Mission Possible: 16 Ways to Motivate Employees and Celebrate Their Successes

A leader's primary function is to help employees develop a strong belief in the mission of the company and the importance of their individual jobs. Their secondary function is to ensure optimal results from delegated assignments and tasks given to employees. Excellent results spring from methods of motivation that help employees feel successful and increase their effort toward achieving goals and increasing performance.

Employees are the chief resource leaders can utilize to maintain and enhance their leadership abilities. Therefore, understanding and applying appropriate motivational methods for employees on delegated assignments is important for leaders. By motivating each employee to perform at their maximum level of efficiency, leaders also maximize their own success. Furthermore, as leaders motivate their people, they not only help the company gain financially, but also develop personal relationships between themselves and their employees.

Much research in behavioral science has focused on analyzing the factors that contribute to workplace motivation. Many studies indicate that the strongest factors are based upon individual self-determined needs. Aware of these factors, one can craft specific methods in the workplace to foster improvements in employee attitudes, their desire to excel, and their feelings of success.

Leaders need to apply such motivational methods to effectively stimulate their organizational unit as a whole and the individuals within it. Once done, their units will reach peak performance, free from slowdowns and negative influences.

Motivational methods are effective when they are aimed at individual satisfaction. This is necessary to understand because methods that are positive motivators for some employees are not always effective for others. Each individual is driven by specific needs that determine their performance and whether or not they will accept new assignments. If specific needs are not met, it inhibits the employee's desire to accept new challenges and delegated opportunities.

Outlined below are 16 major methods focused on individual needs and desires that leaders can use to effectively and consistently motivate their employees. When used by the leader intermittently, they produce high motivational success.

1. Help employees see the final results of their dedicated and consistent efforts as being part of advancing their own careers and futures.
2. Develop and utilize incentive programs that have a definite purpose and meaning for each employee. Linking incentives to productivity and results tends to be a more effective motivator than many other methods.
3. Take time to give employees deserved praise and meaningful recognition. However, effective leaders will utilize this method in moderation; otherwise, it becomes meaningless. Praise must always be specifically related to performance rather than vague comments like, "You're doing OK."
4. Provide all employees with goal-oriented job descriptions. This method charts a course for them to go in with specific actions they should accomplish to achieve positive results, and guidelines for how to be successful in assignments.
5. Give each employee the opportunity to achieve. Even small tasks and assignments can build success. Any taste of achievement is a great motivator.
6. Aid employees in determining personal goals. Leaders should link these to the overall goals of the company.
7. Help employees acquire and maintain a spirit of achievement. Careful planning and organization of tasks and assignments directed at meaningful results can accomplish this goal.
8. Help employees set and achieve personal self-improvement goals. These need to be realistic and achievable for individuals to grow and develop skills and knowledge.
9. Acknowledge and publicly recognize employees' accomplishments to reinforce the fact that they are valuable and important - a key need for individuals.
10. Help employees understand their value to the company, the leader, and senior management. By verbalizing employees' value or giving them letters of appreciation to acknowledge their efforts, leaders effectively reinforce that achievements are important to both the individual employee and others.
11. Tell employees how and why they are performing valuable and useful work. This means giving them effective and useful feedback about their progress in a way that focuses on personal productivity and how to increase performance.
12. Listen with interest to employees' problems, ideas, suggestions, and grievances. Remember, even if seemingly trivial or irrelevant, these things are important to the employee.
13. Never neglect or ignore an employee. A failure to provide individual attention is one of the worst mistakes leaders can make in terms of motivating or supervising their employees.
14. Enact a personal commitment to a vision and direction. Effective leaders show employees how to give personal effort and provide consistent performance to align themselves with the vision.
15. Help employees develop an increased sense of responsibility. Acceptance of responsibility facilitates feelings of success and a greater sense of self worth.
16. Relieve the boredom of assignments and tasks, where possible. Doing so makes work more meaningful for employees and allows them to be more creative and attain greater job satisfaction. Furthermore, it builds inward security and fosters self-motivation.

Timothy F. Bednarz, Ph.D. is Author of Great! What Makes Leaders Great: What They Did, How They Did It and What You Can Learn From It. He can be reached at 800-654-4935.