How Does Entrepreneurial Leadership Motivate Employees - Assignment Example

INTERVIEW Outline I Introduction—breaking the ice; small talk I How does your entrepreneurial leadership motivate employees? A leadership and riskB team building II How does leadership theory reflect on your entrepreneurship? A human relations B participation vs. control C leadership roles and entrepreneurship III Leadership and responsibility A teamwork and delegating responsibility B leadership and accountability IV Mentor relationships A leading by example vs. leading by position B leadership opportunities V Conclusion—closing remarks A Interviewee has time for interjections/questions/comments B Main points are dealt with summarily Interview Schedule and Rationale I interviewed the local entrepreneur over a space of several hours, both at their office and in a home situation. We established a schedule to complete the interview in a day, but left a lot of the subject matter to be informal. An informal and relaxed atmosphere is the best place in which this dynamic occurs. The rationale is that positive motivation is very important in the interviewer from the perspectives of interviewer and respondent both. Questions are formed with weight given to risk and decision-making, as per existing literature. “In short, this is what Ive learned: Have a stomach for risk. Dont agonize over failures, learn from them and move on” (Badaracco, 2002). Overall, the interview proceeds from the basic assumption that the organization leader should lead by calculated example and “move patiently, carefully, and incrementally. They do what is right -- for their organizations, for the people around them, and for themselves -- inconspicuously and without casualties” (Badaracco, 2002). It may come up that the ideal leader as a dynamic and creative entrepreneurial decision-maker is difficult to emulate, but that shouldn’t stop anyone from trying their best to spread their own gathered knowledge to the people who are learning from them and using what they have garnered to further the progress of the project at hand. Interview questions/ prompts What’s the relationship between risk and leadership? How important is teamwork in daily operations? Is it possible to be too sensitive to employee needs? How do your decisions affect others? What are some real world examples of leadership? What is the biggest problem you face? Interview summary Q What’s the relationship between risk and leadership? A To the entrepreneur, perhaps the most important characteristics of a great team leader are calmness under pressure, relaxation, calmness, self-confidence, and the ability to make creative and dynamic decisions while still keeping an open mind to all possible solutions to a given problem. They stated that an open mind is definitely important, and leads to results that are often new and original. And even if the results are not beneficial, the true leader does not brood: It is also important for this calculation to not be too risk-averse, and to embrace dynamic change in like environments. “Some visionary leaders are so absorbed with the big picture that they fail to understand essential details except for psi projects in which they become excessively involved. Iacocca for instance turned over most of the day to day operations to others as he became increasingly famous” (Pierce, 2001). Q How important is teamwork in daily operations? A The entrepreneur made it a point to separate theory and the real world, in terms of leadership. The field of leadership theory covers many different environments, including ethical considerations, legal considerations, and considerations for the level of teamwork in the organizational environment. The entrepreneur expressed an allegiance to human relations theory. “The human relations theory which was made famous by Mayo and the Hawthorne studies in the second quarter of the twentieth century, stresses the facilitator and mentor role responsibilities of fostering openness, participation, team morale building, and commitment by emphasizing involvement, human conflict resolution, and consensus building” (Weber, 2005). This is basically a theory that values the social fabric of the organizational environment over any sort of rationalized behavioral standard, but still follows basically rational structures for control of the organizational environment through controlling social factors. For example, the manager may hold assumptions about their employees that they are universally lazy and stupid, and therefore adopt behaviors that emphasizes leadership as control rather than teamwork. To the entrepreneur, this above situation would not be effective according to the human relations theory. In contrast, the human relations approach to leadership blends some of the lingering good parts of mechanistic approaches (some organization is necessary) with human relations approaches and makes them stronger and more applicable to reality because of their dualism and their respect for the employee. Typically the true leadership influenced manager, according to the entrepreneur, would start programs that emphasize participation rather than authoritative control, and thus work towards addressing and satisfying the individual needs of the employee. The ultimate hope of the theory is that ultimately this process would wind up with the employee being more productive because they felt they had more of a stake in decision-making. In this way, the employee is valued as an actual human being with ideas and needs rather than a cog in the machine. Q Is it possible to be too sensitive to employee needs? A When I asked the entrepreneur at this point about treating employees with too much sensitivity, they were quick to point out that at the same time, the emotional needs of the employee do not supercede the greater need of assimilating this unique individual into the organizational communication structure of the workplace in an effective manner. “In a human relations organization, the goal is to encourage the flow of ideas from all locations throughout the organization. Thus, in the simplest sense, communication in this organizational approach will include all