Leadership in Action: Follow-Up - A Valuable Tool in Leadership Development

Motivating Individuals

Returning to the physical fitness analogy, what is it that motivates people to maintain an exercise regimen? One important motivator is monitoring results—through strength testing, for instance, or screening for body fat ratio or heart healthiness, or simply looking in the mirror. Once progress has been achieved, it's a strong disincentive to becoming lazy and watching all those hard-earned gains fade away.

A similar dynamic is at work in leadership development. People can be motivated by wanting to improve their initially poor performance or to sustain their competent performance in the face of new challenges or by a fear of falling behind colleagues and competitors. And they can be motivated by being able to see what ...