In Extremis Leaders Are Inherently Motivated

As you might expect, for leader athletes in both team and individual sports, the competency "motivating" was at the top of the list. After all, winning is about farther, harder, faster. One might assume that in sports with risk to life, motivation would be powerful, even more important. Astonishingly, however, among the members of the national champion competition parachutists, "motivating" ranked second from the bottom-a very significant difference. "Learning" averaged number one on the parachutists’ list.

Using interview data to explore this counterintuitive finding, I inferred two characteristics of the in extremis pattern:

• In extremis contexts are inherently motivating. The danger of the context energizes those who are in it, making cheerleading much less necessary.

• The potential hostility of the context means that those who work there place a premium on scanning their environment and learning rapidly.

It is important to distinguish between the in extremis concept of inherent motivation and the more commonly cited concept of intrinsic motivation. People who are intrinsically motivated are internally driven. Consider these definitions of intrinsic motivation taken from popular books about the commitment of educators:

"Intrinsic motivation refers to motivation to engage in an activity for its own sake. People who are intrinsically motivated work on tasks because they find them enjoyable."¹

"Intrinsic motivation is the innate propensity to engage one’s interests and exercise one’s capacities, and, in doing so, to seek out and master optimal challenges."²

"Intrinsic motivation is choosing to do an activity for no compelling reason, beyond the satisfaction derived from the activity itself-it’s what motivates us to do something when we don’t have to do anything."²


The inherent motivation of in extremis contexts is different from intrinsic motivation: rather than occurring for no compelling reason, it occurs as a result of the most compelling reason, and that’s the consequence of death. Inherent motivation is externally derived from the in extremis context, not the internally derived intrinsic motivation. It is a new way of viewing the leader-follower dynamic in dangerous settings and is the conceptual portrayal of how the environment demands the total focus of the in extremis leader while at the same time motivating the follower.

Powerful motivation is inherent in dangerous contexts. This means that in extremis leaders don’t need to do a lot of cheerlead-ing; they’re not the motivational speaker or high-pressure sales type. People need to be motivated to endure misery or physical challenge, but not through in extremis circumstances where threat of death or injury is high. Drill sergeants sometimes have to yell and scream to get trainees to function. This is usually not the case among combat leaders, because followers are inherently motivated by the grave circumstances of combat.

Notes:

1. P. Pintrich and D. H. Schunk, Motivation in Education: Theory, Research, and Applications (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Merrill-Prentice Hall, 2002), p. 3.

2. J. M. Reeve, Motivating Others (Needham Heights, Mass.: Allyn & Bacon, 1995), p. 10.

3. J. P. Raf?ni, 150 Ways to Increase Intrinsic Motivation in the Classroom (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Professional, 1996), p. 3.