Today I’d like to reverse that question and think instead about what not to do – what actually kills motivation and engagement.
There are many factors that influence motivation, and the Gallup Institute has developed a Job Satisfaction Questionnaire that highlights six areas researchers consider crucial for building motivation and engagement.
Knowing what I’m supposed to do
A fundamental element of engagement is knowing what needs to be done and having access to the tools required to do it. If we are meant to complete a task, we need a clearly defined goal and a clear path to achieve it.
If you are a leader, you must be aware that the way you communicate tasks directly affects your team’s level of engagement. Employees need to know what they are supposed to do and why they are doing it.
What threatens motivation in this area are not only poorly defined goals and tasks or misunderstandings caused by differences in context.
If you frequently change decisions and ask employees to interrupt tasks they’ve already started, it can lead to a drop in motivation and a belief that it’s not worth putting in effort – because everything will change again soon anyway. Of course, sometimes a shifting reality requires sudden decisions, but in such cases it is essential to clearly
explain the change and show the broader context. Understanding helps maintain a sense of purpose.
Competence
Each of us has a fairly clear sense of our own skills and a need for those skills to be used appropriately. Sometimes we all need to do something simple and basic, but if we spend most of our time performing tasks far below our level of competence, our engagement weakens. We begin to feel undervalued and unnecessary. We develop a sense that our manager does not recognize our value or potential. We feel deprived of growth opportunities.
A leader must therefore be able to recognize employees’ competence levels and their developmental ambitions. Assigning tasks that are below someone’s capabilities becomes a threat to their motivation, engagement, and self-worth.
Sense of purpose
Closely tied to proper use of competence is the sense of meaning in one’s work. This is one of the most important factors influencing motivation and engagement. Practically everyone I speak with, when asked what matters most in their work, points to the sense of purpose and the certainty that their tasks serve a meaningful goal.
If a leader does not take the time to show employees the bigger picture and the direction the team is heading, they cannot expect real engagement or lasting motivation.
The sense of purpose is especially threatened when tasks are frequently changed due to constantly shifting priorities. This creates uncertainty about whether a task will even be completed. That uncertainty leads people to invest less energy, anticipating yet another sudden change.
Collaboration
Another area that can weaken motivation and engagement is collaboration – or more precisely, the lack of it. Some years ago, it was believed that competition, paired with the promise of reward, drives people to work harder. However, both experience and research show something different. People prefer to work when they have intrinsic motivation rather than extrinsic rewards, and in the long term, teams that prioritize collaboration perform better. Of course, there are specific scenarios where competition works and shouldn’t be completely abandoned.
In most cases, however, collaboration based on mutual trust and support – without judgment – is what matters. This environment encourages people to share knowledge and insights, creating synergy and producing better results than the sum of individual efforts.
If a leader fails to foster an atmosphere of trust and does not create space for safe communication within the team, engagement will slowly leak out, motivation will drop, and the situation will be difficult to repair. Not to mention pathological behaviors like mobbing, which make engagement impossible and destroy any motivation to work at all.
Feedback
When I talk about collaboration without judgment, many people push back. “How can you work without judging? Employees need to know what they’re doing right or wrong and what is expected of them.” And that’s true – but it has very little in common with the
traditional kind of evaluation we’re used to from school. And that’s where the biggest challenge with constructive feedback lies.
The school-style evaluation is neither helpful information nor support, nor does it have motivating value. It mainly enables comparison, which – as we know – rarely inspires more effort. In most cases, it is discouraging. Being judged makes people less willing to ask questions or reveal their limitations. Instead, they tend to pretend everything is fine. This emotional effort consumes energy and reduces engagement in actual tasks.
So how do you give feedback without demotivating? I’ve written about this many times, and I surely will again, because it remains a key question.
Growth
Gallup experts argue that growth is equally important for engagement and motivation.
Today, business owners and executives understand that people are the company’s most valuable asset – and this is no longer an empty slogan. Younger generations in particular emphasize that opportunities for growth matter to them, and they prefer “training in the job,” which produces the greatest progress in developing new skills.
If an employee feels stuck, bored, and lacking challenges, their engagement will inevitably decline, and they will not feel motivated to exert extra effort.
This has been a broadly outlined list of pitfalls. You can now work with your coach to analyze your team’s situation and identify individual, specific ways to avoid these pitfalls and create an environment where engagement and motivation have room to grow.
