How to Motivate and Inspire Your Employees: Part 2

This post is part of a series on insurance marketing and training sponsored by Astonish.

In the first part of this series, we looked at the importance of setting goals when it comes to motivating your employees. Another, equally important factor that will affect the level of motivation felt by your employees is your own specific management style. This part of the series will focus on how adjusting your management style will help promote inspiration and productivity throughout your team.

Part 2: Developing a Management Style to Inspire Your Employees

Each individual manager has their own unique management style. While there are many qualities and characteristics that blend together to ultimately make a good manager, I think it really all boils down to one question. As a manager, are you able to motivate your employees in order to get the most from them? If not, you and your team are missing out on reaching full potential. They key is this: instead of focusing on controlling employees, your goal as a manager should be concentrated on creating a work environment that naturally makes each team member want to put in their best effort.

But how can you achieve this type of working environment?

As mentioned in the first part of this series, setting proper goals for your team is crucial. Studies have shown that working towards a shared goal will develop and harness self-control and motivation to succeed, which in turn produces high-quality work contributions. This is significantly more effective and preferred than the alternative, where managers impose controls that force people to work towards objectives that they may not share or completely understand the point of. Goals instill a sense of responsibility that inspires employees to rise to the challenge and work harder without being asked.

Another great way to create this type of environment is by becoming a manager that genuinely cares about the future career path of their employees. This shows your team members that you want them to gain valuable experience that will help them succeed in their future, not just in their current position. They will not only appreciate your input and guidance, but will be inspired to work hard in order to learn more and advance. There are many ways to do this, such as:

• Act as a coach, not just for new employees, but to everyone on your team by not only providing guidance, but also support, encouragement, and praise.
• Set up a mentoring program in your company. Having someone to look up to as an example creates a huge amount of self-motivation. Also, a mentor program provides new employees with someone they can feel comfortable with. Mentor programs allow people to form relationships and work together to solve problems.
• Providing or suggesting additional training is also a great way to help your employees excel and show them that you care about their personal success. This further enhances their attitude at work and increases their drive to succeed.
• Reward and acknowledge employees who are performing well, achieving their goals, or going “above and beyond.”
• Be open to new ideas. Employees who feel comfortable contributing new and creative ideas to their team are overall more engaged in their jobs. Encourage creativity, innovation, and new approaches to problems.

Making these small changes and approaches to your management process can have huge positive results. So, what are you waiting for? Take these tools and start inspiring your employees today, and prepare to be amazed at the results you see. Get started!

About the Author: John Boudreau, CEO and Co-Founder of Astonish, has been in the insurance marketing and technology business for nearly 10 years. He works closely with local insurance agencies across the country to understand what works and what doesn’t in an attempt to increase their share of the digital landscape through technology, marketing, and training solutions. Astonishhas ranked on the Inc. 500/5000 list of fastest growing private companies in the U.S for the past two yearsand recently ranked among the top five fastest growing private companies in the insurance industry.