The sixth and final post in the series on finding meaning in your managerial role.
Managing with meaning isn’t a destination—it’s an ongoing journey. Throughout this series, we’ve explored discovery, learning, and practical application. In this final post, we’ll provide a brief recap of the steps we’ve covered and offer tools to help you sustain and expand your sense of meaning moving forward.
Series Recap: Key Steps in Your Journey
1. Discovering Your Inner Motivation:
We started by identifying the core values and purpose that drive you in your role.
2. Recognizing Your Moments of Significance:
You learned how to pinpoint the moments, big and small, where you felt most meaningful and connected to your work.
3. Turning Insights Into Daily Actions:
We explored how to translate your discoveries into small, consistent actions that align with your values and goals.
4. Identifying Where Your Impact Is Strongest:
By asking the right questions, you learned to focus on the areas where your efforts create the most value.
5. Turning Challenges Into Opportunities:
We examined how to view difficulties as opportunities for growth, connection, and creating new meaning.
Moving Forward: A Continuous Process of Growth and Reflection
1. Pause for Regular Reflection:
Every few months, take time to ask yourself: Am I still connected to my values? Does the meaning I’ve found still align with my role?
2. Explore New Areas for Impact:
Roles evolve, teams grow, and so do you. Look for new opportunities to create value and meaning in your changing environment.
3. Share Your Journey With Others:
Your sense of meaning can empower those around you. Sharing your values and purpose with your team can foster a more meaningful organizational culture.
4. Celebrate Small Wins:
Daily successes matter. Take time to acknowledge and appreciate them—they’ll keep you grounded and connected to what you do.
To Summarize the Post
This series was designed to give you tools and insights to embark on your journey as a leader with meaning. It’s a personal process, one that evolves with you and the challenges you face along the way.
Remember: The meaning you find in your role is a powerful engine for growth—not just for you, but for your team, your organization, and everyone around you.
Thank you for being part of this journey. Now, it’s time to continue and take action!
The fifth post in a six-part series on finding meaning in your managerial role.
Management isn’t just about successes—it’s also about navigating tough challenges. Sometimes, the greatest opportunities for growth, change, and meaning are hidden within the hardest moments. In this post, we’ll explore how to view challenges through a new lens and find ways to create real value from them.
Step One: Pause and Ask – What Can I Learn From This Challenge?
When facing a difficulty, take a moment to stop and reflect. Ask yourself: What is this challenge teaching me? Is it revealing something about myself, my team, or the situation?
Ask yourself: How can this challenge help me improve myself or the processes I manage?
Example: If a team member is struggling to meet deadlines, this challenge might highlight the need to rethink how tasks are assigned or to introduce better tools for task management.
Step Two: Look for the Opportunity Within the Difficulty
Every challenge has the potential to hold an opportunity—whether it’s learning a new skill, strengthening relationships, or changing your approach.
Simple exercise: Take your current challenge and write down the biggest opportunity it could present.
Example: If you’re dealing with a team conflict, the opportunity might be to develop better communication and strengthen collaboration within the team.
Step Three: Involve Your Team in Finding Solutions
Challenges are also an opportunity to engage your team and empower them to contribute.
Ask your team: How would you solve this challenge? What can we learn from it together?
This collaboration not only leads to better solutions but also strengthens team commitment and involvement.
Example: If a project is delayed, instead of solving it alone, involve the team and encourage them to brainstorm ways to improve the process.
Step Four: Empower Yourself and Your Team Through Challenges
Every challenge is a chance for growth—not just for you but for your team as well.
Ask yourself: How can I help my team learn and grow from this difficulty?
Example: If your team is struggling with low motivation, use it as an opportunity to open a discussion, identify underlying issues, and provide tools to overcome them together.
To Summarize the Post
Challenges are an inevitable part of management, but they are also an opportunity to create meaning and build new skills. By approaching difficulties with a mindset of learning and growth, you’re not just solving problems—you’re creating positive change that strengthens both you and your team.
In the final post, we’ll explore how to sustain and expand your sense of meaning in your role over time.
The second post in a six-part series on finding meaning in your managerial role.
Management isn’t just about tasks and challenges – it’s also about those small, powerful moments that remind you why you do what you do. These moments aren’t random; they reveal what truly matters to you. In this post, we’ll explore how to identify those moments and connect them to your daily work.
