Assignment: The Impact of Intrinsic Motivation

Reflect for a moment on your nursing career. About what are you most passionate? When do you feel you are at your best? What brings you the greatest satisfaction in your work?

Positive feelings in the workplace are usually fueled by intrinsic motivators: healthy relationships, meaningful purpose, competence, choice, and progress. As a nurse manager, it is helpful to recognize what motivates you to perform well in your own job.

You should also take time to understand the motivations of employees. By speaking to staff about their interests and professional goals, nurse managers can build relationships and thus provide appropriate motivators.

For this Assignment, you examine your personal work experiences to determine which of the five intrinsic motivators are more influential in shaping your positive feelings about the workplace.

To prepare

Reflect on your work history, from your first job to your current employment.

Select one time period or situation in which you felt professionally happy, motivated, and fulfilled in your job. What do you remember most about this time period? What are, or were, the various personal and professional factors that helped to shape these feelings?

Select one time period or situation in which you felt professionally unhappy, disengaged, and unfulfilled in your job. What do you remember most about this time period? What are, or were, the various personal and professional factors that caused these feelings?

Review the selected pages from Chapter 7, "Coaching and Developing Others" in the course text, From Management to Leadership:

Strategies for Transforming Health Care. Consider the potential influence of the five intrinsic motivators during your chosen time period or situation.

Which intrinsic motivators seem to resonate more with your own perceptions of job fulfillment?

Which motivators do you believe have greater influence on your professional well-being?

Review the media, "Fostering a Positive Workplace." How can nurse leaders use their awareness of the five motivators to engage and retain nursing staff?

To complete

Submit a 3- to 5-page paper in which you do the following:

Appraise a time when you have felt professionally fulfilled. Describe the setting, your job title, and the roles and responsibilities in which you were engaged.

Identify your own key intrinsic motivators and explain how these were evident in this situation. Cite specific examples.

Appraise a time when you have felt professionally unfulfilled. Describe the setting, your job title, and the roles and responsibilities in which you were engaged.

Explain the motivator(s) that were absent and how this impacted your professional performance. Cite specific examples.

Discuss how you, as a nurse manager, might implement organization- or department-wide changes that would create an environment that engages staff through one or more intrinsic motivators.