How To Motivate Your Employees As A Leader

One of the core tasks of team leaders is keeping motivation and inspiration high. This doesn’t mean all great leaders are charismatic and inspiring. In fact, the opposite is often true. Motivating employees isn’t about what you say to them, it’s about understanding what they’re seeking from work.

And while understanding the unique desires of each team member might take a while, there’s a proven model for understanding human motivation that just might help you uncover your team’s motivation mysteries faster. In the mid-1980s, researchers Edward Deci and Richard Ryan outlined a model of motivation called “ self-determination theory.” Their theory posited that intrinsic motivation comes in three forms: autonomy, competence, and relatedness.

In this article, we’ll outline each pillar of motivation and offer some practical ideas for leveraging it to motivate your employees as a leader.

Autonomy

The first way to motivate your employees is through autonomy. In Self-Determination Theory, autonomy is the desire to be causal agents of our own lives. In other words, we want to call the shots on how we work and live. People who experience autonomy at work feel like they get to determine how they do their work, when they do their work, and maybe even who they get to work with. When people feel like…