Lead and motivate your staff

The importance of leading and motivating

Introduction
Strong leadership and a sense of direction are hallmarks of almost all successful businesses.
People are motivated not only by personal gain but also by feeling part of the business and contributing to
its goals. Therefore, if leaders engage effectively with their workforce to build commitment, employees are
motivated to improve the quantity and quality of their output, which improves the business.
Good leaders motivate their staff using a variety of skills, learned through training and experience. You can
develop these skills to get the same results.
This guide shows you how to lead and motivate your staff in order to improve business performance.
For a business to be successful, it has to not only offer products and/or services that meet customers'
needs and wants, but also have staff who are loyal and committed.
However, to gain your employees' loyalty and commitment you need to do more than just pay them well. In
a competitive job market, you also need to consider people's social and psychological needs - and this
means leading and motivating your workforce properly.
In order to lead your staff, you need to be able to communicate:

a vision of what the business stands for and where you want it to be

values and priorities across the organisation

what you as an individual intend to do to realise that vision and reflect those values

what individual employees can do to realise that vision and reflect those values

In order to motivate your staff, you should:

ensure the work is as challenging and as varied as possible

establish a friendly, collaborative work environment

consider more flexible working practices

delegate tasks, allowing others to take responsibility

For more on motivation, see the level in this guide on what motivates employees.

The benefits of showing leadership and motivating your staff

Leading and motivating your staff helps bring about:

higher staff retention - leading to reduced recruitment costs

higher levels of productivity

more innovation and creativity

higher profits

a better reputation - among both potential employees and suppliers

Becoming an effective leader

Effective leadership is more than just management - it builds on managerial skills. A good leader offers
direction to people, gets them to share their vision for the business, and aims to create conditions for them
to achieve great results.

Skills you need to be a good leader

You can show leadership to staff by:

involving them in decision-making

providing personal encouragement

recognising and rewarding good performance

helping to build their confidence to use their own initiative

inspiring them with a vision for success

ensuring good two-way communication

The skills learned by effective leaders can be grouped into five main areas:

planning/strategic focus

customer focus

self-management/awareness

team management

change management

You will need to use different skills at different times - there's no 'one size fits all' approach to leadership.
In addition, the right leadership style will depend on your business and your own character. A softer,
mentoring style of leadership may be appropriate - or you may opt for a more directional approach.

Leadership and your senior management team

If you have a team of senior managers, it's important that it also shows leadership qualities and helps to
engage staff.
In order to achieve this, the team must be unified. If not, being disjointed could put off anyone involved
with your business, eg employees, customers, clients or suppliers, and lead to the business' failure.
Having a strong management team is particularly significant if:

your business operates in more than one location

you are in more than one type of business/industry

your business has more than one culture - or the culture is changing, eg following a merger or
acquisition

What motivates employees

The way your employees feel about their job and their workplace determines how motivated they are. There
is a clear link between job satisfaction and productivity.
Job satisfaction depends partly on tangible rewards - for example, how much a person is paid and what
benefits they receive. See our guides on how to set the right pay rates and implement staff incentive
schemes.
However, job satisfaction also depends on the culture of an organisation. This means the things that make
your business distinctive and make the people who work there proud to do so.
You can motivate people with:

varied and interesting work - perhaps giving the opportunity to travel

high-quality training and development - eg encouragement to study for professional qualifications

an 'open door' culture in which managers are approachable

authentic management and leadership whose behaviour is consistent and genuine

respect for a good work-life balance - eg offering the opportunity for flexible working

fairness at work, including promoting equality and diversity

proactive and regular communication

regular appraisal and positive feedback - restating business objectives and recognising your staff's
contribution

requests for feedback, either in person or via staff surveys, on how employees feel about their roles, the
support they get, and improvements to the business

the chance to socialise with colleagues at organised events

recognition and reward for ideas

Using leadership to create a motivated

workforce
Before you can create a motivated workforce, you need to understand why workers may lack motivation in
the first place.

The causes and effects of a demotivated workforce

Your workforce could be lacking in motivation if you have:

high staff turnover

low productivity

a poor workplace atmosphere

a lot of employee grievances to deal with

This could be caused by:

predictable, monotonous work

lack of praise for achievements

individuals feeling sidelined or ignored

little opportunity for advancement

a poor reward structure

Motivating a demotivated workforce

As a leader, you can motivate your workforce by:

Demonstrating trust - don't micro-manage. Trust staff to get the job done. Delegating key tasks can
empower employees and stimulate innovation, although you will need to ensure that the ultimate
business objective is understood.

Showing respect - listen to and act upon what your employees tell you. Be prepared to invest in new
equipment or support if they need it to do their job effectively. By responding to their concerns you can
demonstrate your trust in their judgement.

Giving encouragement - if someone's standards fall short, don't criticise, but find out what the
problem is and try to get them back on track. Identify if more training is needed. It also helps to offer
incentives for achievement. See our guide on how to implement staff incentive schemes.

