Story:
Great Leaders Master “Level 2 Leadership Communication” – Motivating the Team as a Team

Legendary stories abound about locker room oratory as 21st Century coaches channel Knute Rockne to rally the players before heading out on the field for the Championship game.

Yet, if you ask many coaches and athletes what the pre-game speech is like prior to most big games you would learn that the talk was rather subdued and matter of fact.

The reason for this is athletes don’t need to get motivated for the championship game, they know what it means to get to that level of success, what the stakes are, and how unlikely it is they will have the opportunity to play at that level ever again.

Often, you find the real motivational talks take place at key moments along the journey to the big game.

The best coaches know when to pull out the motivational talk, when to let the team leaders speak, and when to trust the professionals they hired to motivate themselves.

In 10-years of coaching business leaders it seems that this is probably the number one area they struggle with most trying to maximize motivation from their team of employees.

This leadership communication challenge hovers around what I call the “3 T’s of Leadership Motivational Communication:”

• Texture (what to say)

• Timing (when to say it), and most importantly,

• Tone (how to say it)

Even when the 3 T’s are aligned properly, sometimes its still not enough to deliver the desired results. This is due to other factors in the work environment impacting motivation. Often, there are de-motivators sabotaging the best motivational sessions.

Human motivation is a dicey, sometimes confusing, and always a multi-faceted thing too, many organizational leaders ignore and just keep spewing forth the Rocknesque oratory, with little to show for it in terms of results.

There are six different motivational theories that are always at play in work environments that unless a business leader understands, the confusion and frustration will continue.