Cultivating Enthusiasm and Motivation

Your team's motivation and enthusiasm depend on your success as a leader. That doesn't mean you always have to win. You don't have to always outperform the competition. You don't have to make every goal you set, close every deal — you don't even always have to be right. More importantly than all that, you have to be true to your own vision of success.

Seeing Beyond "How"

Every member of your team wants to succeed, whatever that means to them personally. If you think of motivation in terms of "how" — pay, recognition and so on — you're thinking more about managing than leading.

Of course, pay is important. Completing short-term goals almost always boosts morale. You probably even share some of these motivating factors with your team, such as money, competitive status or any number of success factors.

Throughout your career, these details will change and there will always be new challenges. Through it all, you have something else. It's something that doesn't change and it's the core of your leadership practice: vision.

Motivating Yourself With Vision

Great leaders are all different in terms of personality and motivational style, but they all have one thing in common. They are all people who have refined their own personal vision to its full potential.

Having a strong vision means more than having a goal to achieve. It means having a reason that drives everything you do. Developing this takes work. You have to start small:

1.       Make a single statement

2.       Make it meaningful

3.       Make it yours

4.       Make it big, then bigger

You'll be repeating and refining this vision to the point that it becomes your mantra. The next step is to own it. Make it the reason for everything you do.

Sharing Your Vision With Your Team

Cultivating enthusiasm requires you to see more than what's happening right now. As a leader, your team trusts you to see the potential of your business — and beyond. You see more than paychecks, benefits and career advancement. You can show them you're worthy of that trust by communicating your vision clearly.

Your team will understand, accept and then finally own your vision. As you consistently lead towards your ideal picture of success, you should already be on the way to creating a culture that generates motivation and enthusiasm. 

Thinking Big

Right now, you're seeing at least far enough ahead to imagine yourself as the leader of an enthusiastic team. How much bigger is your vision than that? Once your team is motivated, what successes will you help them achieve? Once you're able to answer those questions in a way that your team can instantly understand, the enthusiasm should already be mounting.