The Question Every Leader Asks Me: How Do I Keep Myself and My Team Motivated?

The Myth of Motivation

— and What Really Drives Results.

The number one question my executive business coaching clients ask me is this:

“How do I keep myself and my team motivated to do the work necessary to win in a competitive environment?”

It’s a great question. Every leader feels it — that tension between ambition and follow-through, vision and execution.

But here’s the uncomfortable truth: you can’t keep your team motivated.

At least, not the way you think.

Because motivation doesn’t create consistency — process does.

Every world-class organization wins the same way: through disciplined, repeatable, day-in, day-out execution.

Not hype. Not slogans. Not off-sites filled with sticky notes and good intentions.

But here’s where most leaders go wrong. They try to enforce discipline through pressure, policy, or personality.

That works — for a while. Until it burns people out, drains morale, and kills initiative.

If you want consistency that lasts — the kind that drives performance and fulfillment — you need to anchor your team in something deeper than motivation.

The Hidden Driver of Sustainable Performance

It’s not motivation. It’s not even discipline.

Its alignment.

When people understand why their work matters — when what they do every day connects to their beliefs — discipline becomes self-sustaining.

That’s what values do.

Wait—Values?

Let’s call out the elephant in the room.

For some of you reading this, the word values might trigger an eye roll.

You might be thinking, “I don’t have time for this soft stuff. I run a business, not a self-help retreat.”

Fair.

But let me prove how real this is.

Imagine for a moment you get a call no one ever wants to receive — something’s happened to your child, your partner, or someone you love.

That's happened to me. I nearly lost my wife and 4-year-old son when they fell off a cliff.

In that instant, your priorities reorganize themselves with perfect clarity.

Nothing else matters — not the meeting, not the deadline, not the deal.

That’s what values feel like when they’re violated.

That’s how powerful they are.

Now zoom back into everyday life.

You don’t need a crisis to feel that same dissonance.

Every day, employees experience micro-violations of their values:

They might not name it as a “values conflict,” but that’s exactly what it is.

And the result is what we label as burnout, disengagement, and low motivation.

When people can’t see how their daily work connects to their beliefs and their values? Their energy drains.

But when they do make that connection — when their values align with their team’s mission, their organization’s purpose and the business operation systems they use — everything changes.

Energy rises. Motivation sustains. Retention improves. Results follow.

Values aren’t abstract. They’re the psychological infrastructure that holds teams together when the work gets hard.

From Values to Victory

This is the foundation of our Values-Driven Achievement™ framework — a system we teach through keynotes, leadership intensives, business coaching and workshops.

We help organizations:

Because motivation fades. Alignment doesn’t.

When values fuel the process, process drives the results.

And that’s how teams win — not once, but over and over again.

Can we help you align your team and drive peak performance? Contact us.

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Adam Kreek and his team are on a mission to positively impact organizational cultures and leaders who make things happen.

He authored the bestselling business book, The Responsibility Ethic: 12 Strategies Exceptional People Use to Do the Work and Make Success Happen. 

Want to increase your leadership achievement? Learn more about Kreek’s coaching here.

Want to book a keynote that leaves a lasting impact? Learn more about Kreek’s live event service here.