3 Motivating and developing staff

Now that you have a better understanding of the dynamics of your team and how to support them, you need to consider their motivation.

Figure 5 Key words that capture the essence of motivation

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A word cloud incorporating words such as motivation, business, teamwork and success.

Figure 5 Key words that capture the essence of motivation

For a team to be motivated, they need to know what they are working towards and share your enthusiasm and commitment to achieving it. If they believe in you and respect you as a leader, they will often follow you when they are not yet certain about something. There are three elements that are required to facilitate this effectively:

1. a clear vision that you believe in, and a focus on the impact of the work you are doing
2. regular and inspiring communication to the whole team, not just your direct reports
3. leading by example and making yourself visible and accessible to your team.

These elements are equally important when working with virtual teams, particularly point 3 about making yourself visible and accessible. You may need to be more creative about how you do that online.

Professor Jean Hartley agrees that communicating progress is a crucial and sometimes challenging part of keeping your team inspired and focused.

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JEAN HARTLEY:

Another challenge is communicating progress. And this is something that some leaders actually fall down on. Some of them are very good at developing a strategy or developing a sense of purpose- maybe having the initial team meeting to talk about what it is that's going to be done or do some workshops at the beginning of a project, or whatever.

But experienced leaders will tell you that it's a real challenge to keep communicating what the purpose is and how you're progressing. And leaders say they often get quite bored with themselves, hearing themselves say the same things over and over. Because, for them, they've taken it in, if you like, or believe it.

But actually repeating it- not ad nauseam, but certainly on a number of occasions- can be really helpful. People may hear- they may hear the words, but they may not understand it initially. And saying it again later may help put everything into perspective. Or it may be that people were preoccupied early on and they didn't listen properly. Or it may be that halfway through a project, when people are starting to flag a bit and it's less exciting than it was, or whatever, it can be really important to remind people why it is you're doing what you are and why it's important.

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Before you can effectively motivate your team, a useful starting point is to think about what motivates you. Activity 4 will help you to do that.

A key method for motivating individuals is to show an interest in their circumstances. Support them, coach them, look together at their career plan and consider ways in which to develop them – most people will respond. Development doesn’t have to be all about attending a formal training course, it could involve:

• work shadowing/secondment to a different department or organisation
• taking on a new responsibility that stretches them, for example, chairing a discussion group or delivering some online training
• allowing a team member to implement a new idea they have had
• delegating some of your work to someone – showing you trust them to represent you
• encouraging someone to find or become a mentor, perhaps by making virtual introductions between hybrid workers.

Back in Week 3, Activity 6, you explored the benefits of creating and using a leadership journal. You could use it here to reflect on whether some of these ideas might suit your current team members.

The business advantages of developing a motivated team are significant and you explored them in Week 5 when you looked at the benefits of developing effective followers. A motivated team is usually happier and more productive, leading to better staff retention and improved business performance.