It’s a tale as old as time. Performance dips, deadlines loom, so leaders ramp up the pressure with tighter deadlines, sharper conversations, and stricter control over team members. But pressure only works for so long, if at all, and people eventually stop responding to the push.

Instead, they’re more likely to disengage, withdraw, and run out of steam. Of course, this is the exact opposite you want, so the real question is how to motivate your team as a leader without burning them out. The answer lies in a simple question:

Are you lighting a fire under your team, or within them?

Join us as we answer this question and more, and find out whether your fire-starting skills are up to scratch or if you need to go back to the survival class.

How NOT TO Motivate Your Team as a Leader: Lighting a Fire Under Your Team

Lighting a fire under a team is never going to end well. It’s usually a symptom of a poor leadership style that uses fear and urgency to get the job done. It’s the top-down, tell-them-what-to-do approach so you can reach goals quickly with no questions asked.

However, for a short time, it can do the job and make team members move faster and meet tight deadlines. You might even see metrics shifting, but it never lasts because it’s not rooted in real buy-in or belief. It’s rooted in fear.

As a result, lighting a fire under your team tends to create:

• A tick-box culture focused on doing the minimum
• High staff turnover thanks to low self-belief
• An avoidance of accountability out of self-preservation.

So, while this style of leadership can feel efficient and necessary, it erodes motivation in the long run and replaces autonomy with anxiety and ownership with obligation. This leaves you with a stressed, stretched team full of uncertainty that feels overwhelmed rather than inspired.

Surely there’s another way, we hear you cry!

How to Motivate Your Team as a Leader: Lighting The Fire Within

Instead of lighting a fire under your team, light the fire within them instead. So, rather than pushing them too hard with external pressure, find the motivation inside each individual.

Because pressure doesn’t create diamonds when it comes to leadership, it creates a dysfunctional, anxious team that lives life on a knife-edge.

So, swap out the deadlines and discipline, and encourage:

• A shared sense of purpose and alignment
• Trust and autonomy
• Recognition that feels real.

Because if you find yourself asking how to motivate a team or team members, it’s not about chasing them and imposing a difficult environment. It’s about helping people feel valued, involved, and trusted, which unlocks motivation and drives performance.

It’s important to note here that it’s not about letting go of the reins altogether and letting standards slip; it’s about motivating people to want to do their best for you and the organization they’re part of, and giving them belief in themselves and the mission.

As well as motivating them in the first place, this approach teaches you how to keep the team motivated for longer. Because, as far as motivational leadership strategies go, belief is something that can’t be manufactured or faked. It has to be cultivated.

A Key Difference Between Leader and Manager: Moving From Pressure to Purpose

Most leaders don’t set out to lead through pressure and stress. Of course they don’t. But when demands rise and the clock starts ticking, it can quickly become the default. The good news is that you can reset if you feel you’re heading down this road. How? By moving from urgency to intentionality with your team, one question at a time.

Here are a few simple motivational leadership strategies you can implement in day-to-day conversations at work:

• Swap “Have you done this yet?” with “What support do you need to make this work?”
• Share the why behind the what to connect tasks to meaningful outcomes and build buy-in.
• Recognize effort instead of just results to build confidence instead of compliance.
• Invite ownership from team players by giving space for ideas and input instead of just dishing out instructions.

These may seem like small shifts, but they can spark something much bigger for your people: belief. This is what fuels sustainable performance both individually and organizationally.

How Self-Reflection Helps You Spark Belief Instead of Demanding Action

Intentional reflection is a hidden weapon for leaders looking to make a real impact, which is why leadership journaling is so important and prominent.

To build awareness and stay aligned with the best version of yourself, write down three things at the end of each day.

1. A moment where you used pressure to drive results
2. How that situation could have been approached with motivation instead
3. One action you’ll take tomorrow to light a fire within someone on your team.

If these don’t quite fit your situation, check out our complimentary download of leadership prompts for more inspiration.

And remember that you don’t need to get it right every time. Nobody does. You just need to lead more often from intention rather than reaction. And watch those sparks ignite.

Over time, you’ll notice when pressure creeps in and be able to shift your automatic response from pressure to self-belief. This will unlock untold growth in your team and business.

Final Thoughts: How to Motivate Team Members as a Leader

Anyone can light a fire under their team, but it takes a stronger leadership style to light one within it. And when you lead with the latter as your base, you get commitment, growth, and progress, as well as the results you’ve been chasing.

Because pressure never lasts. But belief from the right leadership can change everything.

Ready to Build the Habits of an Intentional Leader?

Leadership journaling is designed to help you stay focused on what matters most: empowering your team. This comes through creating clarity, connection, and commitment, using self-reflection to get there.

It doesn’t take hours, either, just a few minutes every day to pause, reflect, and lead with purpose. This is how you drive real motivation in your team.

For more guidance around this topic and to understand the difference between a manager and a leader, check out Episode 2 of the Stop Managing, Start Leading podcast. Here, we discuss everything we’ve touched on in this article, the importance of making an imperfect start, how to use leadership models to your benefit, and much, much more.