Analysis of Strengths and Weaknesses of Motivation to a Manager - Coursework Example

rgаnisаtiоnаl Bеhаviоur Student’s Name Institutional Affiliation Course Name Date of Submission Table of Contents Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………….3 Motivation………………………………………………………………………………………3 Motivation Theories……………………………………………………………………………..4 Analysis of Strengths and Weaknesses of Motivation to a Manager……………………………6 Example of Motivation Presented in the Media…………………………………………………7 Leadership……………………………………………………………………………………….8 Leadership Theories……………………………………………………………………………...9 Analysis of Strengths and Weaknesses of Leadership to a Manager………………………….....9 Example of Leadership Presented in the media………………………………………………....11 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………....11 References………………………………………………………………………………………13 Оrgаnisаtiоnаl Bеhаviоur Introduction Understanding how people interact in an organization, commonly known as organizational behavior is key to managing an organization. Understanding how people interact in an organization is important for managers since it helps managers create an efficient business organization that meets the needs of the employees and other stakeholders. This is because, by understanding how people behave in an organization, a manager is able to employ appropriate strategies that enhance job performance, employee satisfaction, effective leadership and innovation among others (Rynes1, Gerhart and Minette 2004, p. 384). There are many concepts of organizational behavior that a manager must understand to ensure the success of an organization. Among the concepts are motivation and leadership. Normally, the success of an organization depends largely on keeping employees motivated. Evidence has shown that having a highly motivated workforce has many advantages to an organization, including increased productivity, low turnover, and less absenteeism. As a result, in order for an organization to succeed, a manager must ensure that employees are kept highly motivated all the time. Effective leadership is also important for the success of a business since it helps ensure effective planning, organizing, controlling and supervising of business functions. This document will explore the concepts of motivation and leadership and their impact on an organization. Motivation Employees are seen as the most important assets in the present day business environment. The main work of a manager, however, is to rally employees to do their work so as to achieve the objectives of an organization. However, to enable workers perform their tasks effectively, a manager must ensure that employees are highly motivated. Robbins and Judge (2013, p. 201) define motivation as treating employees fairly and satisfying their needs, both personal and professional. Evidence has shown that having a motivated workforce is beneficial for an organization since it ensures better performance, job satisfaction and low turnover among other benefits. As such, managers are advised to ensure that all employees are motivated all the time to ensure business success. Fortunately, there are a variety of motivation strategies that a manager can adopt to keep employees highly motivated. However, managers must be careful when implementing the motivational strategies because what motivate one employee may not necessarily motivate the other (Islam and Ismail 2008, p. 345). Some of the motivational strategies that a manager can adopt are providing a conducive working environment, competitive salaries and benefits, career development plan, reward and praise just to name but a few. Motivation Theories The reasons, why people are motivated differently, have puzzled people for many years. In response, a number of theories have been developed that attempt to explain why people are motivated differently and its importance in the success of an organization. Some of the most influential personalities whose theories of motivation have helped people understand why people behave differently include Abraham Maslow, Adam Smith, Aristotle, and Sigmund Freud, just to name but a few. Equity theory, coined in 1963 by John Stacey Adams is one such theory that attempts to explain why people are motivated or demoralized depending on variables. Equity theory focuses on fairness or lack of fairness in an organization. The theory maintains that whenever an individual feels that he or she is fairly treated by an organization, the person in question will be motivated. However, if an individual feel that an organization is not treating him or her unfairly as they would expect, then the individual will feel demoralized. In other words, equity theory is trying to explain that merely rewarding employees by offering better pay and a conducive working environment might not necessarily motivate an employee. Rather, employees tend to keep a balance between their input in the company and the output they derived from their input. Elements that constitute the input include effort, enthusiasm, commitment; trust in managers, loyalty, and hard work among others. The outputs that employees expect from an organization, however, include salary, bonuses, recognition, praise, pension arrangement, training, promotion, benefits, responsibility and parks among others. Therefore, if an employee feels that there is a balance between his or her effort and the rewards he received from a company, the equity theory maintains that the employee in question will feel motivated (Manzoor 2013, p. 36). However, in case there is no balance, the employee will feel demoralized. Accordingly, equity theory is trying to teach managers to be as fair as possible to employees to ensure that employees become highly motivated for the success of an organization. Abraham Maslow's theory of needs is another important theory that has helped in explaining motivation in the workplace. Maslow's theory was coined in the 1940s and maintains that people are motivated by needs. According to Maslow's need theory, each individual has a variety of needs and that these needs must be satisfied one after the other beginning with the lower level needs, such as the need for