We know that strong performance often positively correlates with motivation.
That’s why leaders, especially those within sport, spend an enormous amount of time trying to motivate their teams.
Whether that’s through incentives, giving Churchillian speeches, handing out rewards, or even applying pressure, the conventional approach to motivating teams usually relies heavily on the “carrot and stick” model.
But does this traditional approach work? And perhaps more importantly, does it work long term? At Drew Povey Consultancy, we’d argue that this traditional thinking has it backwards.
Instead of spending time trying to motivate their team, leaders should dedicate more resources to creating the conditions for teams to motivate themselves.
How to motivate your team to perform better
1. Don’t wait for motivation
Perhaps one of the most common pitfalls when looking for ways to motivate the team to perform better is believing that you must wait for motivation to strike before acting.
This simply isn’t the case.
And it’s a concept explored thoroughly by the editor and columnist, Jeff Haden, in his book ‘The Motivation Myth: How High Achievers Really Set Themselves Up to Win’.
He challenges this conventional thinking by suggesting that motivation isn’t where performance starts, but something that performance creates.
He illustrates his point with something called the ‘virtuous cycle’ – where action creates progress, progress creates confidence, and confidence fuels motivation.
In essence, this means leaders should simply help people to get started. Action brings small wins, those wins encourage further action, and confidence and motivation begin to grow.
2. Determine whether you’re lighting fires or filling buckets
Not everyone is motivated in the same way.
Teams are often made up of people with different mindsets, approaches, and skills. That diversity is part of what makes a team so effective. Leaders must adapt their approach to the individual skills and utilise situational leadership.
That means they need to take the time to understand what drives each person. It might be challenge, confidence, responsibility, recognition, or even a greater sense of purpose.
In short, they need to find out whether it’s more effective to light a fire or fill a bucket for each individual on their team.
Once they’re uncovered what motivates each person, they can utilise this knowledge to unlock improved performance.
Leaders need to ask themselves: do I really know what motivates each person in the team or am I just guessing and offering them a one-size-fits-all solution?
3. Leverage ownership to create investment
The power of giving someone responsibility should never be underestimated.
We all know from personal experience, there’s a clear difference between being told what to do and being given responsibility for making something happen.
While control supports compliance, ownership promotes commitment. The most effective leaders understand this: they give their teams clarity about the destination, but the freedom to choose the journey.
This a common scenario in sport – especially when a new a coach is introduced to the team.
Outsiders might mistakenly attribute the team’s success to the new coach giving them instructions, but in reality, the coach may have simply helped them to identify and own their responsibilities.
Because once teams take on ownership and can see what they’re helping to create, they’re naturally more invested and energised.
4. Remove the brakes before pressing the accelerator
Concerned that your team looks unmotivated? In many cases, teams that seemingly lack motivation are just frustrated.
This is particularly common in organisations where you have competing or confusing priorities. For example, perhaps systems are inefficient, back-to-back meetings keep staff stationary, or unnecessary processes drain energy.
Whatever the issue might be, leaders often want to throw more effort at the problem instead of removing the friction.
Think about riding a bike.
When we want to go faster, we assume we need to pedal harder. However, what’s really going to drive results (and minimise effort and burnout) is reducing the friction.
Therefore, if leaders really want to motivate their teams to perform better, they need to stop standing on the brakes: identify and remove the obstacles that are preventing their people from moving forward.
5. Be authentically positive
At Drew Povey Consultancy, we often talk about leaders casting a shadow or changing the weather when they enter the workplace.
This is because leadership behaviours and attitudes are incredibly contagious.
A leader’s energy, optimism, responsibility, resilience, influence all has a big impact on the people around them.
It’s important to note, however, that false positivity just doesn’t work.
Your team needs to believe you’re being authentic. Otherwise you risk looking like someone who pretends everything is fine when it isn’t – and that breeds mistrust.
While it can be challenging to maintain positivity particularly when things are hard, it can be achieved by celebrating progress, recognising specific behaviours, and simply creating hope for what is possible.
Because when there’s hope on the horizon, there’s power in the present.
Stop chasing motivation, build it instead
Motivation isn’t a one-off epiphany moment of inspiration; it’s something we build gradually over time.
If you want to motivate your team to perform better, then start small. Create some progress through ownership and purpose. Cultivate the right environment and recognise the improvements along the way.
Repeating this cycle will build confidence and create the conditions where people motivate themselves rather than look to you – as the leader – to do it for them.
Because sometimes we don’t need to feel better to get started, we need to get started to feel better.
Get in touch with Drew Povey Consultancy
Still unsure how to get your team to perform better? Motivation is just one part of the puzzle.
Fortunately, the highly experienced Drew Povey Consultancy team can help you to identify all the pieces, put them together in the right places, and see the bigger picture.
Specialising in supporting elite level sport, education, and business organisations, we offer bespoke leadership coaching services – either on a 1:1, team, and keynote delivery basis.
Whether you know exactly what you’re looking for or require a helping hand understanding what leadership support would work best, don’t hesitate to speak to our team today.