For many years I have been intrigued by statements made by others which talk about “motivating other people”. For example, many employers include in job advertisements the expectation that the incumbent is to motivate the team that they would be leading if they are successfully appointed.
Here’s the newsflash: leaders cannot motivate other people to behave in any particular way. This expectation is a fallacy, and is continually proven as being so.
The highest level of behavioural change that leaders can hope to invoke in others is to “inspire” them. Inspiration is quite different to being motivated. A leader can in fact inspire others to become motivated in order to act in a certain way, yet the choice to act in accordance with the inspirational message of a leader is still very much that of recipient of the message.
So, to all those sales people, business development managers, and senior managers out there, my best advice is to simply concentrate on “inspiring and delighting” those who you are trying to influence to behave in a certain way…and if you achieve this, then you may just invoke the right level of inspiration in the people concerned for them to become motivated to act in accordance with your wishes.