What good is a $60,000 sports car without gasoline? The answer might seem obvious, but your workplace might be experiencing a similar waste of potential without your knowledge. Hiring experienced people and giving them the tools to succeed might not mean anything if they don’t have the fuel necessary to get things moving.

That fuel is motivation, and experts in the field of business leadership say that unless business leaders take active steps to foster motivation in the workplace, all the moving parts that make their businesses run will just sit in the driveway with an empty tank.

Business leaders can’t be faulted for letting the issue of motivation sit on the back burner. After all, enthusiasm and determination are normally two qualities employers look for in their employees. Why should a manager or executive spend time trying to keep their employees interested when the prospect of losing their jobs should be motivation enough? Because, the experts say, fear of losing their jobs will most often only make employees work hard enough to keep them. For the extra boost that gets the most performance out of employees, business leaders have to consider motivating them as part of their job.

Fortunately, you don’t have to be Dr. Phil or Tony Robbins to make your work­place a motivating environment. Experts say the single biggest factor in encouraging employees to give their all at work often simply is making sure you’re visible and available for interaction. It might not seem like much, but it can mean the difference between going from zero to 60 in five seconds and staying in neutral.

Open and Honest
Executives and managers need to understand that their role in the daily operations of their business has a dramatic impact on their employees, according to Executive Development Associates CEO Bonnie Hagemann. With more than 17 years of experience in professional development for individuals and organizations, Hagemann says she has found that the most successful leaders in terms of motivation are those who take the most public roles.

“I think the big thing I’ve seen when companies do it well is the CEO really has to operate as the captain of a ship, and he has to be a visible captain,” she says. Gregarious leaders exude confidence, which has a trickle-down effect on their staff. Leaders who hole up in their offices all day or make little effort to be seen by their employees come across as ineffective, even if they’re extremely effective behind the scenes. Drawing back the curtain and letting employees see leadership in action is one of the most motivating things a leader can do, Hagemann says.

Azita Arvani, president of Los Angeles consulting firm Arvani Group Inc., agrees. She says leaders need to make time to be seen by their employees, because neglecting to do so can be damaging. “Absent leadership or very hierarchical leadership – that definitely has a big morale downgrade component to it,” she says.

The methods to create a more visible leadership are simple, Hagemann says. She suggests holding town hall-style meetings with employees on a regular basis, as well as sending out more informal e-mails. “The biggest thing is going to be authenticity,” she says, and creating a more personal feel to interactions with employees goes a long way toward creating that sense of authenticity. However, Hagemann says, that doesn’t mean being so friendly with employees that leaders misrepresent the situation and make things sound better than they are. Leaders shouldn’t be afraid of saying something that might be unpopular, because hiding the truth will only make things worse.

“[Employees] don’t want us to sugarcoat it,” she says. “They want us to say it how it is.”

Giving Ownership
Being visible and open with employees is important, but it’s only part of what helps drive motivation. For employees to feel what they’re doing is important, they have to have a sense of ownership, and that means taking one’s hands off the wheel once in a while and letting them steer. Hagemann suggests instituting an innovation think tank of sorts that gives employees a chance to speak their minds about issues facing the company.

She gives the example of a group of employees for a national electronics retailer who found out the company was planning to spend $3 million to hire an outside firm to develop the chain’s Web site. The employees, all knowledgeable about the Internet, offered to work on the site themselves, saving the company millions.

In this case, Hagemann says, the solution to the company’s problem was right under its nose the whole time, but because it never asked its employees for input, it never would have known had the employees not taken the initiative and solved the problem themselves.

Linda Henman, author of The Magnetic Boss: How to Become the Boss No One Wants to Leave, says leaders should go beyond just asking their employees for input and give them direct control over their own destiny. Henman says she believes in the power of delegation to inspire motivation in one’s employees. “When I say delegation, I mean entire projects so that people own the project,” she says.

Having ownership of an important project inspires employees to give their all, so all leaders should do is set the objective and timeline and get out of the way.

Most of the time, she adds, motivation is an inherent quality employees either have or they don’t. Giving them opportunities to feel a sense of accomplishment goes a long way to keep that inherent drive alive in your company’s top performers. “You can’t create that, but you can kill it,” Henman says.

Too often, business leaders make the mistake of focusing all of their attention on the bottom-performing portion of their work force to the detriment of the top performers. “They’re trying to do the correction work, they’re trying to motivate the bottom 20 percent 80 percent of the time,” she says. This sends a powerful negative message to the top performers, she adds, because it gives the appearance that excellence will receive no attention.

She goes on to say that if an employee isn’t getting the job done, business leaders should consider the root of the problem. “I tell [leaders] to ask themselves: Is it a question of aptitude, ability or attitude?” Henman says.