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Let’s talk about Motivation and leadership and how they correlate.
Throughout your life, you’ve been told by everyone around you. Whether it’s a teacher, a parent, or a boss, always stay motivated whenever you feel helpless or want to give up on a certain project. But what does motivation mean? Its literal definition is ‘the desire or willingness to do something; enthusiasm. Now, after reading this, your first thought would probably be ‘well, obviously Enthusiasm is needed when working on any project.’ But the problem many people struggle with is maintaining that motivation.
The thing about any project in life or any situation. In general, is that it has its ups and downs, and maintaining your motivation during those tough times is key to succeeding. Many people with the potential to be leaders failed in doing so. Because, during those rough times, they lost all motivation and incentive and fell into a state of depression. The most important thing to remember when working on anything is that it’s completely normal to feel helpless at times; it’s completely normal to feel like your whole project is trash.
You aren’t expected to feel great about your project 100 percent of the time; you are human. You’re prone to these feelings. But during those times, you should try and remind yourself what made you want to embark on this project. Remember that incentive that pushed you to start. And if that fails, take some time off the project and do something completely different. Soon enough, you’ll find that motivation returns to you.
What are the types of motivation and leadership?
Motivation and leadership: There are generally two types of motivation in everyday life. Internal motivation and external motivation (also known as intrinsic and extrinsic motivation). Both have their advantages and disadvantages that we will talk about down below:
Internal Motivation and leadership
Motivation and leadership: First off, we have internal motivation; it’s the motivation that comes from within you as a person. It’s the desire to do something with the outcome of pleasing yourself. Let’s take a very simple example; my motivation to eat an apple is solely based on the fact that I enjoy apples. This type of motivation is regarded with personal emotions and thoughts. The good thing about this type of motivation is that it results in self-satisfaction and breeds the passion that is needed to fuel your project.
On the other hand, the drawbacks are that internal motivation is a long process. A process that takes time and dedication to keep up with. And that sometimes in a workplace/class external motivation should be used instead of internal. As there are different approaches to every system that may not align with your thoughts or emotions.
External motivation
The second type of motivation is external motivation. This type of motivation you get is because of an external incentive. Whether it’s a reward or appraisal from a boss, parent, or teacher. For instance, ‘I am currently working a job to get my salary at the end of the month. Your motivation, in this case, is money, which is an external factor. Just like the previous type, external motivation has its advantages and disadvantages.
The advantage is that it pushes you always to keep improving. Think of It as levels in a game. Whenever you finish a level, you expect a reward; therefore, you keep on advancing from level to level. However, that being said, external motivation has its many disadvantages; being fully dependent on external motivation is a dangerous thing that will lead you nowhere. When your only source of motivation comes from the appraisal of someone.
Or it comes from a reward given, you will lose that passion that you need. You will slowly realize that you aren’t happy with what you are doing. And you are just following through to please others. In addition to that, external motivation creates a competitive nature that may be helpful at times. But at other times, it will just prove to be toxic.