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One of the most important tasks of Executive Directors and other nonprofit leaders is to motivate their teams. There are few things more painful to watch people lose motivation and commitment to the work.
As people managers and leaders we often rely on short-term tactics to generate extrinsic forms of motivation within our teams such as the use of fear or use of incentives to get people to change their behavior. If you don’t change then I’ll punish you. If you do change then I’ll reward you. The stick or the carrot approach.
As people managers and leaders we rely on these tactics because they are often proven to be effective, until they are not.
The tactics of reward and punishment to motivate people to change their behavior are powerful but they do not always work. We know this is true when we look closely at our own collective experience around COVID-19 vaccination in the U.S.
When these tactics no longer serve their intended purpose we need another set of tools to motivate people. But what are the other sets of tools?
There is research in the field of self-determination theory that suggests that it is indeed possible for leaders to create the conditions for intrinsic motivation to take shape in people.
“The theory suggests that people are able to become self-determined when their needs for competence, connection and autonomy are fulfilled.”
What I appreciate about this theory is that as people managers and leaders (the act not the job title) we can create the conditions to meet all three of these needs: competence, connection and autonomy in the collective work we do together.
The ultimate external reward for nonprofit organizations and social impact initiatives is when we succeed at achieving our mission. But other aspects of the work such as the opportunity to grow and achieve mastery (competence), build deeper relationships and networks of support (connection) and having freedom within the parameters of organization’s plans to take on individual projects (autonomy) may do more to generate sustained motivation over time.
Nelson Mandela said, “after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb”. As a mission-driven leader one of the biggest challenges is sustaining motivation or our teams to continue climbing and that requires looking beyond tactics of reward and punishment.
[LISTEN] The Major Key to Sustained Motivation On Your Team