Content 3 Motivation Theories & Management Practices

Content 3

Motivation Theories & Management Practices

Leadership

The terms management and leadership are often used interchangeably however it is possible to distinguish between the two ideas. – The functions of management include

planning, organizing, coordinating and controlling, management is primarily concerned with logic, structure and control.

Leadership

– Leadership involves a different kind of function rather a different mind set. It involves people centered activities, with effects potentially beyond the scope of controlled performance. A leader’s special function is to

• Create a vision of something different to the current status quo.

• Communicate the vision. This will be particularly powerful if it meets the needs of other people, and if the leader can give it credibility in their eyes.

Leadership

• Energize, inspire and motivate others to translate the vision into achievement.

• Create the culture that will support the achievement, through shared language, rituals, myths, beliefs and so on.

In other words while managers have authority by virtue of their position in the organization to secure the obedience or compliance of their subordinates, leaders direct the efforts of others through vision, inspiration and motivation.

Leadership

It should be clear that leadership is not merely a function that leaders themselves perform, or a set of techniques that they follow. Like beauty, leadership is largely in the eyes of the beholder. Managers can only be called leaders if and when they have an inspiring, energizing and motivating influence on their subordinates. A leader must have followers.

Follower ship

The essence of leadership is follower ship. In other words it is the willingness of people to follow that makes a person a leader.– Isolated individual can be a manager.– Leader requires people to influence.– For managers to become effective leaders,

they need to understand what motivates their subordinates.

Follower ship

– Leaders are not always formally appointed to positions of delegated authority.

– Leaders may be appointed as heads.– Leaders may emerge out of situations,

activities and interrelationships of groups.

Leadership Traits

• There is a co relation between leadership effectiveness and the traits of intelligence, initiative, self assurance and individuality.

• Lots of other traits have been suggested by many writers but there are several difficulties with the leadership as a bundle of traits.– The full list of traits is so long that it appears

to call for a person of super human gifts.

Leadership Traits

– No two authorities agree on exactly which traits make an effective leader.

– Most of the traits are positive or desirable characteristics for human beings. If there is a flaw in a leaders personality that would be the very reason for him being a leader. Being blunt for example.

– If a leader takes risk and succeeds then he is labeled courageous and visionary and if he fails, he is merely foolhardy.

Management Styles

Though superficially attractive and still Entrenched in popular thinking, the trait or great man approach to leadership is largely discredited. Later approaches concentrate on the idea that leadership is a style of relating to people and tasks, and that appropriate styles could be learned and adopted to suit different leadership situations.

Management Styles

Ashridge Management College carried out research to develop a classification of management styles and found four broad styles.– Tells (autocratic)– Sells (persuasive)– Consults (participative)– Joins (democratic)

Management Styles

So which style is the right one? A contingency approach to management suggests that a style which is appropriate and effective in one situation will not necessarily work in another. It all depends on a number of variable in the leader’s situation.

Choosing a Style

• A Contingency Approach: Charles Handy suggested a contingency approach to leadership. According to him the factors in any situation which influences the effectiveness of a particular management style are – The leader– The subordinates– The task– The environment of management

Choosing a Style

– Handy argues that leadership style should be tight or loose according to the conditions.

– Management will be most effective where there is a best fit between three variables leader, subordinates and task.

– In practice there is likely to ea lack of fit, and the leader must decide which factors should be changed to bring all three into line as far as possible.

Choosing a Style

• The Environment: however appropriate a particular style may be to the leader, subordinates and task, its effectiveness in practice may be constrained by other factors in the organizational context or environment of leadership.– The position of the power held by the leader

in the organization and work group.– Organizational norms, structure and

technology

Choosing a Style

– The variety of tasks and subordinates.

Managers have a dual responsibility for task achievement and for the satisfaction of people. Management often seems to involve a compromise , juggling or best fit of these two aims.

Choosing a Style

• Task or People? Contingency approach assumes that management’s effectiveness can be measured according to– Task achievement– The fulfillment of individual and group needs– Both

a research showed that there were two distinct types of leader: task leaders who were concerned with results and socio emotional leaders who were concerned with supportive and satisfying group practices.

Choosing a Style

• However another research suggests that both the task and socio emotional concerns are not mutually exclusive. Both can be achieved at the same time.– Blake’s Managerial Grid

• Impoverished• Country club• Task management• Middle of the road• Team

Choosing a Style

– The most efficient manager combines high concerns for the task with high concerns for people.

in order to adopt an appropriate style a manager has to consider how far he can trust his subordinates to work well without tight control, and whether they will work well with tight control.

Choosing a Style

• Trust or control?

T= Trust

C= Control

Y= a constant amount of out put

T + C = Y– Assumptions about subordinates: the extent to which

a manager trusts his subordinates and feels able to delegate his authority will depend upon his assumption about how they will behave.

Choosing a Style

– Douglas McGregor described two extremes of attitudes and labeled them Theory X and Theory Y.

• Liking or Respect? It relates to managerial effectiveness: will the team give more to a manager they like or to the one they respect/fear?– On the one hand manager has needs for

belonging, relationship and approval.

Choosing a Style

– On the other hand manager needs to be in control, in order to achieve objectives.

– Managers who are responsible for task performance will have to take decisions that will be unpopular with all or some of their team members.

