Ep 388 | The 7 Types of Motivation and How to Best Leverage them in Leadership

Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to the No Days Off podcast, where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. Most of us here at No Days Off that are listening to the No Days Off podcast, part of the No Days Off Nation, you are leading others or or you're aspiring to lead others. As a leader, you've got to deploy all different tools and tactics in order to ultimately have an impact on the people you're leading. At the end of the day, what is, what is leadership? And leadership to me is influence, specifically the influencing of the way individuals think, and in doing so, aiding them in getting to whatever goal they have set for themselves or whatever they'd like to achieve. So leadership is about influence. And again, most of us are probably leading at the very minimum our peers or our families, but maybe employees, maybe a team, maybe a business. So in the spirit of using those tools and tactics and strategies, one thing that I'd like to talk around today is motivation. The 7 different types of motivation, and then maybe how we can leverage this knowledge to lead more effectively, lead those around us. So I found that there's really 7 different types of motivation. I'm going to run through a list, and I want you to think around each of these types of motivation and how they apply in your world, or where you see them show up, or how it impacts you, or ultimately how you're talking around these motivations to impact others. We're going to start at the weakest and work our way to the strongest form of motivation. Let's start with the weakest though. The weakest form of motivation, and by the way, even though it's weak, it is still a motivating factor for many. The weakest form of motivation is what I would call fear and avoidance. Fear is an intense motivator. It pushes people to act ultimately to avoid negative consequences. It's not usually sustainable long-term, and it could, it could lead to burnout, it could lead to stress. But fear is a very, very strong motivator. Avoidance is a very strong motivator. What's avoidance? Very similar to fear in that it's the desire to avoid, avoid discomfort or avoid failure. And this could lead into action, but it's not typically sustainable. So it's a weaker form of motivation, fear and avoidance. Now, the next in line, it's still relatively weak but stronger than fear and avoidance. The next in line would be incentive motivation. Incentive motivation. What's incentive motivation? It's really the giving of external rewards. External rewards like incentives, right? Like money or prizes, or maybe it's recognition. And this sort of thing can motivate individuals, and that is strong— that, that motivation may strongly serve the short term. It may influence short-term behavior. Now, without some sort of intrinsic interest, which we're going to get to here in a little bit, this sort of motivation, incentive motivation, diminishes over time once the reward is maybe no longer available. But incentive motivation works for quick hitters, like a, like a sudden burst. I'm gonna put $50 out there, whoever goes and hits this goal today gets that $50. That would be an incentive motivation. Again, a weaker form of motivation, but still stronger than fear and avoidance. The next form of motivation in terms of strength, or moving up the ladder to the strongest, would be what I would call affiliation, affiliation motivation. What is that? What I'm really referring to is social connection and belonging. See, social connection, belonging can be— and belonging can be a very strong motivator, especially for those that value relationships and value the their community. This sort of thing drives teamwork. It drives collaboration. And it can especially be super effective in group settings. So, it's this kind of social movement, social proof, this affiliation. I'm motivated because I value my team. I'm— I value the relationships. I value the community. Now, we're going to get to the top 4, right? We went through the first 3. Now, let's get to the top 4 of 7. The next, working our way up the ladder to the strongest, is what I would call power, power motivation. Bottom line, this is the drive that people have to influence or control. And this sort of feeling, this drive to influence or control, can be strong, especially for individuals that are in leadership roles or, or are in competitive environments. It is effective in contexts where authority, and where influence are important. So, this drive to control, this drive to influence, the motivation to have power is a particularly strong motivator for many, not everybody, but for many, especially in a competitive environment or a leadership type of environment. Last, the top 3, I should say, in terms of strength, we're at number 3. I would call that competence motivation. Competence motivation. This is the motivation that stems from the need to improve and master school skills. This is a big driver for people, this desire, the strong need to get better. It can actually be pretty sustainable because it leads to ongoing personal and professional development. So, I would rank competence motivation, this desire to improve and master skills and get better, I'd rank it pretty high up the ladder here, right? It's number 3 of 7 for me. Number 2, before we get to the number 1 greatest motivator, number 2, I, I would call this one, or I would rank achievement motivation right there at number 2. It's a really powerful motivator. The desire to accomplish goals, the desire to measure success, pushes people to strive for excellence. It's really effective for people who are goal-oriented and is really driven by milestones or personal growth. So achievement is a big, big motivator. It's similar to competence motivation in that competence motivation has to do with improving and mastering skills, but achievement is now accomplishing goals and measuring success specifically, right? And now lastly The strongest form of motivation is intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation, it's, it's the most powerful of the 7. This sort of motivation is driven by internal satisfaction, and it's often the most sustainable form of motivation because it comes from within. It comes from personal interest, it comes from curiosity, it comes from passion or a joy in the actual activity itself. People tend to maintain intrinsic motivation in the absence of all other things, external rewards or whatever it may be. This is your big why, right? This is why you do what you do. So intrinsic motivation is the strongest. Research and psychological theory suggests that intrinsic motivation is the most powerful. So it's not just my theory, I, you know, I think the list probably varies for some, but number 1 being intrinsic, I think everybody would rally around that as the most powerful and the most sustainable form of motivation. But the overall ranking probably varies by person and by situation, which is what I want to chat about here briefly before we wrap up. We've run through these forms of motivation, and if you're a leader, you need to understand these forms of motivation— I'm sorry— and who they work for and how they work. Let me give an example. Maybe I've got a team of individuals and I recognize that of my individuals, there's one specifically that is very relationship-based. He is friends with everyone. He's connected with everyone. Well, if I know that about that individual, maybe I need to figure out how to tap into what I would call affiliation motivation, which was 5 of 7 in terms of strength on our list. So not incredibly strong, but motivation nonetheless. Maybe I need to tap into affiliation motivation. In other words, I need to leverage the social connection. I need to leverage the relationships in the community and the teamwork and the collaboration. In other words, if I can get that team moving towards something and this person really wants to be part of that team, then they are also going to be motivated. Maybe I've got somebody else who's incredibly money-driven given the stage that they're at in their life. Maybe incentive motivation, you know, giving external rewards like money is the play. Now, if I've got a highly competitive individual, maybe she likes to be number one, I would probably tap into some achievement motivation, the second most powerful form of motivation. Because I know this person wants to achieve goals. I'm going to give them big goals. They want to measure success against others. So, I'm going to have a scoreboard. I'm going to set milestones. I'm going to challenge them constantly because they're motivated by achievement. And then lastly, if I've got somebody who's maybe had a bit more experience in life and business, where maybe they've had some financial wins, but money isn't the sole motivator anymore. Or maybe they've had other things that they've experienced in life and they've really kind of figured out over the years what motivates them internally. I'm probably going to look to tap into intrinsic motivation. I'm going to better understand what internally motivates them, what they're interested in, what they're curious about, what their big why happens to be. And as the leader, I'm going to aim to support this intrinsic motivation in all sorts of ways, all ways that I can, from things like vision boards to, you know, providing even opportunity to have the certain experiences they desire that bring about that, that intrinsic driver, that intrinsic motivation. So what I want to encourage you to do is go back through this list, maybe go back through this podcast again, and make sure you understand the various forms of motivation. And then, I want you to look at how you're leading and how you're leveraging these different forms of motivation. What's working? Like, what are you doing really well? And where is there some opportunity to improve? Also, when you look across the people you're leading, I want you to try to figure out what's the different motivator or motivators for each one of these individuals and how can I, as a leader, show up differently so that I aid them, that I lead them into achieving the goals that they desire. That's all I have for you today, the No Days Off Podcast. Thank you so much for listening. And remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get after it.