A participant from one of our current leadership programs shared an interesting insight with me and to take it to a wider
audience I am writing this blog.
He reminded me of the distinction between intrinsic motivation and extrinsicmotivation:
Intrinsic is when our employees are passionate about a task and perform it for the sheer pleasure of completing it;
Extrinsic is when a task is performed because of some kind of force – either external like money, rewards, punishment; or internal like a value that impacts an employee’s sense of self worth
Motivation is the driving energy that catalyses behaviour and creates the culture of the business and therefore, ultimately, a leader’s goal to create an ‘intrinsically motivating environment’
Leadership Teams drive the culture of the business and to create the most highly constructive culture then their focus has to be to increase intrinsic motivation and decrease the impact of extrinsic motivation.
It’s simple – when people feel significant, they are engaged and they are intrinsically motivated – so stop focusing on the rewards systems and focus on caring for the individual.
