Making sense of inspiration

Leadership is about inspiring employee behavior as an alternative to inducing it (that’s managing). The challenge organizations face is how to motivate employees beyond the job description and performance objectives associated with compensation. This is the point of the obsession organizations have with leadership.Historically organizations have tried practices, such as “stretch goals” and bonuses, to obtain the “extra effort” they desire from workers. However, these are simply derivatives and extensions of managing, providing employees with extrinsic exchanges, which predefine and limit the effort of employees.

The desire for leadership is to tap into the intrinsic motivation of workers so they put forth effort for the benefit of something beyond the personal exchange of behavior for extrinsic reward. At the heart of leadership is inspiration. People use the word “inspire” often, but it’s common to hear the comment “you cannot inspire ….” (fill in the blank, “students”, “cashiers”, “factory workers,” “salesmen”, "teenagers", and so forth).   To inspire someone is not magic or charismatic - there are basic elements of motivation that make something inspirational.

For example, in the movie “Miracle”, where the US hockey team defeated the Russians in the 1980 Winter Olympics, there is the locker room scene where the coach Herb Brooks “inspires” the team immediately prior to the game. Some may try to immolate the coach’s speech to inspire others, or some may claim it was the coach’s personality that inspired and one either has that trait or they do not. The fact is if we analyze the speech looking for basic motivational principles, we see that the speech included practices that result in inspiration. Let’s examine some of these:
1. Saliency – the coach put the players in the moment, “one game”, “this is your time”
2. Efficacy – he strongly reminded them of their capabilities as hockey players, “we shut them down because we can”, “tonight we are the greatest team in the world”
3. Purpose – he appealed to their intrinsic sense of destiny, “you were born to be hockey players” and “you were meant to be here”
4. Challenge – the coach called upon them to essentially take the mountain, do what seemed impossible, “go out there and take it’
5. Social identity - a member of the US Olympic Hockey team

We see that the coach’s inspirational behavior was not restricted to a unique personality or some magical formula, but basic aspects of human motivation. The work place is not a one off event but a day to day grind against many odds. However, workers can be inspired to work for something beyond their own extrinsic rewards when managers also lead and provide saliency, enhance efficacy, and stimulate the intrinsics of meaning, purpose and enjoyment for their workers.

LMX Concierge is an affordable coaching resource that embeds inspirational practices to enhance worker motivation and remove obstacles employees need for accomplishing their assigned goals