Ta-Nehisi Coates writes about his experience of teaching a writing class at MIT this semester. Here he is talking about motivating students:
I didn’t have to work hard to motivate people. What I found was that if I showed up, and I was excited, they fed off of that, and they got excited. I came to feel that teaching was performance. My job was to communicate my own energy and belief in the importance of the work. As a manager, this is what I try to bring to my work. Hopefully I’m successful. I’m going to write more about this some other time, but one thing I’ve come to realize is that there’s nothing I appreciate more than a committed performance. Whether it’s from a singer, an actor, a teacher, or a colleague. Commitment makes up for almost any other deficiency.