Let’s talk about motivation.

A person can be anything from demotivated to highly motivated. Employees get demotivated when they feel unfairly treated or disrespected, for example if they get paid less than their peers, or have a dangerous work environment. Satisfying basic needs – like fair pay and a safe workplace – will cure the demotivation, but interestingly, once it’s neutral, adding more pay or more security won’t raise motivation. People will be happy, but not likely more motivated to work. To move from neutral to highly motivated, people need other things, such as appreciation, mandate to do things, knowing their work is meaningful to somebody – things like that.

This gap is important to understand, because an employee’s rise in motivation beyond neutral can lead to a huge rise in productivity and creativity. The same employee becomes more valuable – and happier, most likely.

So, there are two sets of motivational factors–one at the bottom of the scale, and a different set of factors at the top. In academics, this is called the 2-factor theory of motivation. The basic needs are called hygiene factors and top factors are, quite reasonably, called motivators. Hygiene factors alone won’t get people highly motivated, but you can’t ignore them either – you need both. Even enthusiastic employees will quickly become demotivated if they feel disrespected.

Most hygiene factors are outer, or extrinsic motivation, meaning they come from outside the person; they are controlled by others. Most motivators, on the other hand, are inner, or intrinsic, meaning that they come from inside the person and are more about finding the work meaningful in itself. Inner motivators can be summarized as autonomy (feeling independent), competence (just being good at your job) and purpose (that the work has a meaningful outcome).

What motivates your team? Before answering, please be aware that usually, for some reason, humans find inner motivators much more important to themselves, but believe that outer motivators are the most important to other people.

Another common misunderstanding is what psychologists call the Fundamental Attribution Error. Humans tend to believe that when other people make a mistake, it’s because of ‘how they are’, as opposed to when I make a mistake myself – then it’s an exception.

This is a dangerous error for leaders to make because it can make us blind to employees’ potential. Potential is not always obvious; some exploring may be needed to uncover it.

So, what does all this mean for exploring leaders?

– First, highly motivated employees are much more likely to level up and explore, so to encourage inner motivation is a central part of exploring leadership. Autonomy, competence and purpose.
– Second, be aware of the common traps – believing that people are best motivated by outer factors, and that they can only do what they have shown so far.

But can all employees level up? My suggestion is that you start by assuming that they all can.

So, explore! Maybe they can do more than they know.