Leadership and Motivation - Case Study Example

Leadership and Motivation Name Course Lecture Date Introduction Leadership has a great influence on the level of employee motivation in an organization. The leadership style of an employee’s superiors influences an individual motivation throughout his lifetime. Any leadership style has a negative or positive influence on worker motivation. Leadership is defined as the ability to guide employees towards achieving the company vision by achieving a number of set goals (Chaudhry and Husnain 2012). Leadership is also defined as one of the qualities that is desired of modern managers and has a crucial impact on employee satisfaction and their intention to stay with a firm. According to Bass et al (2003), it is impossible to achieve and implement an organization’s goals without leadership. However, any consideration of how leadership impact motivation must take into consideration various leadership styles used by organizational leaders. Among the leadership styles discussed in this review include transactional, laissez faire, transformational, command-control style, worker responsibility and other variations of these leadership styles. This literature review aims to investigate the influence of each of these leadership styles on employee motivation. Motivation refers to a person’s reason for behaving in a certain way (Chaudhry and Husnain 2012). It is also a conscious or subconscious drive to do something; “The process of that account for an individual’s intensity, direction, and persistence of effort toward attaining a goal” (Robbins, Judge and Sanghi 2007) There are two types of motivation: Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation. According to Ryan and Deci (2000), extrinsic motivation is targeted at external rewards and rein forcers. These rewards may include praise, awards and money. Rein forcers are controls which include disciplinary action, rules, policy and procedures, boundary-setting and speeding tickets. Also known as hygiene factors, extrinsic rewards do not motivate but their absence causes demotivation (Ryan and Deci 2000). Leaders should be aware that effective motivation is better achieved through intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is a type of motivation where people get internal rewards and is reinforced by internal rein forcers. Internal rewards include a sense of achievement, enjoyment or satisfaction. Internal rein forcers include “should, ought’s, musts, toxic shame or a guilty conscience (Ryan and Deci 2000). Internal rewards in an organizational context are associated with individual intellectual and occupational achievement. Command-and-control leadership It is the most common leadership style in most organizations and in modern society. This type of leadership creates repetitive tasks and thus results in efficiency. Employees are used to doing their work in one way and thus they resist change (Pigeau and McCann 2000). Workers rarely involve themselves in challenging tasks in the workplace; instead they just want to do their work in a satisfactory manner. Command-and-control leadership can also be equated to autocratic leadership that requires workers to do as their supervisors order. According to Amabile and Khaire (2008) people who use autocratic leadership are not ready to serve as organizational leaders and have leadership thrust at them before fully developing their leadership skills. Autocratic leaders are very demotivating to employee as they force them to execute tasks based on a narrow subjective idea of what success is within the organization (Germeno, 2012). Rather than motivate employee to execute tasks out of their own will, autocratic leaders work through coercion. Germano (2012) argues that followers of autocratic leaders will rarely speak even when they know what there are doing will fail. Most importantly, people do not like to be controlled and are likely to rebel against autocratic leadership. Worker responsibility on the other hand is more motivating leadership as it hands responsibility to workers bringing on a sense of accomplishment when they handle a task successfully (Germano 2012). In this type of leadership, the followers welcome change and are driven by challenges and are involved in finding ways to achieve the organizations goals. Today’s organizations operate in an environment where change is crucial for survival. Workers who are used to responsibility enable their organizations to be on the leading edge of change (Amabile and Khaire 2008). Bureaucratic Germano (2012) defines bureaucratic leaders as leaders who rely on the organizational policy and directives to achieve their goal. Organizational policies guide execution, strategy, objectives and outcomes and are therefore extrinsic motivators (Ryan and Deci 2000). Bureaucratic leaders do not go beyond organizational policy to motivate employee to perform beyond organizational expectations. The commitment to strict procedure and process and not people make bureaucratic leaders seem aloof and increases the power distance between them and followers. Bureaucratic leaders feel that motivating employees and developing employees is not necessary in achieving organizational goals. When employees perceive that their organization place policies above people they become demotivated. According to Adams and Adam (2009), both autocratic and bureaucratic leaders fail to motivate employees and their detrimental impacts easily outweigh their benefits in organizations. Both these