Sometimes you can be so busy that you fail to recognize the importance of your actions. If you don’t have time to talk with one of your team members, the motivation level of your team can plummet.
Poor actions can destroy a team’s motivation faster than it can be built or rebuilt. Even with high performance teams, maintaining motivation must be an ongoing priority.
Here are five key actions to place on the top of your priority list if you want to keep your team motivated. These are areas that are easy for us to make mistakes if we don’t manage our priorities. Put your people first.
1. Be accessible. No matter how busy your day, if you are not available when your team needs you, they will feel abandoned. Take the time to check in with your team members on a regular basis. Make sure they know you are available if needed.
2. Be decisive. Some decisions get delayed because we don’t have all the data or the time to evaluate the data. If the team is slowed down because they are waiting on your decisions, they will feel leaderless. If you don’t have time to make decisions in a timely manner, empower your team to make more decisions.
3. Show Concern for the Team. Slow down and show your team that you care. A team member will never give you 100% unless they know you care about them as a person. A team is built of individuals with different strengths and different challenges. As the leader, you must pull together the individuals. You must connect with each one individually to maximize the ability of the team.
4. Never Tolerate Poor Performance. Performance issues are best addressed immediately. Every delay, for whatever reason, effects the entire team. A leader can struggle in this area if they are not able to see poor performance as an opportunity to improve. You probably have been on a team where one team member was not pulling their weight. It can be very demotivating. Take action as soon as possible.
5. Focus on the Positives. We can become blind to the opportunities that are created through failure. By keeping attitudes positive, it is possible to discover a higher level of success. But if we focus on criticisms and punishments, no one will look for opportunity, and no one will be highly motivated.
There are many ways to destroy motivation on a team. Some are so basic, you should never have reached a leadership position if you struggle in these areas. These include being dishonest, taking credit for another person’s work, criticize someone in public, showing favoritism, and poor communication.
If you want to impact your team today, be positive, be available, be decisive, address performance issues promptly, and show them you care! Don’t just be their manager, be a leader.