How To Boost Employee Motivation With Better Leadership?

It is an astonishing fact - repeatedly shown in numerous surveys - that two-thirds of the workforce are not engaged in their work. Imagine the magnitude of lost productivity and innovation this represents! It also lies at the heart of much workplace strife and it denies workers any chance of true satisfaction from their working life. It begs the question - what causes this lack of employee motivation?

No doubt the responsibility is shared - the workers may have limited vision and aspiration. They also inherit decades of conditioning which implies that work is something that has to be endured and that effort should be limited to the minimum. It's no accident that there are many more negative terms for work than positive ones.

But a good deal of the shared responsibility lies with those in authority. Much of what passes as leadership is ego-driven and rooted in self-interest. Much is small-minded, lukewarm or insipid.

When individuals are made leaders simply by position and title, they inherit authority rather than earn it. Often they are driven to protect their own position and spend more effort in preserving the status quo than in making genuine moves to advance the fortunes of the organization or the people working in it.

Meanwhile natural leaders of the future stay in the shadows. They either hold themselves back feeling they can't compete with the cultural bias or they are kept in the margins by the established power base.

The result is a shortage of true leaders - the leadership vacuum. The clear conclusion is that to win greater engagement and to transform levels of employee motivation, we need a leap in the standards of leadership.

This is where you could make a real difference. It means stepping forward, prepared to be visible. This takes courage and persistence. But most of all it takes the willingness to break with conformity. If you remain entirely within convention then the results you get will simply perpetuate all the faults and the lost engagement that are already familiar.

You have a rebellious side - if you don't believe me cast your mind back to your teenage years. It's likely that this was really active then - the part that does not want to conform; the idealist that refuses to compromise. Back then holding a principle was more important than expediency, and being sensible was akin to surrender.

Your rebel side is still alive now - it might just need awakening. Speaker and author David Whyte argues strongly for the outlaw - like a sort of Robin Hood - that lies within each of us:

"To preserve a sense of freedom even in the midst of rules and regulations is to preserve a part of our identities …to live happily within outer laws, we must have a part that goes its own way, that is blessedly outlaw no matter what the outward conditions"

It is from your outlaw that the passion can come to break with conformity enough to be a genuine leader and take your people with you.

I need thinking. this is a real trouble for me too, how to improve it? what is the effective way?