A leader’s ability to manage and motivate a team will have significant influence over their morale and motivation. How you lead and guide your team is vitally important to them. Think about this…when a person smiles at you and is very welcoming towards you, it makes your day. As a leader of your organization, you have the power each day to make your people start their day feeling welcome and happy to be at work with a smile. You have the ability to empower them and get them charged up for the day, ready to be their most productive under your management direction. This post discusses three things you can do starting today to gain more productivity from your team.

Greet those you manage daily with a smile and let them know you are there. If you are too busy to talk to your team, send them a positive message of motivational inspiration. If you want motivational quotes, here is an eBook of 250 Motivational Inspiration we developed for you. It takes just a few minutes to select an inspirational quote to forward on to your team each day. These quotes are a great reminder of how some the biggest leaders in the world think or thought in many cases. In my own experience managing teams, people have told me these passages always seemed to arrive at the right time and it helped them throughout their professional and personal lives. These messages do have an impact on people’s lives and thoughts.  Remind people each day that there are many reasons to be positive as you are adding pearls of wisdom to their lives.

Another way to motivate a team member is tell them they did a great job and why you appreciated the work they did for you. Let them know you appreciate having them there and part of the team. Mention a project they did that was beneficial to the company; and then mention it again another time in front of team members. Allow them to enjoy the accomplishment on more than one occasion when possible to do so. According to many experts in behavioral psychology, positive reinforcement involves the addition of reinforcing stimulus following behavior that makes it more likely that the behavior will occur again in the future. Bottom line, continually reinforce productive behavior. When a favorable outcome occurs after an action, the response will be strengthened. Additionally, praising those on your team encourages others to perform to a higher level of productivity.

Another way to motivate is to bring a team member into a conversation where you demonstrate, in a positive way a project they did, yet you give them more in-depth instruction. As an example, I was helping one of my researchers do a deeper dive into how to find people. I sat down with this person and instructed them how to locate substantially more information using information only an expert like me with years of experience would know. I explained that this research is very tedious and time consuming and most people are unwilling to go to the lengths it takes to get the correct information. I also explained to this person that most people are unwilling to do the hard work required and may take the easy way. This is precisely what separates our firm from the others who do in-depth search for tax executives while explaining in great detail how it was done. What I observed after that was extraordinary activity and extraordinary results followed. Personalized time and attention goes a long way to motivate and improve the production and accomplishments of your team members.

You have the ability to improve the lives of those around you each day. You have the ability to make a significant difference in the professional lives of those you manage. How you deal with your team in creating an environment that enables them to develop professionally has a significant impact. You have the ability to empower those around you by adding written and personalized motivation and inspiration to their environment.

Start by requesting our complimentary eBook of 250 Motivational Inspiration to manage your team throughout the year.