Reflective Journal - Week 15

Coming into the last two weeks of the semester, motivation seems like a great topic to cover at this time!

It makes so much sense that the success of a team or workplace is directly related to the level of motivation that team or employees have. The key part of motivating is finding out what people wants and figuring out how you can best provide that or assist them in earning it. There are so many different facets of ways that managers can motivate employees. It mostly all boils down to learning to understand them individually and learning what makes them tick! What you know that you can “attack” them from all sides finding different ways to motivate that individual employee and every employee.  I thought it was great the way Sean orchestrated that everyone is motivated in different ways and that it is a leader’s role to continually find ways to motivate those around them. Recognition seems to be one of the best ways to motivate and encourage. Even when handing out recognition, it is important to get to know the employees to help know how to best recognize them for their personal motivation and happiness. Management getting to know employees on a personal level is motivation in and of itself, but it also allows us to better understand our staff and provides additional insights into how to best lead and motivate them individually. There are a variety of strategies and theories that can be useful in ensuring we are recognizing our employees. The 3 in 7 strategy recommends recognizing each individual employee 3 times every 7 days. The 7 in 7 strategy recommends recognizing 7 employees in 7 days. Both of these strategies helps employees feel that they are appreciated and needed in the workplace. Feeling needed is a great motivator in and of itself. Slight comments and subliminal actions can often play a huge role in employee morale and appreciation. Employees are hyper Intune to management comments and actions, and even the smallest compliment or action can go a long way in employee morale. I didn’t realize that employee bonuses and gifts showed up on employee checks to be taxed on. This makes sense and is a good thing to be aware of. It makes sense that money is not a long standing motivator and motivating their staff is a huge part of the job of management. Meaningful motivation seems so important in management and the workplace. All of these things make so much sense to me now. I had never considered many of these concepts before, but now with this knowledge I feel that I can be a much better leader than I thought I could be. I feel that the more I learn about leading, the more confident I personally become in my ability to do so. Motivation is obviously key to being a great leader. I hope to take this learned knowledge with me into the work field, as well as in my personal life, to build stronger interpersonal relationships and to better support and encourage those around me.

Participating in the team activity this week was fun and interesting. Seeing everybody’s different ideas on how to provide motivation to our specific unit was exciting. Everybody thinks so differently and so abstractly. A group truly does come to a more concise and goal driven decision by working together instead of separately making plans. I feel that the activities we chose as a group were much better than those that I selected by myself individually. This is another skill to learn in our desire to become good leaders. We must recognize the benefits of working together and receiving assistance from others.