Positive motivation and establishing connection
It can never be under estimated the power of positive motivation and how it creates a personal connection. Truly an important part of team management, especially in scenarios where the industry is filled with competent and highly motivated people. There are many different approaches taken by leaders, one approach that is highly effective is the Servant Leadership. This is where leaders work to facilitate the performance of team members to work toward achieving their goals; basically leaders strive to “serve” their followers.
The thinking here is that it enables resources to do their best. Some may say this is a passive approach to leadership, essentially involving the team with the decision making process. Doing this goes beyond seeing that the direct needs of people to perform their jobs are being fulfilled, it also includes looking after the emotional wellbeing of people. As it has been said and documented that people who are happy and feel better about themselves, the tasks they are working on contribute more.
In speaking about Servant Leadership, business expert Ken Blanchard advocates for leaders taking their time to go out of their way to praise team members in a personal way – in a caring way, in his words – for hard work. According to him, this means, “Walking around and catch them doing something right, then giving a one-minute praising.”
People can see when praising of this nature is over the top and hence can remove its effectiveness. Being able to hand out positive reinforcement is a skill, one of which is to know when it is needed. Be mindful of the environment you are in, the application of the technique should depend on the location and the specific circumstances.
When leading teams, positive praise can be given out anywhere. It can be in work groups, project teams, or any place where you are in a leadership position and motivation is called for. To some degree a level of reward can be almost anything, from words of praise to a box of chocolates. The method and the prop should be your signature, which you can take from organization to organization and team to team. This will separate you from the rest of the pack, and you will more likely be remembered.
The key to selecting your prop is to understand your team, environment and situation. It is to understand what makes team members smile and happy. The gesture itself and the thought behind it are more important than the physical item or action employed.
One of the metrics on which leaders are often judged is the successful achievement of project delivery or organizational goals by team members. Knowing how to motivate helps to bring out the best performance from members of the team. It not only helps to get the task accomplished immediately, but helps to build a good connection and foundation for getting things done the next time as well.
Please share your motivational thoughts regardless if you are a leader, or what you would expect from a leader. As understanding connection and how to motivate goes in more than one direction.