When I first started leading people I thought my job was to motivate them to do hard things. I imagined there’d be motivational speeches and maybe even some fist pumping.
But here’s what I’ve learned – people are (for the most part) naturally attracted to hard, fulfilling work. They don’t need speeches and they definitely don’t need fist pumping.
What they need is to know their leaders care about them – deeply. They need to see that their leaders are committed to making their work life (where they spend most of their time by the way) as fun and fulfilling as possible.
In the end it’s so much simpler than I could have ever imagined. Just take care of your team and everything else falls into place.