Motivating Others

Leadership Is The Most Effective Tool You Have

Management is lonely, hard and demanding in responsibility . . . and, consequently, within your supervisory responsibility. Leadership is your biggest supervisory tool and motivation is the most important method through which you can apply your leadership ability.

Motivation in terms of its theoretical applications and pie-in-the-sky approaches will not be dealt with in this book. Being able to apply motivation the way you staple two pieces of paper together will be talked about. You are going to have tools, keys, to motivate those you supervise in such a manner that they don’t know they are being motivated. This is important. It is supervision at its very best -- motivation without bullying and inflicting fear and pain.

Motivation doesn’t originate as a group process. Motivation starts as a one-on-one situation. If Mrs. Jones is going to motivate Mr. Smith to do something, Mrs. Jones has to know what is inside Mr. Smith. She must understand and respect his thoughts and encourage him before she can meet Mr. Smith’s needs to want to do something.

Now fear comes into play! This was the gentleman in the back of the room who was all head and no heart. His motivational tool was fear. Now fear is the most viable motivator there is. It is just as valid as breathing, but it is totally negative. Fear as a motivator will get you eight hours of work for eight hours of pay for "X" number of tasks at its best . . . and no more! It doesn’t promote potential in a person. It gives you workers looking for ways to beat and outsmart you everyday. It becomes a battle of wits to see who can outwit whom. A worker who works under a fear system is a worker who is looking for a way to do you in every time they can. However, fear is a viable motivator. And, if it is the only motivational tool you posses, it is the only one you know how to utilize.

The young lady who was all heart and no head was talking about a pure "Y theory" of motivation. She walks in and praises (strokes) a person. As Mr. Smith comes in, she says, "Good morning, Mr. Smith. How are you doing, you sweet, good ole’ thing, you? Man, today’s work is going to make you better looking than you were yesterday." She is so good to him that before long, he just sits around and says, "My supervisor is going to be good to me even if I don’t do anything!"

What she has done is give this person the wrong kind of "stroking." His responsibility has been taken away. When you take away responsibility, you also take away the sense of accountability. When you take away a person’s sense of accountability, you take away productivity.

People want to be led. Now, don’t think it’s not important to be a disciplinarian. If Mrs. Jones goes down to her crew and says "Jump," everyone should respond by asking, "How high and when?" Then, after they have jumped, she can explain to them why. Sometimes instantaneous discipline is necessary to save a life. You have supervisory authority. You should use it, but use it correctly, humanely and constructively. It should always be instructive and used to find out why and not used destructively just because you happen to have a big ego stick.