directional flows—downward, upward, horizontal, and diagonal” (Pierce, 2001). Not only does this reduce the risk of mixed messages and crossed wires, but it also ensures that the employee will at least feel as if they have some degree of freedom to organize and plan their own agenda (insofar as that agenda is beneficial to the greater good of the company). Q How do your decisions affect others? A The entrepreneur noted that leadership theory revolves around the perception that it is not only the manager who is responsible for making dynamic decisions: effective decisions must be a team effort among a group of people who share a common vision of success and are empowered and willing not to just propose solutions, but also to implement them. The entrepreneur stressed that managers who accept too much responsibility for implementing decisions are denying the fact that they are by nature working within a supportive community which surrounds them, and which involves the nature of their responsibility. They must not lose sight of the implications of their decisions on others; such behavior could border on the dictatorial and would negatively affect both their personal image and the entire organizational dynamic. Q What are some real world examples of leadership? A The entrepreneur talked a lot about mentorships, because this was a part of their own business success; they had a mentor, and wanted their long term managers to act as mentors to new employees. Long-term mentoring relationships have been known to be highly effective in assisting individuals to excel in education and employment, as the mentor is personally vested by providing a nurturing and stimulating relationship conducive to personal and professional growth. “A successful mentoring relationship can provide career-enhancing activities within an employment setting while establishing an appropriate role for the individual within the organization (Kram, 1985; Kram & Isabella, 1985)” (Weber, 2005). But this technique may be limited by the scope and length of many organizational programs. To the entrepreneur, leadership is also important because it relates so directly to employee motivation. One of the most important reasons for turnover internally that this report considers is lack of compensation. Generally it is assumed by the entrepreneur that if the position is a high turnover position, the first place to look would be the compensation level of the employee in this position. For example, some professions and positions that require minimum wage employees attempt to institute employee of the month systems, with mixed results because often employees do not take these incentives seriously without any monetary incentives attached to them. Traditionally the most effective way of motivating employees to perform better and reducing as a result the turnover level in the organization, is giving them financial compensation as a way of motivating greater performance. This is a long established practice in which the employee, especially, if they have been loyal to the organization for several years, is given a raise to show the organization’s appreciation for their hard work and keep them motivated. The entrepreneur noted that in some organizations, where the managers couldn’t care less about their employees, an employee may strive hard and never miss a deadline for five years, and get no just compensation for their efforts. And this is in a modern industrial society, in the twenty-first century. In this type of situation, the employee is not being compensated adequately, and obviously, this situation is naturally going to affect the way that they look at the work they are doing, motivationally. “Companies looking to promote a diverse workforce often encourage their managers to be mentors—the teaching can go both ways. As the members is often younger, he or she can help enlighten the members about new trends in the industry or give them insight into another dimension” (Keller, 2008). The entrepreneur did not talk about the possible problems of using mentorships. Q What is the biggest problem you face? A Lack of motivation and incentives is another major issue in the workplace with high turnover. Lack of motivation and incentives in this as well as in other workplace environments, can lead to employee burnout. Lack of motivation happens when a worker gets so bored with what they are doing that it offers no satisfaction or motivation to them anymore. This especially applies to workers who are asked to perform repetitive tasks, doing the same exact thing time and again even though it makes no sense, but it also works in high stress and high emotion jobs such as police officers and flight attendants. “The more we study burnout, the more we learn that high burnout accentuates many negative work-related characteristics, ranging from low job satisfaction4 to deteriorating personal health.5 Moreover, job burnout tends to be ubiquitous6 and can hinder governmental reform efforts.7 Additionally, burnout appears to be a robust organizational factor that remains stable over time” (Gabris, 2001). Reflective discussion Leadership is key to understanding this entrepreneur’s success. If it weren’t important, there wouldn’t be so much research on the topic and discussion about it, and people wouldn’t find it so motivational. “There are few management and organization topics that have generated more interest and research activity, spanning five decades, than the focus on leadership. Thousands of pages in academic books and journals have been devoted to the topic” (Gabris, 2001). I sometimes think that people don’t equate leadership with being important because they confuse leadership and management. The difference between leadership and management is mainly that management is positional, and leadership is characteristic or personal. There are many different strategies and kinds of leadership, and this is not to say that there are types of leadership that are positional, or types of management which are creative and charismatic. Overall, leadership is the successful application of management skills. “Organizations and their shareholders benefit if employees are taught to manage