Leaders, what does motivation mean to you?

My mentor sent this too me this morning, so I figured I'd post it here to allow you all to think about it. Feel free to post your thoughts and feedback.

MOTIVATION.....think about the word and what it means. Have we overused the term to mean nothing? What are the actions behind the word motivation? Why is it frowned upon or at least board members want to know more than just your Soldier is motivated when you're sponsoring them to the promotion board?

My Response:

I don't believe that we have overused the term to mean nothing. However, I can agree that there may be other Individuals or those in leadership positions that have overused the term. Motivation to me is driven by action, you can only say so much. We may be able to motivate ones and twos verbally, but we have the ability and potential to motivate the masses by taking action, and practicing what we preach. When I look at the last question about the board, I've always thought of it this way, a lot of Soldiers motivation comes and goes, just because I've been verbal about being motivated for a few months doesn't mean I'm ready to wear stripes and lead soldiers. It goes back to that key word you had mentioned action, looking at it from the MRT realm and that intrinsic motivation, do we truly believe in what we are doing, as well as value it. If both of those are not true, then I believe its false motivation. I really appreciate you sharing this. I forwarded it along to a couple of my NCOs and am interested to see what feed back they have.