Motivation

What is motivation?

The benefits of motivated employees are clear and undeniable. However, how to address motivation within your organization is often less straightforward.

In everyday language, motivation is a term that covers many different things. What do employees actually mean when they say they are motivated or demotivated? Do they mean:

That they want to do something specific?
That they are willing to do something?
That they have decided to do something?
Or that they have an intention, are particularly focused, feel a driving force, or simply have to do something?

And what do leaders refer to when they talk about their employees being motivated? Are the employees happy and satisfied? Are they doing things they otherwise wouldn’t? Or are they going the extra mile?

With our assistance, we can clarify exactly how motivation is understood and expressed in your organization—and what it takes to remove the obstacles that stand in the way of motivation. We are also happy to support the implementation of necessary changes.

What strengthens and undermines motivation?

When working with better leadership and motivation, we can focus on:

Autonomy: Employees experience freedom and influence to make independent decisions and plan their work.
Recognition: Employees feel seen and valued.
Challenges: Employees tackle tasks that challenge and develop their abilities—creating professional pride.
Social support: Employees feel secure when heard and supported.
Meaning: When work feels meaningful and serves a greater purpose than simply making money, it leads to greater job satisfaction.

Conversely, motivation is undermined by:

A workplace culture marked by bullying, conflict, or poor communication.
Lack of recognition and feedback.
Insufficient resources or excessive workload.
Ongoing stress and performance demands without sufficient autonomy.
Unsatisfactory pay or working conditions.

It is important for both management and employees to identify which factors strengthen or undermine motivation in your organization. Typically, it is easier with external assistance to recognize these factors, as internal perspectives can become blurred over time.

LEAD’s approach to increasing motivation

LEAD takes an expert approach to enhancing motivation within organizations by combining leadership and organizational development. We recognize the complexity of motivation and address it through a range of services, including:

Analysis and handling of potential obstacles: Addressing stress, conflict, and other challenges that may hinder motivation.
Leadership consulting: Advising on both close and remote leadership styles that can effectively foster employee motivation.
Deeper understanding of motivation: Clarifying what employees and leaders actually mean when discussing motivation—making the concept more tangible within organizations.
Implementation of changes: Beyond advice and understanding, we support you in implementing recommended changes.
Focus on key factors: Identifying core drivers such as autonomy, recognition, challenge, social support, and meaningfulness—while also addressing barriers like poor culture, lack of recognition, insufficient resources, ongoing stress, or unsatisfactory working conditions.
External evaluation: Recognizing the of external assessments for a fresh and objective perspective on your organization’s strengths and weaknesses.

In summary, LEAD views motivation as a combination of several interacting factors. Our approach is holistic, structured, and based on both deep understanding and practical intervention—to create motivated, happy, and productive employees.

How we can help you

We offer leadership and organizational sparring sessions, research-based education and presentations on motivational processes as well as training programs specifically focused on equipping you with general management competencies.

See examples of our services here:

Presentations

Inspirational research-based presentations on motivation for all levels within your organization.

Sparring

Advisory related to developing your strategy, decisions or initiatives.

Workshops

Facilitation of active workshops focused on competence development at management or executive level.

Contact us for more information about what we can do for your organization

Are you facing organizational change? Do you need strategic advice or a cultural development program?

Contact us so we can tailor together a program that develops precisely those competencies and structures needed to strengthen and future-proof your organization.

Anne-Birgitte Albrectsen

Managing Director & Partner

Master of Law

Mobile: +45 22 42 18 11
Email: aba@lead.eu