Motivation, Communication and Leadership Concepts - Coursework Example

Leadership and management theories: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theory: Abraham Maslow devised the Hierarchy of Needs theory, also known as Maslow’s motivational model in between 1940s and 1950s in the USA (Chapman, 2010). Because of its intrinsic truthfulness and practicability of the Hierarchy of Needs theory, it has survived over the years and has been openly accepted by the philosophers and educationalists. The theory explains the hierarchy of factors that play a pivotal role in determining one’s motivation for work, competence and willingness to gain further training so as to develop oneself professionally. Through his theory, Maslow has outlined certain factors that step wise influence a worker’s motivation that is fundamental to good work efficiency. Managers need to make sure that their workers are provided with all of these basic needs so that they may develop motivation for their work. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theory shows a pyramid that consists of stages. The lowest stage depicts the most basic things that are required for the fundamental survival of a human being. As we move towards the top of pyramid, the needs shift from basic to opportunistic. The more stages of necessities a manager provides a worker with, the more the worker feels motivated and his efficiency in the work boosts. The step wise necessities can be seen in the Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theory shown below:  (Chapman, 2010). In a vast majority of cases, the workers get stuck into the fourth stage from the bottom throughout their professional career. Very few are adequately satisfied with the fourth stage and hence opt for taking courses and training that would ensure their personal development and professional growth. Herzberg’s motivational theory: Herzberg made a significantly unique contribution to the knowledge about motivation that we have today. He was the first theorist to tell that work based satisfaction and dissatisfaction arises from factors that vary in their nature from case to case, and can not be generalized into a set of factors against which the human reactions should be judged. Many motivational theories conventionally study different reactions to a set of factors common to all workplaces. Herzberg has indeed, adopted a different approach by identifying factors different from those employed in conventional theories. Herberg’s motivational theory can fully be understood from his own phrase that he said in 1959 and that makes an integral part of the Herzberg’s motivational theory. Herzberg said that the factors in workplace that demotivate or dissatisfy the workers are different from and not just the opposites of other factors, that motivate or satisfy them (Chapman, 2010). According to Herzberg, this can fundamentally be attributed to the two different needs of man. First being an animal, man needs to take measures to avoid pain. Secondly, being a human, man needs to take measures to grow psychologically. Thus, two sets of needs can be generalized, namely physical and psychological. In other words, physical needs are the hygiene needs while the psychological needs are the motivational needs. Hygiene needs highlighted by Herzberg are indeed, the maintenance factors that include but are not limited to personal life, policy, security, salary, status, relationship with subordinates and supervisor, and the company transport while achievement, responsibility, recognition, advancement and nature of work are recognized by Herzberg as the true motivators (Chapman, 2010). Herzberg’s theory suggests that if the hygiene of workers is not ensured in the workplace by the managers, workers will make an effort to achieve it themselves because lack of hygiene dissatisfies the workers. However, the satisfaction they derive by taking measures to achieve hygiene in the workplace is temporary. Traditionally, organizations provide their workers with health and safety equipment and expect them to feel motivated for work because their hygiene is ensured. However, this attempt of the managers only eliminates the demotivating factors. Workers can not be motivated to work if their health and safety and hygiene is ensured. Workers can only be motivated to work, as rightly depicted by Herzberg by providing them with such factors as achievement, training and professional development opportunities. The ideas presented by Herzberg have a strong application in the contemporary management practices. The theory presented by Herzberg is a good guide and lays principles for the ethical management necessary for organizational works. Owing to the huge emphasis on ethics and corporate social responsibility in business in the modern age, Herzberg’s theory is as practicable today as it ever was. David McClelland’s needs based motivational model: David McClelland highlighted a set of needs and characterized people with respect to them. The needs identified by McClelland exist to various levels in different workers, and a worker’s behavior is determined by the mutual combination of these needs. Three basic need based categories mentioned in Chapman (2010) as suggested by McClelland are: The need for achievement: People for whom achievement is the most dominant trait of motivation are known as n-ach people. Such people seek to attain achievement, advancement and exposure to newer challenges in job. Feedback of supervisors matters a lot for these workers and progress lends them a feeling of accomplishment. The need for power and authority: People for whom authority is the ultimate goal are known in McClelland’s model as n-pow people. Such a person want to be effective, powerful and influential upon the work system. For such people, opportunity to lead and enforce their ideas is fundamental to remain motivated. Increase in personal status is also very encouraging for such people. The need for affiliation: Such people are “affiliation motivated” and are known as n-affil. Friendship is the most important need of such people. They are motivated to socialize and interact with other people in the workplace. Isolation demotivates such people. These people are motivated by affiliation and have a strong need to be loved and respected. They work best in teams. According to McClelland, people own a