Step One: Spot the Meaningful Moments
Pause and reflect on the past month. When did you feel most significant?
Maybe it was when you helped a team member overcome a challenge, led your team to success on a complex project, or solved a problem requiring creative thinking.
Ask yourself: What exactly happened, and what made that moment feel so special?
Example: Think of a meeting where you shared an original idea, and it was enthusiastically received and led to meaningful change. That’s a moment of real impact.
Step Two: Find the Common Thread
Look at several moments like these. Try to identify if there’s a pattern. Are your meaningful moments tied to leadership? Supporting others? Achieving results?
Simple exercise: Write down three moments, and next to each, add a word that describes why it mattered to you.
Example: If all your moments involve mentoring and empowering others, your sense of meaning might come from your ability to develop the people around you.
Step Three: Learn About Yourself From These Moments
These moments don’t just tell you what you do – they reveal who you are as a manager.
They show you what truly drives you and gives you a sense of purpose in your role.
Example: If you realize your most meaningful moments involve solving complex problems, it’s a sign to focus on challenges that require creativity and innovative solutions.
Step Four: Plan for More of These Moments
Now that you understand the kinds of moments that make you feel significant, start creating more of them.
This could mean planning projects that align with your strengths, initiating conversations with your team, or focusing on challenges where you know you make the biggest difference.
Example: If your meaning comes from personal connections with your team, set aside time weekly for one-on-one conversations that strengthen relationships and mutual support.
To Summarize the Post
The moments when you feel most significant are a mirror reflecting what truly matters to you in your role. By identifying and creating more of them, you’ll feel more connected to your daily work.
In the next post, we’ll talk about turning these insights into clear, actionable daily habits that align with your values and goals.
These are things that, if we do them, will undoubtedly increase the motivation of the employees we manage.
After examining five central motivation theories, we can identify several shared principles that interconnect and complement each other. Understanding the common ground between these theories can help managers create effective management strategies that promote motivation, satisfaction, and a sense of meaning in employees’ work.
Meaning and Self-Actualization
All theories emphasize the importance of meaning and self-actualization at work:
• Viktor Frankl: Searching for meaning as a central component of motivation.
• Maslow: Self-actualization as the highest need in the hierarchy of needs.
• Herzberg: Motivators such as achievements and recognition that lead to satisfaction.
• Deci and Ryan: Autonomy, competence, and relatedness as promoters of intrinsic motivation.
• Schein: Behaviors that create a supportive and meaningful organizational culture.
Personal Development and Growth
The need for personal development and learning recurs in all theories:
• Maslow: The need for self-actualization includes growth and development.
• Herzberg: Personal development as an important motivator.
• Deci and Ryan: Sense of competence and opportunities for professional growth.
• Schein: Creating an organizational culture that promotes continuous learning and development.
Human Connections and Belonging
A sense of belonging and meaningful human connections are central components:
• Maslow: The need for belonging and love.
• Deci and Ryan: Relatedness as a basic need for intrinsic motivation.
• Schein: Creating an organizational culture that promotes connections and collaboration.
Working Conditions
Creating proper and healthy working conditions:
• Maslow: Satisfying physiological needs and safety.
• Herzberg: Hygiene factors such as working conditions and adequate pay.
• Schein: Behaviors that promote a supportive and safe work culture.
Implementing the Common Ground in Management
To create a work environment that promotes motivation and satisfaction, managers should integrate the various insights:
1. Meaning and self-actualization: Provide employees with interesting and challenging work and help them find meaning in their work.
2. Personal development: Encourage continuous learning and professional development, and offer training and advancement opportunities.
3. Human connections and belonging: Create a positive and supportive organizational culture, and encourage collaboration and open communication.
4. Proper working conditions: Ensure safe and comfortable working conditions, provide adequate pay, and maintain good relationships between all levels of the organization.
Summary
Finding the common ground among leading theories of work motivation offers a broad and comprehensive management framework. By combining these insights, managers can create a work environment that promotes motivation, satisfaction, and a sense of meaning. Understanding the different theories and implementing them in a balanced way allows managers to lead teams more successfully and efficiently.
If you have questions or would like to hear more about ways to improve management and lead your teams, contact us. We are here to help you find meaning in your work and lead your organization to success.
