Beyond the Behavior: Turning Motivation into Meaningful Development

Key Takeaway: Understanding a leader’s motivation helps coaches turn behavioral feedback into a more personalized development plan. By tapping into existing sources of energy, targeting specific behaviors, and exploring alternative approaches, leaders can make meaningful changes without having to become someone they’re not.

In Part 1, we explored why understanding both behavior and motivation can give coaches a richer picture of a leader. Behavioral feedback can identify an important development opportunity. Motivation can help us determine how that particular individual might approach it.

So what does that look like in practice?  It starts by recognizing that the same developmental goal doesn’t have to lead to the same developmental plan.

Look for motivational superpowers

When I’m working with the LEA and IDI together, I like to look for what I call motivational superpowers: sources of energy that can help a leader make a desired behavioral change.

I saw this clearly with a leader I coached who had been passed over for promotion twice. Her 360 feedback revealed a pattern of forcefulness. She was highly persuasive and direct, gave frequent feedback, and showed relatively little restraint. Colleagues described her as passionate and outspoken but sometimes intimidating.

Her behavioral feedback helped identify what was getting in her way. Her motivational profile helped us think differently about how she might change it.

She had significant energy for winning, achieving, taking control and expressing herself. Those motivations had helped make her successful. She knew how to push, accomplish and make things happen. We weren’t trying to eliminate those strengths. We needed to help her expand her repertoire.

And her motivational profile gave us something else to work with: she also received significant energy from connecting with and supporting other people. That became one of her motivational superpowers.

Instead of simply saying, “You need to listen more,” we could connect listening to something that mattered to her: Wouldn’t it feel good for the people around you to know their opinions are valued? Instead of “Show more restraint,” we could explore how pausing before reacting might help her avoid having an unintended negative impact on someone she cared about.

Her motivation didn’t excuse behavior that was getting in her way. It gave us another path into her development.

Work the edges

Sometimes there isn’t an obvious motivational superpower that lines up with the needed behavior. That’s when it can be helpful to work the edges. Rather than asking someone to dramatically change how they lead all the time, identify the situations in which a behavior will have the greatest impact.

If a leader gets relatively little energy from taking charge but needs to provide stronger direction, for example, ask: Which meetings really require you to lead from the front? When does your team most need clearer direction? What would that behavior look like in those specific moments?

That makes the development more intentional and targeted rather than expecting the person to operate outside their energetic preferences constantly.

Consider another route

Sometimes the best path isn’t to develop the most obvious behavior. Imagine a leader who needs to connect more effectively with their team but gets relatively little energy from the interpersonal aspects of leadership.

Developing greater empathy might feel like a significant lift. But perhaps the leader can become more intentional about asking people for their perspectives and involving them in decisions. They still create greater connection and help others feel heard, but through a behavior that may be easier for them to access.

Or consider a leader who gets little energy from detail and organization. Rather than investing enormous energy trying to turn that person into a meticulous project manager, perhaps they can delegate certain responsibilities, establish systems, or partner with someone who naturally brings more structure.

These aren’t ways of avoiding development. They’re ways of becoming more thoughtful about where development effort will have the greatest return.

Stretch — but stretch intentionally

None of this means leaders should only do what gives them energy. Leadership inevitably requires us to operate outside our preferences. There are times when the role, the team, or the situation requires a behavior that simply doesn’t come naturally.

Understanding motivation doesn’t remove that responsibility. It helps us prepare for it.

A leader can recognize, This is going to require more energy from me. When do I really need to do it? How can I prepare? What other strengths can I draw upon? What can I do afterward to reset?  That’s very different from assuming effective leadership means behaving the same way all the time.

More paths to effective leadership

This may be one of the greatest benefits of understanding behavior and motivation together: it gives us more options.

As coaches, our job isn’t simply to identify the behavior a leader should increase or decrease. It’s to help that person figure out how to create a meaningful change in the real world.

Sometimes that means tapping into an existing source of energy. Sometimes it means finding an alternative behavior. Sometimes it means working the edges, delegating, building new structures, or intentionally stretching beyond what feels natural.

The destination may be the same. The path doesn’t have to be.

When we understand both how a leader shows up and what gives them energy, we can help them build a development plan around a much more useful question:  Not “How should a good leader behave?” but “How can this leader become more effective?” 

That’s where understanding motivation can turn developmental insight into meaningful action.

Frequently Asked Questions

How can coaches use motivation to create more effective leadership development plans?

Coaches can identify a leader’s existing sources of energy and use them to support needed behavioral changes. They can also pinpoint situations where a new behavior matters most, explore alternative approaches, and help leaders prepare for changes that require more effort.

What if a leader isn’t naturally motivated to demonstrate a behavior they need to develop?

Low motivation doesn’t mean a leader lacks the ability to demonstrate a behavior. Coaches can help leaders practice it in specific, high-impact situations, draw on other motivational strengths, and develop strategies that make the behavior easier to access when needed.

How can the LEA and IDI assessments be used together in leadership coaching?

The LEA provides insight into a leader’s behavioral patterns, while the IDI identifies what gives that individual energy. Together, they help coaches identify development priorities and design approaches that account for both the behaviors a leader needs to demonstrate and the motivation that may support or challenge those changes.

Christine Chassé, M.Ed., PCC is a Senior Executive Coach at MRG Assessments.  She helps leaders drive authentic, sustainable change while achieving high performance without burnout. With 20+ years’ experience across education, technology, and leadership development, she has worked with various organizations including Johns Hopkins, the United Nations, Pearl Meyer, and Wright Ryan Construction. She is valued for her ability to foster meaningful shifts in how leaders think, communicate, and show up — individually and within their organizations. She holds an M.Ed. from UVA and a B.A. from Syracuse and served on the Board of the Epilepsy Foundation of New England.