mix of the characteristics mentioned above, though they are strongly inclined to one motivational need in particular that influences their behavior and efficiency at work (cefe Indonesia, n.d.). This is also evident from the figure below:  Fig: McClelland’s three needs (Redmond, 2010). For example, a strongly n-affil manager’s efficiency is declined because he can not make independent decisions given interests of some are subdued by his decision. The manager tends to make biased decisions so as to maintain close ties and affiliation with people that are affected by his action. Similarly, n-pow people are motivated towards leadership, and may not perform well in roles which require them to be flexible and people centred. Strongly n-ach people prove to be potential leaders. However, they tend to expect too much achievement focused motivation from their subordinates, which most subordinates fail to offer. Critical perspective of Habermas: In the modern age, Jurgen Habermas is known as one of the world’s best social thinkers. Habermas himself was a neo-Marxist, the theories he presented sufficiently included ideas from such philosophers as Max Weber, Emile Durkheim and Talcott Parsons. Habermas furthered Weber’s theory of rationalization. He also had his contribution in the action systems of Parsons. The theories presented by Habermas address all types of organizational structures. Habermas through his theories has addressed both the agent individually and the agency comprising group of agents. Habermas’s theories were very critical and anti positivist in nature. This can be attributed to the fact that positivism deviates people’s efforts from the true line of direction. The Communication theory of Habermas is very popular. It addresses such issues as social interaction and integration. Modern socialization focused theories are largely inspired by Habermas’s Communication theory. Key concepts of Habermas’s theories: Hbermas has done a lot of work to study the conflicts arising in the modern society. Habermas has analyzed the problems that have surfaced as a result of modernity. Such problems include but are not limited to depersonalization, disintegration, diversion, division and fomalization. Habermas has defined social integration with respect to the Weberian rationalization idea. According to him, distortions in the world’s processes are the biggest problematic factor. Concepts of the world of life and system are the basic traits of Habermas’s theories. Life-world is a phenomenological concept. It is the society’s philosophy and a representative of daily interaction among people. The life-world assumes an intrinsic materialistic rationality which can be termed as honesty, truth and authenticity. Life-world is actually the action of communication as per the interpretation of Habermas’s theory. He argues that communication action serves as the key to understanding. The argumentation in daily life leads to cooperative resolution, though its validity is often doubted. However, the communication action thus produced finds its relation in all of the systems and subsystems. One of the biggest issues that have surfaced as a result of the modernity is the distortion of communication action. According to Habermas, both life-world and system work through rationalization. Such processes are compulsory and have a big influence on the evolution of new concepts in the society. Modernity, on the other hand, tends to distort the rationalization processes. The evolution of modernity in the society causes it to gain more and more differentiation. The society, in turn becomes increasingly complex and the rationalization processes are enhanced. This favors formal rationality in comparison to the substantive one. Such a system governs many areas of life which previously remained in the domain of life-world. This is evident from the ingress of social media in the contemporary society. According to Habermas, life-world has colonized because of the huge reliance of public on the social media. Habermas’ Communication theory: Habermas has fundamentally categorized the communication action into two types, namely the work and the sociocultural dealing in life-world. There is a direct relationship between the communication action and the rationalization processes, distortion of the former results into an equal distortion in the latter. This, in turn, lays a definition for the way of working of a system. Habermas’ whole Communication theory revolves around the fact that it is the communication action i.e. (the sociocultural interaction that takes place in the life-world) that needs to be set right, the productive-rational action i.e. (the work) will be improved automatically. This fact applies on every walk of life, and the whole marker can benefit from applying it in the work principle. Habermas was of the view that the more people are allowed and given room to indulge in free communication and overt expression of their thoughts and feelings, the lesser the rigidity becomes and the whole system becomes flexible. Flexibility is vital for success. In comparison to Marx who emphasized that the system should be more productive, Habermas believed that the system should be more normative. Habermas was of the view that frequent communication relieved tensions, and decreases the distortion thus protecting the values and norms. This make the organizational culture more favorable for work, and the workers’ efficiency is enhanced. Unlike Marxian assumption, Habermas held the distortion of sociocultural interaction process more responsible and a root cause for social struggle instead of the consciousness of class. The definition of the communication action as put forth in the Habermas’ Communication theory is, “form of social interaction in which the plans of action of different actors are coordinated through an exchange of communicative acts, that is, through a use of language orientated towards reaching understanding” (Powell and Moody, 2003 cited in Stowe, 2010). Four different kinds of actions were fundamentally identified in the Communication theory of Habermas namely, normative, communicative, teleological and dramaturgical. Teleological action is the action which is employed as a means to achieve a certain goal. Normative action pertains to the standardized norms and values in a group. Dramaturgical action is ego-centered, in