Motivation is a tricky thing to master in business. It requires that you dedicate your efforts to create compelling reasons for wanting to reach a particular goal. When your goal is to motivate your team, you need to tap into the reasons why they might want to accomplish the goal you put in front of them.

This takes an understanding of what is important to them and how you can get them to put aside what they might want personally so that they can focus on giving you what you want. Leaders like successful real estate construction entrepreneur Lloyd Claycomb II align the goals they have with the individual goals of their team members so each team member can be motivated toward the reaching the goal, for his own reasons.

At the core of any motivation strategy must be the correct demeanor and attributes of the leader. How this person acts will determine in large part whether the team member will buy into the goal and be sufficiently motivated to go for it. Here are the characteristics of the leader that is most likely to get people motivated.

Infallibly Passionate

Reliability is a core quality needed to get people motivated. Teams need to know with 100% surety that the person who is asking them to commit is also committed all the time and that he or she is consistent in their thoughts, beliefs and conversations. This individual needs to demonstrate over time that their demeanor will not change during hard times or good ones in regards to the quest for the goal, and that he or she can be relied upon to offer the same level of enthusiasm about the goal throughout the journey.

Consistently Reliable, Prepared

Team members will check to see how important the goal is to the motivator before they will commit. Does the leader get to meetings early and stay late to answer any questions team members have about the goal? Is the leader fully prepared when discussing the goal? The level of seriousness regarding the goal will be communicated by the behavior of the leader, so he or she needs to be reliable and prepared.

Accessible

Leaders need to be available for team members when needed. This means making sure everyone has direct access to the motivator via his phone, e-mail and other contact information. When the leader receives communication from a team member, he or she needs to respond timely with either an answer to the question or comment or a specific time when it will be answered.

Good Listener

A good leader is always prepared to listen. Enthusiasm is great, but what is better is to let a team member know that his comments and questions are appreciated and important. Not every question will be a good one, but every question will be an important one so the leader must listen and give a thoughtful answer. This not only builds confidence in the team member about the goal but also gets team communication flowing which will aid to reaching the goal.

To keep everyone on your team motivated takes time and commitment. Be prepared to spend a lot of time on motivation because it is at the core of every project’s success story.