By Jessica Petry
Motivation is a choice. A person makes a decision – consciously or subconsciously – to put the effort into accomplishing something.
Motivation and drive come from many places. In fact, both internal and external factors can cause people to want to achieve goals and do their best.
It’s common, and accepted, to speak of motivating people, but the truth is, no individual can actually motivate another. That’s because motivation comes from within.
People are motivated by their own unique desires and goals. Even so, as a leader, you still have the most critical role in the motivation process. Your actions set the tone and create the environment that motivates – or fails to motivate – employees.
Download our free guide to learn strategies to motivate your employees and drive better results.
“Managers have unique opportunities in their daily interactions with employees to empower them to discover and develop their strengths, and they have the ability to position employees in roles where they can do what they do best every day. When managers succeed in these endeavors, their teams become more engaged. Gallup has found that employees who feel engaged at work and who are able to use their strengths in their jobs are more productive and profitable and have higher quality work.”
SOURCE: Gallup Study, 2013 State of the American Workplace
Extrinsic vs. Intrinsic
Motivators are generally categorized as being extrinsic or intrinsic. Extrinsic motivators are enticements external to the individual. They represent the value the organization places on the employee’s work and the outcome of that work.
Intrinsic motivators are based on internal feelings employees find personally rewarding, such as a sense of accomplishment, and can be harder to identify. These are things like the opportunity to take on greater responsibility, or interesting and challenging work.
According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, people’s needs fall into five categories arranged in a hierarchy, with physiological needs at the bottom, then safety needs, belonging needs, self-esteem needs, and self-actualization needs. The lower needs in the pyramid are the most basic needs. These must be filled before the higher needs will motivate a person.
You can relate Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to your employees’ extrinsic motivators. For instance, comfortable working conditions would be included at a low level in the hierarchy and are like compensation – they’re necessary to satisfy these basic needs but their presence isn’t a strong motivator.
Extrinsic motivators don’t always have to be rewards – there are also negative motivators. For instance, fear of punishment and coercion are extrinsic motivators.
The infographic below shows how Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs applies to employee engagement.
