6 Things Good Business Leaders Do to Motivate Teams

All great leaders in the military or in the business world have been brutally honest in identifying their own strengths as well as weaknesses and have been willing to take the necessary steps to improve themselves. But the lessons don’t stop there. For leaders to excel, they must be firm believers in the value of properly focused and motivated teams.

One example of such value was shown in August 2010 in the aftermath of the cave-in at the San Jose copper-gold mine north of Copiapo’, Chile, where 33 miners were trapped 2,300 feet below the surface. In the following days, there was little hope that anyone survived, until two weeks later, when drillers who punched through the roof of the miners’ emergency shelter found a note from all the miners that they were still alive. After Herculean efforts on the part of rescue teams on the surface, all the miners finally were brought to the surface some seven weeks later, but not before the trapped men had organized themselves into teams, some searching for escape routes, while others took stock of dwindling supplies. It was this team focus above and below ground that saved the miners from certain death.

The effective leader knows that almost anything is possible with a properly motivated team devoted to the task. Keeping that team functioning at peak efficiency is the primary task of the leader. Here are some tools that will help get and keep them on track:

1. When in charge, take charge. Leaders need to set the tone for their teams. In the workplace the new leader must provide some sort of in-brief to the team, a brief that lays out the basics for everyone. There must be no question about what is expected by all parties.
2. Be an “information traffic cop.” Leaders are the most important communications conduit between clients, the team, and corporate headquarters. Embrace that role and ensure that information flows freely and smoothly to all the stakeholders.
3. Provide clear direction. Team leads must ensure that everyone understands the orders and the tasks handed out. The leader also must commit to following up on those orders so team members have a clear appreciation for what is really important versus what is of simple interest.
4. Stimulate innovation. Leaders must be capable of unleashing the power of innovation that is resident in every team. There are many brainstorming techniques in use today. Pick one and use it. Show your people the value of their ideas and then develop concrete steps that can be taken as a result of them.
5. Leverage an understanding of real motivation. More often than not, money is not the primary driver of employees’ productivity, particularly if their work involves a great deal of conceptual thought. Rather, it is their ability to make decisions and conduct activities autonomously and with an overall purpose in mind that works best. Those factors tap into an employee’s intrinsic motivation to excel. Leaders must recognize this and direct accordingly. Autonomy, mastery, and purpose are the real motivators for the 21st century workforce.
6. Take care of your people. Leaders have to ensure that their people are treated well, are working in a safe environment, and have a fighting chance when the company ranks its best employees. There’s no more disgraceful example of a failure in this regard than the tragedies last year in South Asia. In two cases, dozens of women working in sweat shops making clothing for large retailers were killed, the first when fire swept through their workplace, and the second when the building itself collapsed around them. Leaders don’t allow their people to be subjected to such dangers. That was a grotesque leadership failure, no doubt about it.

Effective leaders understand their people. They provide a firm foundation of expectations from the outset of a mission. They take steps to “get the word out” to everyone. They provide clear direction and follow-up as appropriate. They embrace the power of innovation in their teams, and they know how to motivate the members of those teams. Above all, they take care of their people. Keeping those simple concepts in mind will greatly increase the chances that yours will become one of those high-performing teams everyone else will try to emulate.

Tom Lang, CAPT USN (Ret.) is the former director of Intelligence and Training at Sentek Global, a provider of government and commercial information technology solutions, including security, program management, strategic consulting, engineering, software development, and acquisition support. He can be reached at tlang@sentekglobal.com.