leadership styles rely on extrinsic rein forcers and thus their impact on motivation is mostly negative (Ryan and Deci 2000). Democratic In this style of leadership the group is supposed to lead itself with little input from the leader. According to Chaudhry and Husnain (2012), decision making through democratic leadership is slow as it takes enormous effort to build consensus among the team. In the views Luthans (2005) this leadership style can only be effective in a situation where all the followers are experts. Democratic or Lissez faire leaders provide complete freedom, and necessary material and then they pull away, they rarely give feedback or ask employees questions. This leadership style provides employee with complete power to make decisions, a notable motivating factor for most employee. However, the lack of guidance and feedback delimits motivation through the power to make decisions. Judge and Piccolo (2004) show that Lissez faire leadership is negatively associated with employee motivation. Employee motivation is also bogged down by slow process of decision making and slow production of tangible resources. Charismatic Charismatic leadership is one of the most successful leadership styles in motivating employee. According to Jacobsen and House (2001), charismatic leaders are able to motivate followers by behaving admirably. This character of leadership is defined as idealized influence. Charismatic leaders are able to appeal to followers at the emotional level. Through inspirational motivation these leaders are able to articulate an appealing and inspiring vision for the followers. They also set high standards for followers and challenge them to perform to these high standards. Barbuto (2005) argues that Charismatic leaders are the most highly valued leaders in organizations. Organizations that are led by charismatic leaders are very creative and innovative. Judge and Piccolo (2004) say that the characteristic of charismatic leaders means followers have an intrinsic desire to follow them. Since charismatic leaders are highly motivational, motivational levels remain high during their period at the helm. However, once they leave they are hard to replace. Transactional Germano (2012) dismisses transactional leadership as wheeler-dealer leadership. In his opinion, transactional leaders give favors away in exchange for loyalty. Extrinsic rewards for followers include promotions, good performance reviews, assignment of desired duties. Therefore, transactional leaders motivate employee through expectations. However, situations arise in organizations where there are no favors to trade thus delimiting the motivational abilities of transactional leaders (Bass et al 2003). However, the traits of transactional leaders converge with those of charismatic leaders resulting in highly motivated employees. In most cases, the political wheeler-dealing of transactional leaders are very beneficial to organization. If an organization can be able to provide the goodies offered by transactional leaders then motivation levels will remain high in the organization. Transformational Transformational leaders are the most effective leaders in motivating employees. The aim of transformational leaders is to change their followers and their organizations (Ayman and Korabik 2010). Transformational leaders are concerned about the future and aim to develop their followers into leaders too. Unlike charismatic leaders who use the force of personality and transactional leaders who motivate by bargaining, transformational leaders are more formidable motivators as they provide intrinsic motivation factors (Bass et al 2003). Transformational leaders are able to develop employees to be contributors to the ultimate success of the organization. Through knowledge, expertise and vision, transformational leaders bring about a permanent transformation to those they lead. Transformational leadership is more concerned with developing people to do the best they can for the organization. Among the motivating qualities associated with transformational leaders include inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration. According to Barbuto (2005) inspirational motivation has to do with communication of optimism about completion challenging tasks. Secondly, it involves acts of challenging assumptions, taking risks, and soliciting employees’ ideas that stimulate followers intellectually. Individualized consideration is about the degree of concern about followers including listening to their concerns, attending to their needs and acting as a mentor and coach to followers (Amabile and Khaire 2008). Today organizations are fast changing and the workforces need to abandon old skills and learn new ones. Transformational leaders are able to motivate employee through self-development programs (Luthans 2005). They help employees adapt to the new more efficient and effective ways of doing things where the least effort is needed. Transformational leaders collaborate with frontline employees in solving and preventing problems. Most decisions are made by employees who are directly affected by the task. With employee feeling more empowered they are motivated to work harder. In contrast, front line employees who have no authority to take action are not motivated to act to prevent or solve problems. Autocratic and Bureaucratic leadership consider the opinion and concerns of front line employees trivial (Amabile and Khaire 2008). Action is only taken when problems are too big. In most cases, workers magnify