Leadership and Self-Efficacy - Essay Example

Influence of leadership on employee motivation Mullins (2007, p.155) argued that “leadership is not about being a wonder woman or a man; but it's about valuing individuality”. Plenty of people have the illusion that wonderful people may become effective leaders. However, the fact is that effective leaders are the ones who are successful in motivating the followers or individuals. Leadership is all about influencing others. Leaders can influence employees both in positive and negative manners.

In other words, leadership can inject both positive and negative energies in the minds of the employees. Clawson (2008, p.1) pointed out that “leadership is about managing energy first in yourself and then in those around you”. Leaders who cultivate negative energy in the minds of employees may fail to motivate the employees whereas those who cultivate positive energy may succeed in motivating the employees. A lot of leadership models are currently popular in the organizational world. The major objective of all these models is to motivate the employees properly.

For example, servant leadership is one of the rapidly evolving leadership styles at present. “It is an approach that aims to satisfy the needs of the employees so that it enhances job satisfaction and inspires them to reach higher levels of performance in organizations due to its emphasis on serving, vision, values, teamwork and empowerment” (Mehta, & Pillay, 2011, p.24). In this type of leadership, the leaders are giving more attention to satisfy the needs of the employees. The principle behind this model is that only the satisfied employees contribute heavily to the organization and therefore it is necessary to provide peace of mind to the employees at any cost.

Therefore, servant leaders try to serve the employees as the name indicates. Some leaders have the illusion that leadership and management are all about using power. However, servant leadership says that leaders should act even as servants at times to derive the most out of the employees. Another important leadership model in the corporate world is transformational leadership style. The core principle behind of transformational leadership model rests in providing enough motivation to the employees to perform certain tasks.

“Correlational and regression analysis revealed that there is a direct and positive relationship between transformational leadership and organizational commitment. Results also show that emotional intelligence moderates the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational commitment” (Farahani et al., 2011, p.211). As the name indicates, transformational leaders try to transform the minds of the employees. They cultivate positive changes in the behavior, attitudes and work philosophy of the employees so that the organization gets benefits out of it.

Consistency in approaches and dealings is one of the major characteristics of transformational leaders. In other words, transformation leaders will never be opportunistic. They will assist the employees both during good times and bad times. Nohria et al, (2008, p.3-4) conducted some studies in order to learn more about the employee motivating factors. In their opinion the four drives that underline motivation are; the drive to acquire, the drive to bond, the drive to comprehend and the drive to defend.

It is the duty of the leaders to make sure that all these drives of motivation are met properly. For example the drive to acqu