Edgar Schein, an American organizational psychologist, developed the three-layer model of organizational culture, describing how individuals’ behaviors in an organization influence the overall culture of the organization. Organizational culture is a combination of values, beliefs, norms, and behaviors that shape how people in an organization communicate, work, and make decisions. Understanding Schein’s model can help managers create a positive organizational culture that promotes motivation and satisfaction.
Three Layers of Organizational Culture
1. Artifacts: The visible and obvious things like office design, employee dress code, and organizational rituals. These are the external signs of organizational culture.
2. Values: The principles and standards that guide behavior in the organization. These values represent what the organization sees as important and central.
3. Basic Assumptions: The deep-seated beliefs and perceptions that are taken for granted within the organization and are not easily discernible. These are the deepest foundations of organizational culture.
How Behavior Creates Culture
Schein suggests that the visible behaviors of managers and employees directly influence the organization’s basic assumptions, and ultimately create the organizational culture. These behaviors include:
• Transparency: Managers who share decisions and developments with employees convey trust and inspire trust. This creates a culture of openness.
• Listening: Managers who dedicate time to listen to their employees’ needs and suggestions promote a culture of collaboration.
• Mutual Respect: Managers who treat every employee with respect and equality contribute to a culture of mutual respect and appreciation.
Creating a Positive Organizational Culture
To create a positive organizational culture that promotes motivation and satisfaction, managers should focus on the following points:
1. Personal Example: Managers need to set a personal example and act according to the values they want to see in the organization. Managers’ behavior will directly influence employee behavior.
2. Effective Communication: Encourage open and transparent communication at all levels of the organization. When communication is open, employees feel more connected to the organization’s goals and their sense of belonging strengthens.
3. Team Development: Create opportunities for professional and personal development of employees. Workshops, courses, and training can improve employees’ abilities and increase their sense of competence.
4. Recognition and Appreciation: Regularly recognize employees’ contributions and achievements. Recognition and appreciation not only improve satisfaction but also increase motivation.
5. Fostering Empathy and Respect: Ensure respectful and empathetic treatment towards every employee. Empathy and respect are foundations for a positive organizational culture that contributes to satisfaction and a sense of meaning.
Summary
Edgar Schein offers us a deep understanding of how behavior creates culture in an organization. By creating a positive organizational culture that promotes values such as transparency, listening, and mutual respect, managers can increase employee motivation and satisfaction. Understanding and implementing Schein’s insights can improve leadership and contribute to the organization’s success.
If you have questions or would like to hear more about ways to improve management and lead your teams, contact us. We are here to help you find meaning in your work and lead your organization to success.
A positive attitude seems trivial. What could be more basic than that?
Well, as trivial as it is, having the habit of maintaining a positive attitude, even in the most demanding situations, is not that simple. We think that in order to do so, one has to clearly understand why it is so important.
Your attitude is one of the first things people will notice about you. We guess that most people won’t start to rationally analyze your attitude, but most of them will surely remain with some sort of first emotional impression about it.
Even more important than this is the fact that usually other people’s reactions toward you will, to some extent, reflect your attitude back to you. As simple as that, if you smile at somebody, they’ll usually smile back. If you whine to someone, they’ll usually immediately start to tell you about their troubles.
The effect of having the right or wrong attitude is even stronger in modern-day organizations with complex, multi-dimensional matrix organizational structures. Unlike past, simple hierarchical organizations where people had the chance to know each other on a more intimate level and get past first impressions, in contemporary organizations, you might interact with people for a very brief moment, and the first impression you make, the one that is largely affected by your attitude, might just be your last one.
Once we understand how crucial it is to maintain a positive attitude, the question that remains is how to do it?
Maybe the first thing to do is understand your current attitude. This can be done by asking people you know about it. You can ask people you trust and think would be honest with you. It is important to also ask people with whom you might have some difficulties (we intend to write a post about feedback in the near future and we’re going to elaborate on this subject more).
Once you understand your current attitude, you’ll probably know which parts are your strengths and which are your shortcomings. We’ve found out that the increased awareness about those behaviors immediately makes us increase the good, positive ones and decrease the bad, negative ones.
Other things that work for us are:
– Smiling a lot without giving up being honest – Being optimistic by seeing the positive side of everything. When we think about this, almost nothing is totally bad or good, you can choose which side you want to emphasize! – Being empathetic to others by really listening and understanding their point of view
Good luck! Please let us know what you think and what works for you.
Heart of Management 