problems so they can call management attention to them leading to a combative environment. Workers resists control while management try to coerce them to act as desired. In contrast, transformational leaders work together with followers to solve and prevent problems. This brings a sense of ownership in individuals over the tasks they are charged with and thus motivating them to perform to the best of their ability. Situational Situational leadership theory posits that employee motivation is not guaranteed by one leadership style. Leaders adopt leadership styles according to situation, follower and desired results (Germano 2012). Using situational leadership, the leaders needs to be keen about organizational goals and the motivation of individuals. According to Blanchard, Zigarmi and Zigarmi (1999), situational leaders choose where to apply directive or supportive leadership. To motivate some employees close supervision and control and structure are needed. For example, a young intern at an organization will be lost and demotivated if his work is not closely supervised and his actions guided. For experienced staff, supportive leadership is more appropriate. This supportive leadership includes praise, constant feedback and two-way communication (Luthans 2005). On the contrary, a very experienced worker will be able to effectively carry out his duties and would be easily demotivated by close supervision. Blanchard, Zigarmi and Zigarmi (1999) came up with four leadership styles that can be applied in different situations to motivate employee. These styles are coaching style, supporting style, delegating style and directing style. In directing, control and close supervision is emphasized. In coaching, emphasis is on explanation of what the employee needs to do with the employee own suggestion being considered. In the supporting style, the leader supports the employee in carrying out his job successfully. While in delegating all the responsibility and authority is handed over to the worker. Motivation through situational leadership depends on correctly applying the appropriate style while dealing with a particular person in a specific situation. According to Blanchard, Zigarmi and Zigarmi (1999), the most appropriate style depends on employee’s skill and knowledge and commitment. Conclusion Emphasis on intrinsic motivation is the surest ways for leaders to successful motivate employees. A leadership style is most effective if it identifies and applies the most relevant motivating factors to an individual. The failure of bureaucratic, autocratic, command-and control leadership styles to effectively motivate employee can be explained by their gearing towards extrinsic motivation. These control-based leadership styles rely on external rein forcers like rules, disciplinary action and policies to coerce employees to behave as expected. In contrast, charismatic and transformational leaders intrinsically motivate their followers. Transformational leaders excel in motivation as they provide the internal factors needed to motivate individuals. They help individuals feel they are important contributors to the organizational success. Developing employee sets aside transformational leadership from other leadership styles and explains its greater effectiveness in motivating employees. Situational leadership is also a viable leadership option where motivational factors are suited to each situation and individual. In conclusion, the leadership style that a leader adopts will influence the motivation of his/her followers negatively or positively. References Adams, B & Adams, C 2009, Transformation, Leadership Excellence, vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 14-15. Amabile, TM & Khaire, M 2008, Creativity and the role of the leader, Harvard business review, vol. 86, no. 10, pp. 100. Ayman, R & Korabik, K 2010, Leadership, American Psychologist, vol. 65, no. 3, pp. 157-170. Bass, BM , Avolio, BJ, Jung, DI, & Berson, Y 2003, Predicting unit performance by assessing transformational and transactional leadership, Journal of applied psychology, vol. 88, no. 2, pp. 207. Blanchard, K., Zigarmi, P., & Zigarmi, D 1999, Leadership and the one minute manager: Increasing effectiveness through situational leadership (Vol. 3). HarperCollins. Chaudhry, A. Q., & Husnain, J 2012, Impact of transactional and laissez faire leadership style on motivation, International Journal of Business and Social Science, vol 3, no. 7, pp. 258-264. Germano, MA 2011, Library Leadership that Creates and Sustains Innovation. Library Leadership & Management, vol 25, no. 3. Germano, MA 2012, Leadership Style and Organizational Impact. JM (2010, June). Jacobsen, C., & House, R. J 2001, Dynamics of charismatic leadership: A process theory, simulation model, and tests, The Leadership Quarterly, vol 12, no. 1, pp. 75-112. Judge, TA, & Piccolo, RF 2004, Transformational and Transactional Leadership: A Meta-Analytic Test of Their Relative Validity, Journal of Applied Psychology, vl. 89, no. 5, pp. 755. Luthans, F 2005, Organizational Behavior (10th ed.).McGraw Hill/ Irwin Publication. Pigeau, R., & McCann, C 2000, Redefining command and control. In The human in Command (pp. 163-184), Springer US. Robbins, SP Judge, TA. &Sanghi, S 2007, Organizational Behavior. (12th ed.), Pearson: Prentice Hall, India Ryan, RM., & Deci, EL 2000, Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations: Classic definitions and new directions, Contemporary educational psychology, vol 25, no. 1, pp 54-67. Read More