Employee motivation: a management task?

Employee Motivation: A Leadership Task?

April 6, 2023 – The leadership task of motivating employees is very multifaceted. This is often not sufficiently considered in discussions about the topic of employee motivation. This is also shown by a debate contribution published in the magazine PersonalSchweiz, featuring myself and Reinhard Sprenger.

Is it the responsibility of a leader to motivate their employees or not? This has been actively debated for decades among consultants and HR professionals. The pendulum swings back and forth depending on the situation and context.

In my view, the motivation debate is a pseudo-debate because employees as wage earners must naturally bring a certain level of self-motivation to perform their tasks well. But does this free their leaders from the task of motivating their employees? No, this is and remains one of their core responsibilities!

Motivating Employees Means More Than Just Praising Them

The endless debate on this topic, in my opinion, is also due to the fact that many players in the HR field have a limited understanding of motivation. They largely equate motivating with praising employees for their skills, engagement, and performance.

Of course, this is sometimes important in everyday leadership, as many necessary attitudes and behaviors in the workplace – such as punctuality, reliability, etc. – are not as self-evident as they may seem to some leaders. Unfortunately, they often only realize this when the employees in question have left the company.

Motivating Also Means Involving Employees

However, the task of employee motivation encompasses much more. It includes, for example, the sub-task of engaging in a dialogue with employees about why completing certain tasks and achieving certain goals is necessary for them to find their work meaningful. It also involves communicating with employees about how collaboration should occur, ensuring they have the necessary orientation in their work and find it fulfilling. Furthermore, it’s important to convey to them in everyday life that I see you not only as a workforce but also as a person with your own interests and appreciate you as an individual, because: Only through interpersonal contact does a relationship develop, leading to an emotional bond, which in turn fosters identification with the team, the company, and one’s own tasks.

Leaders Must Function as a "Social Glue"

The leadership task of being the "social glue" that holds the team together has gained significant importance in recent years. Factors such as the Corona pandemic, the Ukraine war, and their consequences like inflation, energy crises, and supply shortages have greatly unsettled employees. This means that the centrifugal forces are increasing – for example, their desire to look for job alternatives.

Additionally: Employees today work largely virtually with their colleagues in many companies (or areas of them). This means that they meet less frequently in person. Therefore, leaders must increasingly strive to maintain team spirit within their team; for instance, by communicating more frequently and personally with their employees in home office settings.

Challenge: Being a Meaning Creator and Relationship Manager

In summary, this means: Leaders must understand themselves even more than before as meaning creators and relationship managers, thus as motivators for their employees and teams. Raising leaders’ awareness of this and strengthening their competence in this regard is today one of the central functions of leadership development.

Author: Barbara Liebermeister