What Motivates People at Work

About

Leadership

PERSONAL COACHING
Leadership onboarding coaching helps the executive adapt to the employer's culture, create rapport with their team and develop productive ways to achieve necessary goals.
SELF ASSESSMENT CENTER
Leadership skills and style testing. Know how you motivate and coach people to gain success at work and in life.
SELF-COACHING RESOURCES
Effective leaders keep up-to-date with effective self-coaching.
WHAT IS LEADERSHIP?
Leadership is an interactive conversation that pulls people toward becoming comfortable with the language of personal responsibility and commitment.
LEADERSHIP TIPS
“The crux of leadership development that works is self-directed learning: intentionally developing or strengthening an aspect of who you are or who you want to be, or both.” Primal Leadership by Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis & Annie McKee (Harvard Business School Press)

Career Management Books

« Leadership Debate: Individual Freedom versus Spyglass Government Control | Main | Scientific Management »

What Motivates People at Work

Most business leaders have lost sight of what motivates people at work.

In fact, some companies haven’t updated their management practices in years, which means they’re incapable of creating high-performance teams. In Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, former U.S. Department of Labor aide Daniel H. Pink says businesses commit “seven deadly flaws”:

1. Extinguishing motivation

2. Diminishing performance

3. Crushing creativity

4. Crowding out good behavior

5. Encouraging cheating, shortcuts and unethical behavior

6. Becoming addictive, obsessive

7. Fostering short-term thinking

So, how can you boost the number of actively engaged employees from the paltry 33 percent reported by the Gallup Organization?

Harvard Weighs In

In the 1920s, Harvard Business School initiated the first studies of human behavior at work.

Researchers found that workers’ and managers’ social needs had a powerful impact on their behavior. Workers enthusiastically embraced opportunities to contribute their thoughts, ideas and experiences regarding workplace issues.

Unfortunately, these findings failed to change work conditions for employees.