Leaders can motivate employees - in fact, it's part of the job description. Dear Bob …I am currently taking a psychology college course and the paper this week is regarding motivation. The exact question is, “Can managers motivate employees? Describe in your opinion using intrinsic and extrinsic motivation factors.” I found this question rather interesting and decided I have asked myself this question many times. Now I am learning technical terms and reasons why motivating employees may or may not work. I have already written my paper and turned it in, but I was curious what you think. My personal opinion is some employees can be motivated, but only temporarily. Once the reward is received or achieved the motivation is gone (extrinsic motivation).Employees with intrinsic motivation, in my opinion, just need to be challenged because they receive rewards by self accomplishment. I have requested my instructor add more discussion among the classroom because this a great topic for future college students who will be entering the work force. I would like to hear what other students think about this topic.– Motivated Dear Motivated …As it happens, this is a subject we cover in our leadership seminars, and I recently went through the material with a client, so I’m rarin’ to go.Here’s the short version: Evidence in favor: Some leaders reliably and consistently have more highly motivated employees on their teams than others. When unmotivated employees join their teams, those employees become more motivated over time – better hiring choices don’t fully explain the data.Best alternative explanation: Some leaders are excellent at de-motivating employees. The ones described above don’t motivate theirs — they merely avoid the mistake of de-motivation (easily achieved through a combination of arrogance, disrespect and unfairness).Most likely conclusion: Both motivation and de-motivation are within the reach of competent business leaders.To your point about motivation being temporary, I’d have to say you’re right, in the same sense that good business strategy is temporary, competitive advantages are temporary and so on. That is, motivating employees is an ongoing leadership responsibility, not something leaders can slack off on after awhile.One other insight, which occurred while helping one of the staff here develop a leadership module on motivation: The way to motivate employees isn’t to give them what they need, want and desire (assuming you like Maslow’s formulation). That’s de-motivating.The way to motivate them is to create opportunities for them to get what they need, want and desire for themselves. – Bob Technology Industry