Youth Leadership Development and Training - What Motivates People To Give 100%?

It is possibly stating the obvious to suggest that different things motivate different people.
For example, there is a widespread perception that money or some other form of material reward is the prime motivator for many people in terms of giving 100% effort rather than something less.

It sometimes surprises people to know that numerous studies have shown that this belief is significantly mistaken. In fact, some of the most motivated people around who are always willing to go that little bit extra are not those who will necessarily receive any sort of material benefit from doing so.

You only have to consider the example of charity workers and the phenomenal hours and effort they put in, often for no monetary reward whatsoever, to see the truth of that statement.

In fact, as many indigenous leadership programmes seek to show, the strongest and most compelling motivation often comes from inside the person. To put it another way, bundles of cash and morale-boosting speeches often aren’t quite as effective as some may think.

What is usually important in getting people to stretch themselves that bit further and to start to fulfil their full potential is to get their comprehension of a set of objectives and their emotional commitment to the importance of achieving them. In the case of most people, once they understand why something is being done and emotionally commit to its validity, then their self-motivation will be far stronger than anything possible as a result of financial incentives.

This inevitably says something about the importance of effective communication at leadership level. If a leader is unable to clearly encapsulate and articulate why something needs to be done and what is needed of an individual to help achieve it, then they are unlikely to ever get the best out of the people they are working with.

That’s why many leadership development programs place great emphasis on inter-personal skills and associated communication.

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The Role of Humour in Leadership and Development

Laughter is one of the great unifiers and levellers of humanity.  Although different people and different cultures may find very different things to be amusing, the fact is that every society understands the concept of laughter and its therapeutic benefits.

The difficulty for leaders is that while the benefits of laughter and high morale, both personal and collective on the part of the team, is recognized, the use of humour still needs to be carefully controlled.

Occasionally laughing at oneself and encouraging others to do likewise is highly beneficial. It is great for stress relief and allows people to occasionally stand outside of themselves and take a broader perspective of their activities in a much wider and more human context. For that reason, humour and light-heartedness typically play a significant part in certain elements of australian aboriginal culture development program.

 However, there is a danger with the misuse of humour.
What one person may find to be amusing and human, another may find to be insulting, mocking or patronising etc. The problem is that it can be extremely difficult to predict, with any degree of certainty, just how a different person or group of people will react to even the best-intentioned joke or witticism.

Another problem for the leader as far as humour is concerned arises from it possibly being misconstrued as flippancy. By definition, someone leading an activity or a group of others needs to be seen, on the whole, to be taking the matter seriously and allocating it a degree of gravitas.

The leader who is seen to be constantly ‘horsing around’ and apparently more intent on having a good laugh than achieving their objectives, can sow unease and concern into others around them. So, the aspiring leader needs to understand the place of humour in a shared enterprise and use it appropriately - but also in moderation and be on guard against it being misinterpreted as a failure to be acting responsibly.

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