For a leader to be successful, he must find ways to motivate his team members. This paper discusses the two most important things a leader should do in order to motivate his members.
Also, the paper will highlight on the reasons why motivation is important. Motivation is an outer force that drives individuals into achieving their targets in life. It is also the ability to influence individuals to follow their duties and responsibilities (Thomas, 2009). Hence, motivation is one of the key principles in leadership and performance management in an organization.
The two most important things a leader should do to motivate his team members are: performance appraisal and instilling team work spirit. Performance appraisal is the assessment of employees’ performance. In other words, it’s the reviewing of employees’ productivity or output (Thomas, 2009).
The best performance appraisal is the one rated by the employees themselves. This is because it is only the employees who know their strengths and weaknesses. From the employees’ evaluation, a leader will be able to allocate duties appropriately for growth and development of an organization. Also, the leader will be able to distinguish between excellent and poor performers.
Outstanding performers should be rewarded while poor performers should be counseled, warned or placed under training. Incase a company uses a merit based pay, highly rated performers will earn more compared than the lowly rated ones. This method motivates the high performers to continue working hard and the low performers to improve (Thomas, 2009).
The other important factor is the growth of team spirit. As a leader, being an actual member of a team is the most powerful tactic to motivate employees. This is because it grants all members an opportunity to learn from each other; especially from their leader. Team spirit also encourages employees to contribute in decision making, resolving conflicts and strategy planning (Robertson, 1996).
Performance appraisal helps a leader to measure his employees’ production, and also in setting of new goals and standards for his organization. In addition, it helps a leader to successfully calculate the probability of the company’s success or failure. Other than that, the leader will be able to allocate the perfect duties for each employee. Finally, he will be able to pick out employees who are a liability to the company and find ways of changing the employee to an asset.
Team spirit does not only provide motivation, but enhances learning. This is achieved through working together, sharing ideas and communicating openly with each other. Weak performers will learn from the strong ones and in turn, empower the team as a whole increasing performance.
Also, participation of employees in all the areas of the organization will make them understand the reasons behind some decisions. It also contributes in the solving of conflicts and enables the employees to willingly accept the changes implemented (Robertson, 1996). Apart from that, team work enhances organizational commitment, effectiveness and efficiency. Furthermore, motivated employees will take pleasure in their work and the overall result will be an efficient organization.
In conclusion, in order to increase performance in an organization and make it achieve its goals, team building is necessary. As discussed above, team spirit and performance evaluation are important factors in improving an organization’s performance. Most importantly, motivated employees will find passion and joy in their jobs (Robertson, 1996).
References
Robertson, C. L. (1996). The ASTD Training and Development Handbook. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Thomas, K. W. (2009). Intrinsic Motivation at Work: What Really Drives Employee Engagement. Chicago: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.