Many years ago, I worked with a manager who knows how to touch the right spots in each of his team members for the achievement of results. Sometimes, he takes us out for lunch.

Every year, he takes time to celebrate the birthdays of each team member. On some occasions, he took some team members for a photoshoot on their birthdays.

He keeps surprising the team and they keep delivering results for him. Motivating your team is not optional. It’s the difference between a team that shuffles through the motions and one that charges towards goals with genuine conviction.

You can’t lead a demotivated army to win a battle. Similarly, you can’t achieve results with a team whose members lack energy. History has shown us repeatedly the importance of motivation in a team, and the corporate world offers no exception. Look at what Vinita Bali did as MD/CEO of Britannia Industries in India. She didn’t wait for the parent company to design motivation programs for the Indian market.

She understood her team’s cultural context, the importance of family, the value placed on personal development, and she created initiatives that spoke to those specific needs. She built a culture where people felt seen and valued. Productivity soared, revenue tripled, and so did retention.

When Paul Polman took the helm of affairs at Unilever, he didn’t just focus on young talent. He re-engaged veteran employees by connecting their work to a larger purpose, the Sustainable Living Plan. He gave experienced managers a reason to care again, a legacy worth building. People who had been going through the motions suddenly found renewed energy because their work meant something beyond quarterly earnings.

Your team members will improve their commitment to your cause when they are motivated. Motivation is the kinetic energy that an employee needs. You must be able to convert the potential energy of each team member to kinetic energy. That’s what makes you a leader.

Think about this scientifically for a moment. Potential energy is stored energy, energy waiting to be released. Every person on your team has potential energy, skills, experience, intelligence, and creativity. However, potential energy doesn’t move anything. It just sits there. Kinetic energy is energy in motion: energy that gets things done. Your job as a leader is the conversion. You’re not creating energy from nothing. You’re unlocking what’s already there.

You’re removing the barriers, providing the catalyst, and creating the conditions that transform potential into performance. Indra Nooyi did this masterfully at PepsiCo. She saw the potential in her organization to become more than a sugary beverage company, and she motivated her teams around the vision of “Performance with Purpose.”

There are different ways to motivate your team. Find the one that resonates with your team and apply it. Never leave your team without energy for results and performance. Some leaders motivate through vision, painting a compelling picture of where the organization is headed. Others motivate through autonomy, giving people space to solve problems their own way. Some motivate through development, and investing in their people’s growth. Others motivate through recognition, celebrating wins publicly and meaningfully. The method matters less than the consistency and authenticity. Doug Conant at Campbell Soup Company wrote over 30,000 personalized thank-you notes to employees during his tenure. I mean handwritten notes. That is no mean feat and they were written to individual contributors, not just executives. That was his way. It worked because it was genuine and relentless.
Motivation improves productivity. It is your responsibility as a leader to know how to motivate your team members, and this cuts across all strata of the organization. Whether you’re the department head, or a line manager supervising five people, this applies to you. The assistant manager in a retail branch needs motivation just as much as the regional director does. The customer service representative answering calls needs it just as much as the chief digital officer building systems. Older members of staff also want to be motivated. The irony is that the older you are, the more you need motivation.

When you unlock the energy in your team members, you don't just get compliance, you also get commitment. Compliance is doing what you are told but commitment is doing what needs to be done and doing much more because you believe in the mission. Look at your team today. You must not see them as additional headcount but as batteries of potential energy waiting for a connection. Be the catalyst and find the trigger. Whether it is a listening ear for the troubled personnel, autonomy for the rising star, flexibility for the overwhelmed parent, time out for the stressed individual, or special incentive for the performing staff. Please look for it.

If you are not able to turn that potential into motion, you aren’t leading but just taking a walk.

Oluwole Dada is the General Manager at SecureID Limited, Africa’s largest smart card manufacturing plant in Lagos, Nigeria.