Idea 15: Motivating

There are six key principles for motivating others:

1. Be motivated yourself.
2. Select people who are highly motivated.
3. Set realistic and challenging targets.
4. Remember that progress motivates.
5. Provide fair rewards.
6. Give recognition.

Individuals are motivated by their requirement to satisfy a hierarchy of needs, such as that described by Maslow (more on this in Idea 30):

• Physiological – hunger, thirst, sleep.
• Safety – security, protection from danger.
• Social – belonging, acceptance, social life, friendship and love.
• Esteem – self-respect, achievement, status, recognition.
• Self-actualization – growth, accomplishment, personal development.

Each individual will be at a different stage or level on this hierarchy of needs and will have their own inner pattern of motivational needs.

Other than in financial terms, individuals are usually motivated if they can see that they will be given:

• Achievement.
• Recognition.
• Job interest.
• Responsibility.
• Advancement.

A good leader provides both the right context and climate and at least some of the opportunities for these individual needs to be met. This is perhaps the most difficult but also the most rewarding of a leader's challenges.