which one defends one’s views, opinions and stance on different matters. Communicative action is the one through which people generalize conclusions in various matters through mutual consensus and agreement. In his theory, Habermas has subdivided the purposive-rational action that pertains to work into two types of actions. The first is the strategic action and the second one is the instrumental action. An in-depth analysis of the sub-types of the purposive-rational action suggests that both of them pertain actually to the self interest of an individual. Instrumental action is the action adopted by an individual to achieve a certain goal while, strategic action is that which is taken by two or more than two individuals in the way of achieving a goal. Communication action is a measure that enhances understanding contrary to the purposive-relational action, that addresses self-interest of an individual. Communication action indeed, lays the basis for the sociocultural life of an individual. Language serves to promote sociocultural interaction. With the distortion of communication action, problems gain strength in the society. Two factors that play the most important role in breaking the communication action are the ideology and legitimations. These two factors need to be removed so that the communication may be open and hindrance free. Habermas Communication theory as a critique of motivation theories: Habermas’ Communication theory is a strong supporter of the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theory in that both commonly speak in favor of an individual’s personal life and emphasize, that an individual’s personal needs should be fully satisfied and met in order to enable him to perform his level best in the workplace. However, Habermas’ Communication theory places complete emphasis on a worker’s sociocultural interaction whereas the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theory lays a complete set of a worker’s basic and social needs that need to be met so that he would opt for gaining further training and develop himself professionally. However, there are certain needs identified in the Maslow’s Hierary of Needs theory in which social communication plays a pivotal role. Since the issue under consideration here is the criticism of management and leadership theories, certain theories have been mentioned in the start of this paper that tell how a manager can increase the efficiency of the workers and motivate them for work by fulfilling their personal requirements. While considering the matter from this aspect, it makes sense to assume that a worker’s basic biological and physiological needs are fulfilled already because no person can worker unless these needs are fulfilled. The stage in the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs that is particularly addressed by the Habermas’ communication theory is the third stage from the bottom that is about the belongingness and love needs of a worker. Indeed, a worker’s sociocultural communication finds its biggest use here when he has to communicate with his friends, family and the loved ones. Many companies require their employees to work continuously for weeks without any break. By doing so, the companies place emphasis on the purposive-relational action, an approach that is supported by the Marxist view. Habermas would never be in favor of such an approach because by asking the workers to work constantly without weekends or other leaves, the employers are breaking the workers’ communication action. This shows up in the lack of motivation for work. Distortion of communication action demotivates the workers. However, allowing the workers to indulge into communication action with their family does not motivate them. This is where the Habermas’ communication theory and the Herzberg’s motivational theory come into conflict with each other. Habermas’ communication theory essentially says that free and open communication serves as a motivation for the workers, while the Herzberg’s motivational theory believes that good communication keeps the workers from demotivating, though the factors that motivate them have to be different and more important in the view of the worker himself. Habermas communication theory asserts that the workers “must be sincere, factually correct, and have the normative authority to say what they are saying” (Chan, 2009). Such a system essentially offers the workers room to speak. It provides them with a power most systems conventionally do not offer the employees. Power is indeed, one of the most fundamental concepts that shape the way, Habermas realizes the rationality of communication (Robinson, n.d.). Conclusion: Habermas’ theory indeed, offers a fairly abstract concept, “his heavy emphasis on language seems somewhat confining for a general approach to social capital” (Bolton 2005: 35). There are more robust theories that can best explain what factors actually play a role in improving an employee’s interest in his work. Communication alone can not satisfy the needs of a worker to the extent that his purposive-relational action is improved. There are many other needs that are required to be met in order to achieve the purpose. A comparison of Habermas’ communication theory with the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory, Herzberg’s motivational theory and the McClelland’s theory suggests that Habermas’ theory speaks only about one aspect of job, yet there are many others that have been identified in the other three that are more influential upon a worker’s performance. References: Bolton, R 2005, Habermas’s Theory of Communication Action and the Theory of Social Capital, pp. 1-39, viewed 5 January, 2011, . Cefe Indonesia n.d., David C McClelland’s Motivational Needs Theory, viewed 5 January, 2011, . Chan, A 2009, Social Media Research, Gravity 7, viewed 5 January, 2011, . Chapman, A 2010, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, viewed 5 January, 2011, . Chapman, A 2010, Frederick herzberg motivational theory, viewed 5 January, 2011, . Redmond, BF 2010, Need Theories, viewed 5 January, 2011, < https://confluence.et-test.psu.edu/display/PSYCH484/2.+Need+Theories>. Robinson, S n.d., The Jürgen Habermas Web Resource, viewed 5 January, 2011, . Stowe, M 2010, Jürgen Habermas Concepts, Communication Theory and the Problems of Modern Society. Read More