Motivation and Leadership

Finally cleaning up from the mess of the move, my office is pretty well straightened out, and somewhat organized. (Rest of the house.. not so much LOL) Yesterday was my birthday (thanks for all the Facebook happy birthday messages everyone!), and I had a good day cleaning up the office, and having dinner with the family. This is the first time in a long while that I was actually home for my birthday, and that was a nice bonus. Donna and kids as always were very generous and right on target with my gifts, getting me a gift certificate for golf lessons for my time off from work, as well as a new laptop to replace the one I had to give back when I left Discovery. (you don't realize how attached you are to that laptop until you are continually looking around for it!)

I was sitting in my office this morning, after having a good day yesterday, and I found it very hard to get myself motivated to do much. I don't know how much the weather is contributing to it (raining fairly hard right now, been almost constant for 2 days), but it was hard to get going today.

Which got me thinking about motivation in general, and specifically what motivates me. I spent some time (since I wasn't motivated) thinking about this, and I came up with a couple of characteristics of a perfect job:

- Opportunity to contribute to a goal or objective (sounds obvious, but not all jobs contribute to a goal, they are just "work")
- Leading others to a goal or objective
- Developing a good team, as well as good individuals, and seeing them get ahead.
- Opportunity to learn and stretch myself, past what I have done before, looking for challenges and completing them.

And the last but not least, if I accomplish all of those above: get rewarded by advancing my career or completing one of my personal goals.

I will readily admit, I enjoy being a leader, as I think you can tell by what motivates me. Not necessarily a manager, but a leader. I know that some folks can't, don't or won't separate the two, but they are different. I don't have to be 'in charge of people", although that is a bonus. But I do like to have influence, authority, and accountability. It is hard to be a leader when one or more of these is missing from a position, especially if you are NOT the manager or head of the department. Sometimes these need to be earned, sometimes they are delegated to you, but without all three, you cannot lead effectively in my opinion.

See this link for a great explaination of the difference between leadership and management.

Now I need to go out and find that job that will motivate me and let me lead!!