As a manager, what’s the best way to motivate a team?

Challenging times can put a strain on teams. There’s so much upheaval going on that economic pressures are just one of many potential reasons why people may be distracted from the task at hand. So how can leaders keep their team members motivated? 

This is clearly a pertinent question – when we asked the CMI community via a LinkedIn poll, we got over 1,000 responses.  

Of the four possible responses, there was one clear winner: leading by example, which took almost half (45%) of the votes. That was ahead of sharing a clear vision (34%) and providing emotional support (19%). Taken together, that’s 98% of managers vouching for an approach that favours strong, empathetic leadership and good communication. Much further down the ranking, with a mere 2% of the votes, was the offering of incentives. 

‘Walking the talk’

As usual with our online polls, the question sparked plenty of discussion. A couple of respondents pointed out the overlap between leading by example and sharing a clear vision. 

• Read more: How should managers combat resistance to EDI? The CMI community reacts

“You need everyone to understand the vision and to foster an environment of collective endeavour where the team is working toward it,” wrote Tim Watkins. “Within that, you would clearly need to lead by example.”

Adam Pinchback CMgr FCMI echoed that sentiment. “Both need to complement each other,” he wrote. “But in my experience, people are certainly more receptive to leaders who are visible and ‘walk the talk’.”