It is very important for a leader to know how to #motivate the employees. A leader is responsible to drive, energize and engage consistently with the team. We all know scenes from movies where leaders give very passionate stirring speeches in a war, a locker room, a competition, a race and maybe a race. How many times do we see scenes of common day-to-day workplace situation? Rarely isn’t it?
#Leaders enthusiastically telling others to be motivated would not work. Yelling it significantly louder would not work either. Simon Sinek during his interview once said, “Leadership is an accumulation of constant acts put together” which means that people would look up to their leaders, not because of one act of leadership but tons of it. It does not necessarily be a huge impactful act but rather an attitude that motivates other people around. There are few practices leaders should avoid maintaining motivation in their teams.
1. Possess poor listening skills
How long do we usually keep trying to talk to people who don’t want to listen? Once! If that is you, then we keep our best thoughts, ideas, innovations, and insights to ourselves, because we know we are wasting our breath. If you happen to notice one day, that you are the source of all the ideas, that should be a warning signal. The best ideas often come from those closest to the action and by definition, in your more senior role, that is no longer you.
2. Perpetrate the 3Cs – Criticizing, condemning and complaining
We have seen many demanding leaders explode with rage and disappointment, publicly lash on the troop and speak ill of employees to whoever happens to be around. This attitude guarantees no risk-taking and slow decision making among the employees. One may not be toxic, but it is hard for a leader to lift people up when they constantly putting them down. This will soon affect the #performance result for the whole team. It is best for leaders to study how to deal with the people’s mistake more effectively without putting them down. Besides that, inability to deal with employees mistake effectively can also make other employees feel demotivated all at the same time.
3. Promoting cynicism and sarcasm
Sarcastic remarks from a leader often affect badly on the team motivation. It can kill hope and enthusiasm among team members. People often take on their leader by example. Want positive outcomes? Then be positive in verbal and body language, as well as action!
4. Lack of interaction
Every busy boss is balancing tradeoff of their own concentrated personal production hours, with spending more time with the team. The important question would be that in our very busy life, how do we build common understanding and constantly share our ideas, experiences, and views on things. This would require time. Any introverted or selfish leader would not succeed at building real engagement with their employees.
5. Playing favorite
Childhood memories of the bitter taste of hopes and aspirations delayed or destroyed by favoritism pop up in the workplace whenever the boss is clearly favoring the few. You may be blissfully and innocently unaware you are even doing this. Remember, your job is to build people and manage processes. If you want to increase #motivation, that means to build all the people, not just your best buddies.