Motivation

Motivation is something in particular that appeals to me for the reason that I find myself to be a pretty motivated individual, although by various things for various reasons. I have been surprised by how different everyone's levels of motivation really are. And I think a lot of us discover this by working in groups/teams, and find that you all have different expectations or desires for the outcome of the project, therefore having a different work ethic or putting in different levels of effort. Motivation is defined as "the degree to which an individual is personally committed to expending effort in the accomplishment of a specified activity or goal" (p. 289). Not everyone is motivated by the same things, or even motivated at all... and I find it's hard to gage what factor is the motivating factor for employees, co-workers, or even people you are involved with, because it will never be the same across the board. For some people, they are motivated by money or commodity-based incentives, others are motivated by recognition, and some just do it for their own personal satisfaction. Of course, I would say motivating factors would vary from case to case depending on the situation, but in the workplace I think it would be hard to select one way to motivate employees. I think successful leaders are the ones who use a combination of methods in an attempt to motivate their employees.