survival (Lauby 2005, p. 31). Accordingly, it is after people have satisfied their lower level needs that they begin to yearn for the satisfaction of the higher order needs, such as personal development and influence among others. Maslow's theory also holds that, in case an individual's lower level needs are not satisfied, the person in question would not bother about the satisfaction of the higher order needs. For ease of understanding, Maslow came up with a five model hierarchy of needs. These include biological and physiological needs, safety needs, love needs, esteem needs and finally self-actualization needs. According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, managers should ensure that employees are kept highly motivated by identifying their present needs and satisfying them before moving to higher order needs. Analysis of Strengths and Weaknesses of Motivation to a Manager Having a highly motivated workforce can be a huge benefit to a manager of an organization. Today, business competition is very stiff. In response, companies are devising every strategy possible to gain competitive advantage over the rivals in the industry. However, the success of a company largely depends on the performance of employees. Fortunately, the performance level of employees also depends largely on the motivational level of employees. In this regard, a manager can benefit from a highly motivate workforce since highly motivated employees tend to be more productive as they give their all to the company (Robbins and Judge (2013, p. 209). This ensures increased production and better services, thus success. For instance, awarding a salary increment to an employee for his work can motivate an employee to put more effort, resulting in increased productivity and better services. Secondly, managers also need to ensure that employees are motivated to help minimize turnover. Evidence shows that most organizations in the present day business environment are struggling to keep good talents. This is because most employees today are looking for employers who value their work and reward them for their efforts (Oluseyi and Ayo 2009, p. 10). Accordingly, companies that maintain a highly motivated workforce have been found to experience low turnover rate because employees are satisfied, thus do not see the need for leaving. As a result, the best strategy to maintain a low turnover in an organization is to ensure that employees are highly motivated in their work by rewarding them for their efforts, providing training and better working conditions among others. Thirdly, a manager can benefit from having a motivated workforce since it minimizes issues of absenteeism. Robbins and Judge (2013, p. 213) show that companies that do not have a motivated workforce experiences a high rate of employee absenteeism. Robbins and Judge attribute the high rate absenteeism in such companies to the fact that demoralized employees are not contented with what they are doing. By contrast, companies that maintain a highly motivated workforce experience few incidences of employee absenteeism if not none. For this reason, managers who intend to succeed in the present day business environment must ensure that employees are highly motivated all the time. Other benefits that a manager can derive from keeping a highly motivated workforce include gaining a good reputation and enhanced industrial relations among others. However, the weakness of employee motivation is that keeping employees motivated might be costly to a company. For instance, a manager might want to keep employees motivated by awarding salary increments. Nevertheless, as much as the benefits might result from the increased motivational level created, it comes at a cost, which the company might not recover. The other major weakness associated with motivation is that it is not easy determining what motivates an employee in some cases. For instance, Maslow's theory of needs identifies different levels of needs that must be satisfied starting with the lower level need. However, a manager might not easily know whether the lower order needs have been satisfied so as to move to satisfy the higher order needs. Example of Motivation Presented in the Media Virgin Australia agrees to 28% pilot pay rise. This article reports on how Virgin Australia recently implemented a pay rise of 28% of its pilots to keep them highly motivated. The company CEO reveals that because it pilots play a critical role in ensuring the company success, it was necessary to offer them a pay rise as a means of keeping them highly motivated for the success of the company. The company believes that the pay rise will also help attract skilled pilots into the company, which in turn will enhance the company's competitive advantage in the airline industry (Sandilands 2011). Leadership Babu (2010) argues that effective leadership is key to the success of any business today. Leadership involves creating a vision and rallying followers towards the achievement of the vision. Therefore, from the definition, it becomes clear that the creation of a vision for a company and ensure that the staff of the organization is rallied towards the achievement of the visions is a critical aspect of leadership. In fact, Fairholm (2009, p. 9) observed that most companies that succeed in the present day business environment are managed by visionary leaders. One such company is General Motors that have stayed ahead of the park in the automobile industry for many years because of the visionary leadership exhibited in the company. Leadership is also important in the success of a company since it helps establish a good relationship with the employees. However, there are different leadership styles that a manager can adopt to ensure business success. These include visionary, democratic, commanding, pacesetting and coaching among others. Robbins and Judge (2013, p. 367) argue that because different leadership styles fit different organizations, leaders must ensure that the right leadership is adopted depending on the nature of an organization. For instance, leadership style adopted in the military might be different from that adopted