time, information, human resources, change, revenue and expenses, information technology, and equipment. Collins (3) describes a leader as one who builds enduring greatness through the use of personal humility and professional will to mentor others to do the right thing, one who takes responsibility for failures while giving credit to others for their success, and one who relies on inspired standards to motivate others” (Weber, 2008). The effective definition of management is more of a base consideration of leadership characteristics. There are also different variations between different types of leadership and management that further the division between the terms and some ways, and bring them closer together in others. There are many differences between the official leader, the emergent leader, the authoritarian leader, and the democratic leader, theoretically, in terms of their management styles. But in reality, especially in the former two categories, there may be more similarities. But in terms of difference, these styles or positions of leadership can be differentiated by contrasting the management methodologies used to achieve them. For example, the management style of the official leader is different from the emergent leader in that there is more likelihood that the official leader will represent traditional organizational forces and the status quo in their management styles. The emergent leader, on the other hand, may represent a challenge to this sense of tradition and status quo, and thus may present old issues in a new way or seek to change the basic organizational structure through management. It is also likely that the emergent leader is going to have less of a solid bureaucratic support-structure than the official leader, and may not have the traditional, conservative authority within an organization that an official leader has. The authoritarian leader’s role is patterned around a rigid structure of management (which as mentioned is more basically positional than leadership), hierarchy, and bureaucracy that is relatively static and derives its authority from the leader him/herself. This system has a vertical power structure in which the leader has ultimate authority and decision-making capabilities. The democratic leader’s role is also vertically integrated, but there is much more room for ideas and policies to move up and down the chain of command. Rather than garnering power from personal directives of the leader, this democratic leadership system is about reaching moderate consensus and establishing a sense of shared or common authority based on majority decision, rather than personal decision. When a manager or leader plays the role of the figurehead, the connotation is that their leadership is representative of the organization, and their personal actions are collated with the actions of the organization to represent symbiosis. That is, the shared vision between the organizational structure and the management structure in this role is very close, and the social implications of organizational representation are among the foremost in the leader’s actions. The leader will thus act as the visible social symbol of the organization. There is a strong emphasis on tradition and inspirational leadership in this role. The role of leader as well as the role of manager have a very broad-based definition. Any role in which there is a subordinate is likely to also have a role of leader, but this is not necessarily true of management. Traditional leadership activities include motivation, organization, inspiring teamwork, training recruits, and promoting or dismissing individuals in the subordinate role. The leader should always be listening as well as speaking to enhance the communication paradigm within the organizational space and also so that they can make accurate assessments of strengths and weaknesses as well as opportunities and threats. I cannot think of an example in which an organization has triumphed for a sustained amount of time with the lack of qualified management. Some nontraditionally structured organizations may be an exception to this rule, but it seems to be a rule, nevertheless. Leading professionals can use several strategies to encourage an atmosphere of communication and teamwork in the workplace that will result in this ultimate goal. They can also provide workers and employees with encouragement in more individualized ways, such as choosing an employee of the month system where the awarded employee has their name and picture placed on a plaque that can be seen by other employees and customers. Using this method, employers of can foster an atmosphere of friendly competition where leadership and hard work are shown to have visible rewards. “Specifically, the field needs to learn how managers [can] motivate employees (and citizens too) to pursue important public purposes with intelligence and energy” (Kelly, 2008). The main thing that the entrepreneur taught me was that workers who feel proud and energized are more likely to perform better at their tasks and be more effective in thinking of the whole picture of the organization, so rewards like these also act to empower employees and improve their self-concepts as well as their efficiency and sense of belongingness within the organization. In the organizational environment, stressors are aspects of this environment that create strain on an individual. The interview with the entrepreneur showed me how leaders can creatively help along the team dynamic by making decisions, also. They are not acting alone in a vacuum of personal responsibility that only depends on them; their decisions affect others equally validly. REFERENCE Badaracco, Joseph L. (2002) Leading Quietly. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Gabis, G. (2001) Does performance appraisal contribute to heightened levels of employee burnout?: The results of one study. Public Personnel Management. Keller, E (2008). Mentors make a business better. Business Week. Pierce, J. (2001) Leaders and the Leadership Process New York: McGraw-Hill. Weber, K. (2005). New Frontiers in Human Resource Development. Studies in the Education of Adults 37(2). Read More