Employee engagement has declined in recent years after a long period of steady improvement. While economic pressure, shifting expectations, and workplace disruption all play a role, the daily experience employees have with their managers remains one of the most powerful influences on whether they feel connected to their work. Most managers understand they are expected to coach rather than command. Yet many still equate coaching with correcting behavior.

Effective feedback is not simply a reaction to what someone did. It is rooted in understanding who someone is, what drives them, and how their motivations connect to their work. That kind of coaching requires time, attention, and self awareness. In demanding environments where managers are stretched thin, relationship building can feel secondary. In reality, it is foundational.

Engagement Is Driven by Motivation

In The Leaders We Need, Michael Maccoby describes five elements that shape employee engagement: reasons, responsibilities, recognition, relationships, and rewards. Many leaders begin by clarifying responsibilities and expected outcomes. Although clarity matters, leading with tasks can unintentionally reduce the relationship to performance monitoring. Feedback then becomes centered on what employees do rather than why they do it.

When feedback focuses only on observable behavior, employees often respond with compliance or quiet resistance. Engagement requires something deeper. It begins with reasons. What motivates you as a leader. What motivates the people on your team. Where those motivations align and where they differ.

Behavior is visible. Motivation is not. If you want to influence performance in a lasting way, you have to understand what sits beneath the surface. When managers consistently connect work to what employees genuinely value, effort becomes intentional rather than forced. Tasks stop feeling imposed and start feeling purposeful.

Understand Your Own Motivations First

Before you can coach effectively, you must understand what drives you. Research from Core Strengths suggests that most people are primarily motivated by concern for people, concern for performance, concern for process, or some blend of the three.

People motivation centers on the growth, protection, and wellbeing of others. Leaders with this drive feel fulfilled when they are helping someone develop or succeed.

Performance motivation focuses on achievement and results. These individuals are energized by setting goals, making decisions, and accomplishing measurable outcomes.

Process motivation is rooted in order, fairness, and thoughtful analysis. Leaders with this drive value structure, clarity, and careful reasoning.

Self awareness matters because managers tend to give feedback in the style they personally find motivating. A performance driven leader may emphasize metrics and outcomes. A people driven leader may focus on relationships and morale. A process driven leader may highlight structure and consistency. None of these approaches are wrong. They simply reflect a particular lens.

When you understand your own lens, you are less likely to assume it is the only one that matters.

Learn What Drives Each Employee

Coaching is not about defining a single optimal way of working and persuading everyone to adopt it. Each person defines optimal differently based on their priorities and motivations. To give effective feedback, you need to understand how each team member finds meaning in their work.

Ask yourself whether you can clearly articulate what drives each direct report. Do you know what energizes them. Do you understand how they react when they feel undervalued. Can you identify patterns in how you unintentionally frustrate one another.

These insights do not appear in a performance review form. They emerge through consistent conversation. Relationship building is not a soft extra. It is paid time invested in understanding the human being behind the role.

Even in fast paced or hourly environments, this investment pays dividends. When employees feel seen and understood, feedback lands differently. It feels less like correction and more like collaboration.

Connect Motivation to Performance

Once you understand what matters to someone, you can connect expectations to their motivations. This is where feedback becomes powerful.

Managers often feel compelled to correct methods that differ from their own preferences. But when you pause and examine what truly needs to be accomplished, you may realize that a different approach still achieves the desired outcome. In some cases, it may even be better suited to the employee’s strengths.

When feedback shifts from enforcing sameness to exploring effectiveness, conversations change. Instead of saying this is not how I would do it, you can ask how their approach supports the goal. Instead of directing, you are aligning.

Different projects will naturally appeal to different motivations. A process oriented employee may thrive when building systems but feel drained by ambiguous brainstorming. A performance oriented employee may love stretch targets but disengage when goals are unclear. A people oriented employee may be highly committed to mentoring others but less energized by solitary analysis.

If you understand these patterns, you can anticipate when someone may struggle with enthusiasm. Rather than labeling the reaction as disengagement, you can openly discuss what feels meaningful about the task and where friction exists. Together, you can identify ways to frame or structure the work so it connects to what matters most to them.

When work feels meaningful, even routine responsibilities can become engaging. Meaning transforms effort.

Coaching as Curiosity

Effective feedback is built on curiosity. It asks what drives this person and how can we align their motivations with our shared goals. It also requires humility. You must be willing to see that your way is not the only effective way.

As you refine your coaching approach, shift your focus from correcting behavior to understanding motivation. Consider what matters most to each individual and tailor your conversations accordingly. When employees experience feedback as an invitation to grow rather than a directive to comply, engagement deepens.

Compliance may produce short term results. Personalized coaching rooted in motivation builds commitment. Over time, that commitment is what sustains performance, strengthens relationships, and turns everyday work into a source of purpose rather than pressure.