Criminal Justice Employees and Leaders - Essay Example

Criminal justice employees and leaders Affiliation Employees operating in the area of criminal justice are mostly found unmotivated because the amount of resources available to them are less than the amount of expectations people have from them. These employees are even unmotivated because of the fact that they are not appreciated for the service they are providing to the society. The amount of work assigned and expected from them is huge and these employees are not appreciated or encouraged for the tasks they perform.

The most common problem faced by employers of criminal justice personnel is the motivation of these workers. According to a research, employees working in criminal justice positions cannot be only motivated through monetary benefits and managers have to create other methods to motivate their employees (Stojkovic, 2007, p.129). Theory X states that employees are not willing to work, they need to be supervised and directed in order to make them work. On the other hand theory Y suggests that employees are willing to work and managers do not need to supervise them and managers have to be flexible with them.

Employees working in the criminal justice organizations work there for a greater good and if managers apply theory Y to motivate these employees, the criminal justice employees will be motivated. If the managers provide resources and allow criminal justice employees to act on their own, these employees will be motivated as they will be able to help the society through their own methods. It is very important that managers support the decisions taken by employees in criminal justice organizations, this support will motivate the employees and they will be able to provide better results. 2. Expectancy theory states that employees expect that the amount of effort they have put in conducting a particular task should be equal to the amount of reward they get for conducting that task.

Keeping this theory in mind; if employees of the criminal justice system are paid less or are offered lower monetary rewards than they expect for their hard work, the probability of these employees being de-motivated is very high. Equity theory states that employees are motivated if the perceived amount of reward is equal to the perceived amount of input. If employees perceive that the amount of monetary rewards is lower than the amount of hard work they have induced in performing their job, they will become de-motivated.

Need theory states that individuals have 5 hierarchical level of need, these include: emotional, security, affiliation, esteem needs and self actualization. The theory further states that individuals are motivated to fulfill these needs and to fulfill these needs they work hard. If criminal justice employees are provided monetary benefits for their job, they will be able to fulfill their needs and this will keep them motivated and they will strive hard in order to obtain higher monetary benefits.

The theory even states that until an individual is not able to fulfill the basic needs, they will not try to achieve the remaining needs in the hierarchy. The entry level salary obtained by a criminal justice worker will only help him in achieving his psychological needs, he will work harder in order to obtain more salary a and financial benefits to fulfill remaining needs. 3. Train leaders in criminal justice organizations are possible and are very much necessary. These training programs will not only help leaders lead their team, it will even help these leaders deal with the issues experienced by the criminal justice organizations on every day basis.

The only problem with training leaders in criminal justice workplace is the lack of funds, training is not viewed as necessary by the administrators and they end various training sessions due to lack of funds. An effective criminal justice leader is one who has the ability influence his followers to complete tasks, he himself should be energetic so his followers can follow his footsteps, he should be ready to take responsibility for his actions and he should have the ability take criticism and deal with it, he should never break the trust of his followers, he should have the ability to figure out the emotional issues experienced by his followers and should be able to provide solutions for those issues and he should provide his followers and team mates the liberty to conduct tasks on their own.

The organization should be ready to provide training to all those individuals who they have selected as managers and leaders so they can develop these traits and perform as an effective leader. Bibliography: Stojkovic, S., Kalinich, D. B., & Klofas, J. (2007). Criminal justice organizations: Administration and management. Belmont, CA: Thomson Higher Education.