As a leader, how do you build this in other people?
A good place to start is:
How do you build it in yourself?
I’m thinking here about intrinsic motivation.
The shift from:
“I have to”
to
“I choose to because it matters to me.”
That shift is one of the most important leadership questions there is.
Because many leaders are trying to create energy, ownership, creativity, and commitment in other people…
without fully understanding how those states are built in themselves.
If I only know how to drive myself through:
pressure,
fear,
approval,
guilt,
deadlines,
or the avoidance of criticism,
then that is very likely what I will export into the culture around me.
I may call it performance.
I may call it standards.
I may call it accountability.
But underneath it, I may be training compliance more than commitment.
Short-term effort, perhaps.
But not deep ownership.
Not sustainable motivation.
Not real engagement.
In my work, intrinsic motivation is the ability to move from external pressure to inner purpose — from “I have to” toward “I choose to because it matters to me.” It is about learning to power behaviour from meaning, values, curiosity, and growth.
So as a leader, if I want to build this in other people, I think I need to ask at least four questions of myself first:
1. How much of my own effort is still pressure-driven?
2. Do I know what genuinely matters to me, beyond performance and approval?
3. Can I connect a task to meaning, values, curiosity, or contribution?
4. Do I know how to help someone move from obligation to ownership, rather than just pushing harder?
Because we do not really teach motivation by telling people to be motivated.
We teach it by how we frame work, how we relate to pressure, and how we help people find a reason to care that is deeper than fear.
When intrinsic motivation is underdeveloped, what often shows up is procrastination, self-criticism, dread, guilt-driven effort, and swings between overdrive and collapse. In work, that can look like compliance without creativity, effort without aliveness, and commitment that fades quickly. As intrinsic motivation grows, we tend to see steadier energy, deeper engagement, clearer priorities, more creativity, and persistence that lasts.
So perhaps the leadership question is not only:
How do I get more out of people?
But also:
How do I help people find a more meaningful source of fuel?
And often, the place to begin is closer to home:
What is driving me?
Because if I cannot answer that honestly for myself, I may struggle to build it well in anyone else.