?
I’d love your help. This blog is read primarily because people like you share it with friends. Would you be kind enough to share it by pressing the share button below?
Category: Skills | Leadership Development
