How to Drive Employee Motivation by Encouraging Ownership

One of the most important lesson you will learn in your PG Diploma in Business Management is how motivation can help you achieve the desired level of efficiency and performance in your employees. As a business leader, you are already responsible for a lot of things. You have to perform certain tasks as an important asset of the company at the same time keep your talented team motivated and upbeat on a daily basis.

You will come across a lot of management theories while pursuing your diploma from one of the Top PGDM Colleges in Hyderabad that will teach you how to keep your employees motivated at the same time urging them to work up to their maximum potential. While there are a lot of techniques of instilling motivation in your employees, one of the most effective technique is  encouraging ownership. Studies have shown that when employees have more autonomy at work, they are more satisfied with what they are doing and therefore they put in their 100% effort in the work resulting into increased productivity and a better performance.

So What Exactly Is Autonomy?

Joan F. Cheverie, manager of professional development programs at the higher education and IT nonprofit EDUCAUSE, writes “Autonomy is people’s need to perceive that they have choices, that what they are doing is of their own volition, and that they are the source of their own actions.”

In simpler words, it is a basic human nature not to obey orders. Every human has a tendency to rebel and thereby prefer to work in their own sweet way. Therefore a good manager is the one who allows his team to work whatever way they like as long as the work is getting done up to the mark and on time. This means letting go of  the control and make your team in charge of certain things. “Autonomy, in other words, is the antithesis of micromanagement.”

Cheverie says “Instead of focusing on the minute details, you now need to direct your focus to the goals and strategic objectives for each staff member. Let them take care of the minor details of meeting those expectations. If you are able to create autonomy while holding people accountable for stated goals and objectives, you’ll find that the details get done without your having to worry about them.”

You can encourage autonomy by doing the following.

1. Start With The Why - Why the work your doing is crucial for the company? The answer to this instills the employee with a sense of responsibility that if the work is not done due to any reason, the company is going to suffer and so will their future in it.

2. Allow Them To Speak Up - A good manager is the one who encourages a two way communication. Only then would you be able to achieve the sense of ownership in the employees as they would feel that they have been part of the work since the very beginning and that the work is not being imposed on them.

3. Leave The How To The Employee - Let them decide how will they achieve the task with an assurance in the background that you are there to assist them or support them if anything at all goes wrong. This sense of assurance creates a level of confidence that encourages the employees to take risk and work without fear.