It's important for a manager to be productive. However, it's much more important for a manager's team to be productive. Managers are motivators. Managers must have the energy, attitude and people skills to motivate their team members to maximize productivity. If a manager knows how to make decisions and knows how to delegate, but isn't a good motivator, they'll still be an ineffective manager. The questions below are often used by hiring managers to test a candidate's ability to motiviate.

► What is motivation?

► Share a work related experience that demonstrates your ability to encourage and motivate another person.

► Pretend you were the recipient of a coveted award three years from now. What is the reward? Why did you receive it?

► Describe time when you and your team were lacking moral and explain what you did to raise spirits?

► How do you make employees feel valued?

► What will you do to retain valued employees?

► What non-monetary factors to you feel help motivate employees?

► What kind of work culture do you think increase moral and employee motivation level?

► What type of incentives or rewards work best for motivating team members?

► Describe a time when you successfully motivated an employee who didn't want to take on a new assignment.