by a company that deals with products. Leadership Theories Different leadership theories have emerged in the past that attempts to explain why leaders portray different leadership qualities and characteristics. The great man theory is one such theory, which maintains that leaders are born (Changing Minds 2015). In other words, the theory posits that a great leader is not made; rather, all great leaders are born with the leadership qualities they demonstrate. For instance, the theory is trying to explain that all the great leaders are born with the leadership qualities inherent in them. Therefore, the theory maintain that there is nothing like training people to become leaders since if an individual is not born with the right leadership qualities, the person will remain so and cannot develop good leadership qualities regardless of the training offered. The other theory that attempts to explain leadership is the trait theory. The trait theory of leadership holds that leadership qualities are inherited (Rukhmani, Ramesh and Jayakrishnan 2010, p. 367). In other words, trait theory maintains that individuals inherit certain leadership qualities that make them great leaders. For instance, a child may become a greater leader by inheriting great leadership qualities from his father or a close relative who possessed great leadership qualities. Analysis of Strengths and Weaknesses of Leadership to a Manager Good leadership is necessary for the success of any business. Robbins and Judge (2013, p. 369) suggest that, for an organization to succeed, it must have great leaders who have a vision for the company and is capable of rallying followers towards the achievement of organizational goals. In this regard, it becomes clear that good leadership is important because it helps in ensuring that tasks are done in the right way and at the time. For instance, teamwork is necessary for the realization of organizational goals. For this reason, to ensure that the team accomplishes the assigned tasks, a manager must demonstrate leadership by rallying the team to perform the project, according to Anderson (2013). Secondly, planning is an important role of a manager in an organization. Planning entails ascertaining the needs of an organization and devising the right course of action. As a result, good leadership is important because it ensures that an organization accomplishes its objectives by pursuing the right course of action (Fairholm and Fairholm 2000, p. 104). For instance, when a company intends to undertake a project, good leadership is necessary to ensure that adequate resources and finances are availed to ensure the accomplishment of the project through proper planning. Good leadership is also important in the management since it helps establish a good working relationship with the employees. Shelton and Darling (2001, p. 264) observe that most employees like working with democratic and not autocratic leaders. In this regard, it becomes clear that showing good leadership can act as a motivating factor for the employees to increase their efforts. In this regard, a manager should act as a good example to the followers by demonstrating effective leadership. Additionally, leadership is important in an organization since it helps build the reputation of a company Robbins and Judge (2013, p. 374). The reputation of a company is very critical for the success of an organization. For this reason, when a manager demonstrates good leadership by acting ethically, this might enhance the reputation of the company by attracting more investors and customers to the company, thus success. Failure to demonstrate effective leadership can, however, be detrimental to an organization. For instance, failure to demonstrate good leaders might result in the development of informal leadership. The development of informal leadership may be detrimental to an organization since it might result in the regulation of employees' behaviors, creating a conflict between the management leadership and the employees. Secondly, if a manager fails to provide the right leadership, employees may end up having no option, but to depend on informal leadership (Schein 2010, p. 23). This may be detrimental to the organization since there would be no one to guide the actions of employees in the organization. Accordingly, conflicts might arise, leading to disharmony in the workplace, thus failure. Example Of Leadership Presented In The Media Why Australian workplaces need much better leaders As noted earlier, the success of any business depends largely on the leadership. However, in this news article, Peter Gahan notes that Australian companies are facing a big challenge because of the lack of good leadership. The author notes that most Australian companies cannot compete effectively with the foreign companies because of poor leadership. According to Gahan, the leadership problem experienced in the country emanates from the fact that the Australian leaders are badly underqualified for the positions they hold. As such, they do not have the right vision and the ability to rally workers to ensure the success of the companies they manage. Accordingly, the author is of the opinion that the country needs to train more managers the right leadership skills required to spur organizational growth and success (Gahan 2014). Conclusion In conclusion, understanding, how people interact with each other in an organization is important for managers in ensuring efficient management of an organization. Employee motivation and effective leadership are some of the concepts in organizational behavior that are key to the success of an organization. Having a motivated workforce resulting in increased productivity, low turnover, and less absenteeism. As such, managers must ensure that staff is motivated all the time to promote business success. Additionally, for managers to succeed in the present day business environment, they must demonstrate good leadership by setting good vision and rally followers towards the achievement of those visions. References Anderson, A. R 2013, Good leaders are invaluable to a company. 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