4 Ways to Increase Your Team’s Fulfillment

The team leader has a huge impact on what motivates their teammates. What brings your teammates to work each day?

The Check

The check is all about working for money. After all, we need money to live, and a job provides a paycheck. When we work for the check, we probably don’t find our work life too fulfilling, but hey, it’s a job and we do it for the money. The paycheck is our success.

The Career

The career is more than just a job with a paycheck. When we get up each day for our career, we’re bought in and we feel good about where our future is going. While it’s not completely fulfilling, we’re happy to have a long-term career instead of a short-term day-to-day job. We are focused on success and having a career we’re proud of, and we like the thought of climbing up the career ladder.

The Calling

This calling is all about doing what we’re called to do. It’s certainly not a job, and it’s beyond a career because we don’t differentiate our work hours from our personal hours. Our lives are intermingled with what I do for a living and what I do for living. We feel fulfilled because we are called to serve and make an impact in our areas of talent. We are motivated by significance, not success. This doesn’t mean that we haven’t experienced the thrill of success; it just means that success is no longer our main motivator.

4 Ways to Increase Your Team’s Fulfillment at Work

1. Get to know your people. Understand what motivates them and what interests them, then help them connect that to what they do each day.
2. Model the behavior you want to see. If the boss isn’t genuinely excited, passionate, and dedicated, you can bet the team won’t be either.
3. Have a vision that matters, and constantly reinforce it. Remind the team why you’re doing what you do, and how their impact makes a difference.
4. Encourage. Every leader at every level needs encouragement (even if they don’t say it). Encouragement motivates us to keep on.