At work, the motivation usually appears, or disappears, depending on the attitudes of the leadership and, in this aspect, there are many sinful leaderships and responsible for the very low degree of motivation and commitment of the team. One of the most frequent complaints of the leaderships is the lack of commitment of the people. However, they forget that by pointing the finger at employees, there are actually three fingers pointing in the opposite direction to themselves.
The human being has some motivational and satisfying things that must be fulfilled in the workplace to keep the team satisfied:
Listen to your subordinates
If you are a leader, take 60 minutes to talk to your team. Book 45 minutes to listen and 15 minutes to speak. Of those 15, use 10 minutes to ask questions and use the remaining 5 minutes to give the final word. With this attitude, you will practice “knowing how to listen” and will attend to the first basic need.
Recognize your mates
Valuing and recognizing good employee practices is key to building an engaged team. But how to do this recognition? The best way is feedback, a conversation in which the employee’s positive and negative points are passed on. Other actions may also motivate the employee. For example: take him to defend a particular project idea for the board, especially if it was he who thought of the possibility.
Express your appreciation when you realize that there was a special dedication to a job to be well-done. Greet, congratulate, praise. People feel happy when they are noticed and recognized. Thus, you will meet the second basic need.
Have some space for mistakes
Recognize the positive intention of the person. All behavior has a positive intention behind it. Ever. At least from the point of view of those who practice it. Understanding this can be the solution to most employee relationship issues. Recognize positive intention, value it and seek alternatives. This sequence can solve most problems with the team. It is easier to understand the other, when we put ourselves in their place, we look at the situation with their eyes and we know the reason to do what it does. In this way, it is possible to disapprove an action taken by an employee, but still continue to value him as a person. Recognize people’s positive intent and allow them to learn from their own mistakes, so that they will be meeting the third basic need.
Prioritize the transparency of relations
A leader should be careful when speaking but cannot say just what people want to hear. When your actions are set in an attempt to please everyone, the result may even be comfortable in the short term, but in fact, the problem is only postponed. So be transparent and speak what needs to be spoken, even if it is a criticism. Otherwise, the employee may find that you have lied, lost confidence, and are feeling unmotivated.
Delegate tasks and responsibilities
The leader must be able to delegate tasks and responsibilities to the employees, showing that they trust their work. This is a way of motivating and recognizing that the employee is doing a good job. In addition, a positive point to know how to delegate tasks is to optimize the productive process, since the centralization of activities causes the leader to not account for all his functions, harming the progress of work.
Share company values
The employee must know the values of the company, but this does not always happen. The most common is that he is working and does not know what the mission, values and vision with which he should be aligned. In this way, he does not understand what the company expects from him and, as a consequence, he does not have as good a productivity as he could have. Therefore, it is important that the leader converse with each employee, sharing the company’s values and verifying that they are in line with those of the employee. This should be done on hiring, but also monthly, always remembering.
Set goals and set challenges
Goals are critical to corporate growth and employee engagement, which may otherwise not be as clear on the direction they should go. In addition, they are challenges for the team and encourage them to develop skills and competencies. Learning new things also keeps employees motivated, especially if they already have a profile that likes to be challenged. Therefore, understanding individual motivations is also a good alternative.
Encourage your team to think about innovative solutions
Allowing employees to think about their own way of solving a problem may be the best way to encourage them. So, motivate employees to think “out of the box” by finding innovative solutions. This posture also brings benefits to the company that go beyond the motivation of the team. With it, new ideas are tested in the company and can be implemented, improving the production process or even expanding the range of products or services offered by the business.
Invest in the company’s human capital
Of course, to engage your employees and have a high-performing team, the company needs to invest in human capital. This vision has been expanding and becoming popular in recent years, and today, human resources have been considered the main asset of any organization. This is because they make up the intellectual capital and add value to the company, offering competitive advantage. Investing in human capital is not only about increasing productivity and retaining talent, but also a way to get better results, develop skills and act strategically.
Be flexible and human
We have already talked about the importance of the leader being malleable, in order to find the best solutions to the problems that appear in the day to day. In this topic, the idea of flexibility is not related to this, but to the ability to empathize and act with humanity in your relationship with employees. Knowing how to listen to them, understanding their demands and studying real possibilities to serve them when it is possible and pertinent is a challenge faced by many leaders, but it makes a lot of difference in how it relates to your team.
Conclusion
The basis of motivation lies in the relationship and communication between the leadership and its leaders, and it is precisely here that the problems are more recurrent due to a series of factors, such as: aggressive communication, distant relationship, lack of clear objectives, absence of feedback, scathing useless and derogatory. Maintaining a motivated team requires leadership to be attitudes that are aligned with the wishes of the leaders and that make them feel respected and valued.
That’s why communication is fundamental, both to understand what your team expects and to gain their trust. The goal, in this case, is to enable employees to feel free to share their ideas and problems. Thus, everyone will be engaged in the development of the team and the processes carried out in the organization.
About Author
Sarah Feldman is a Marketing Manager and is currently working with Digital Express, a digital agency specialized in digital marketing in Dubai. She loves to learn and share about the latest digital marketing updates and trends.