Valuing diversity - what works for motivating one person, may not work for another. Be flexible and
use your interpersonal skills to get the best out of different types of employee.

Rewarding good performance - set clear objectives and celebrate employee achievement. You could
consider offering financial rewards. Any reward should be proportionate to the achievement, and the
system should be seen as fair and transparent by all staff.

Be sympathetic to the needs of your employees. For example, you should have appropriate policies for
compassionate leave and time off. See our guides onallowing time off work and how to set up
employment policies for your business.

Team building
Team building is a good way to motivate individuals. If you can get everyone in your business to feel part of
a team, you'll get more out of them.

How teams help build motivation

Teams build motivation in people because of a number of factors:

There's a social aspect - it's more enjoyable working with others than in isolation.

Teams stimulate innovation - interaction between team members throws up new ideas for solving
problems. See our guide on how to use innovation to start or grow your business.

People will feel loyalty to the team, and not want to let others down.

The competitive element in individual team members drives performance.

A sense of belonging makes people feel they're valued and builds motivation.

Facilitating teamworking
You need to be able to facilitate teamworking. This can involve:

Setting out a vision - restating the business purpose and aims, then asking what changes staff feel
should be made to meet their own needs and customer needs. See our guide on how to inform and
consult your employees.

Uniting people - for instance, you might assign a challenging task to a team of employees and ask for
a solution. Ask everyone to contribute and publicly recognise their efforts afterwards.

Empowering people - allocating resources to the team to get the job done. Intervene when needed to
teach skills and help the team solve problems. Provide specialist help, training and literature where
needed.

Encouraging debate - get the team to discuss how best to achieve the task. Ensure everyone feels
able to voice an opinion, no matter what their role in the business.

Reflecting afterwards - gather the team's opinions on how well all the above worked, and use this to
plan for future project work.

Leading your staff through change

The ability to cope with change is a basic requirement for many small businesses. Mergers and acquisitions
may be prevalent in your sector, and technology is changing the way businesses work all the time.
It's important that change should cause as little disruption to the business as possible. This means your staff
should be prepared for it and not fear the consequences. If their concerns are ignored or mismanaged staff
will feel vulnerable and demotivated and the quality of their work may suffer.

Helping staff adapt to change

Whatever the nature of the change, leadership during this time is built on good communication. Therefore
you should try to:

Eliminate uncertainty - be honest and upfront from the beginning of the change process. Give as
much information as you can about the change, and the impact it will have on people and ways of
working.

Be visible - try to give the key message face to face. They'll appreciate hearing it from you in person.

Match the mood to the message - the way you communicate is almost as important as the message
itself. If you have got bad news, give it sensitively.

Delegate - you can control the information you give by using managers who know their staff and know
how best to communicate it.

Give people the opportunity to input, ask questionsand provide feedback. Make sure this isn't just a
cosmetic exercise, they may just have the solution to your problem.

Try to see change as an opportunity, rather than a threat. Because it requires more leadership, it's a chance
for you to grow in the eyes of your employees. If you earn more respect it will increase their motivation to
work for you.

Change the mindset

"In the first year my two partners and I were too busy getting the business off the ground to focus on
leadership.
"A discussion with our bank was the wake-up call. They were concerned that while we were growing, we
hadn't planned ahead and therefore risked being unable to cope. We needed a new mindset, so we began
working with a business coach, Mark Grant of Action International. His input started us down the road
towards organisational change."

Start with the basics

"We began by restructuring, and having been a co-founder I became managing director. This encouraged
me to delegate and concentrate on leadership issues. With input from management and employees, I
redefined our mission statement and objectives, wrote a three-year plan and made sure our goals were
communicated throughout the company.
"I also introduced new policies, processes and measurement. Everything we do now has a system behind it,
a process to follow and a measurable target. This is important because it allows other people to take over
the day-to-day activities and frees my time to focus on key strategic and tactical matters."

Inspire, involve and reward

"We introduced weekly company meetings, staff surveys, team-building events and away-days to gather
ideas and get feedback. Training, appraisals, promotion and career progression have also been addressed.
"Money isn't everything, but it's important. We introduced bonuses and a new commission system to
encourage staff to meet and exceed performance targets, which they regularly do.
"We involve people in decision-making and try to create an open and collaborative working environment.
The company culture is based on trust, teamwork, communication and shared goals. Staff feedback confirms
this.
"However you do it, the proof of leadership is in the performance of your company. In the last 18 months,
our growth has accelerated dramatically, with turnover up from 1.25 million to 3.6 million."
What I'd do differently

Don't make excuses

"It's easy to avoid leadership issues by convincing yourself you're too busy and your efforts are required
elsewhere. I was certainly guilty of that in the early days."

Address work-life balance

"When you're leading and motivating staff to achieve business goals, you can lose sight of a life outside
work. We had to force ourselves to ditch the 'work all hours' mentality."