Your job is not to motivate employees. Your job is to hire the right employees. When you hire the right people they will motivate themselves.  Not everyone agrees with this idea. Some people feel the main responsibility of a leader is to motivate employees.  During my career, I have had obstacles, bad bosses, bad work situations, bad pay, lots of stress, bad work environments, and in all of those circumstances, I motivated myself.  You own your own motivation. You own your own development. And your attitude. No one else is responsible for your motivation.  At Disney, we hired people with the right attitude and gave them a professional, respectful environment to work in. Our job was to train them and development. But cast members owned their own motivation and outcome.  As a supervisor, if someone has a bad attitude, you will never motivate them.  As an employee, you will eventually run into a boss who doesn't like you and doesn't work well with you. You will still have to do a good job.  If you want to learn more about the ups and downs of my career, check out my book, Career Magic.  "Only you are responsible for your happiness and your health." - Sunshine Payne