– Resources are limited and individuals are in competition for them.

– Taking a contingency approach we can see that how a manager resolves this dilemma will depend upon

• The strength of the individual manager’s need to be liked.• The attitude of the team members.• The nature of the task or decisions.

Motivation Theories

Motivation is the process by which the behavior of an individual is influenced by others, through their power to offer or withhold satisfaction of the individual’s needs and goals.

One way of grouping the major theories of motivation is by distinguishing between– Content theories– Process theories

Before studying theories one should understand what lies behind the motivational theories?

Motivation Theories

– NEEDS: Needs are of different types• Physiological needs• Social needs

American psychologist suggested that people have certain innate needs.

• Self actualization• Esteem needs• Love/social needs• Safety needs• Physiological needs

Motivation Theories

it has become a fashionable to talk about goals and values rather than needs. People peruse goals which promise to fulfill their needs. For example if you have a need for achievement you might have an HNC or HND in business as your goal. If you have a need for love and belonging, your goal may be to start a family or join a religious community. As we can see goals are more specific and more various than needs.

Motivation Theories

• Goals: each individual has a different set of goals and importance of different goals vary with time, circumstances and other factors including the following.– Genetic inheritance, childhood environment and

education.– Experience– Age and position– Culture– Self concept

Motivation Theories

– Motivation and Morale• People behave in such a way as to satisfy their needs and

fulfill their goals• An organization is in a position to offer some of the

satisfactions people might seek: relationships and belonging, challenge and achievement, progress on the way to self actualization and so on. Pay or money directly can not buy these things but can be means of obtaining all sorts of satisfaction of other needs.

• The organization can therefore influence people to behave in the ways it desires by offering them the means to satisfy their needs. And fulfill their goals in return for that behavior. This process of influence is called motivation.

Motivation Theories

• If peoples needs are being met, and goals fulfilled at work, they are likely to have a positive attitude to their work. The term morale is then used to denote that state of mind or spirit of employees.

The Hierarchy of Needs

– Maslow’s Theory: Abraham Maslow put forward certain propositions about the motivating power of needs. He suggested that

• Man’s needs can be arranged in a hierarchy of relative pre-potency

• This means there are levels of need• Each of which is dominant until it is satisfied• Only then the next level of need becomes a

motivating factor.

The Hierarchy of Needs

– Does it work? • Thirst is not a motivating factor once the thirst is

quenched.• But to satisfy the need of esteem or recognition,

how much esteem or recognition?• Different people have different preferences.• Some emphasize on self esteem and recognition

even on hunger.

Two Factor Theory

– Herzberg’s Theory: Frederick Herzberg conducted a research and results revealed that the factors which created satisfaction were different from those which created dissatisfaction. Herzberg saw two basic needs of individuals:

• The need to avoid unpleasantness, satisfied by environmental factors.

• The need for personal growth , satisfied at work only by motivator factors.

Two Factor Theory

– Environmental Factors include• Company policy• Salary• The quality of supervision• Interpersonal relations• Working conditions• Job security

satisfaction with environmental factors is not long lasting.

Two Factor Theory

– Motivator Factors• Status• Advancement• Gaining recognition• Being given responsibility• Challenging work• Achievement• Growth in job

Two Factor Theory

– Does it work? • Herzberg encouraged managers to study job itself

rather than job conditions• Dissatisfaction arises from environment factors• Satisfaction arises from the job

Two Factor Theory

Maslow’s hierarchy and Herzberg’s two factors theory are content theories. We will now look at major process theory. There are various theories based on ways of calculating whether extra E factors are worth expending in the pursuit of goals. One of the earliest and most influential is expectancy theory.

Expectancy Theory

– Vroom’s Theory: the strength of an individual’s motivation to do something will depend on the extent to which he expects the results of his efforts.

– Victor Vroom presented a formula through which human motivation could actually be assessed and measured. He suggested that the strength of an individual’s motivation is the product of two factors.

Expectancy Theory

• The strength of his preference for a certain outcome. Called valance. Can be positive, negative or zero.

• His expectation that the out come will in fact result from a certain behavior. Called subjective probability. It may be represented by any number between 0 an 1.

• F = V * E• If either valance or expectation have a value of

zero, there will be no motivation.

Expectancy Theory

– Handy’s Motivation Calculus: Charles Handy put forward a model describing the way the individual deals with individual decisions, to do or not to do something, to apportion or not to apportion his time , energy and talents. Handy suggested for any decision there is a conscious or unconscious motivation calculus which assesses:

• The individual’s own needs• Desired results or outcomes

Expectancy Theory

• E factors: there is a set of words coincidentally beginning with ‘e’: energy, excitement, enthusiasm, emotion, expenditure.

– The motivation decision: the strength of motivation to achieve the desired result will be dependent upon the individuals judgment about

• The strength of his needs• The expectancy that expending ‘e’ will lead to desired results• How far the desired results are expected to satisfy his needs

Motivation and Performance

• Motivation and Managers– Why is motivation important?

• A person doing job is getting paid for that.• If he is not interested he can resign.• Why to motivate him?• Motivation is about getting extra levels of

commitment and performance from employees.• If employees are motivated they will work more

efficiently.• Improved performance through job satisfaction is

not proven.


• Why an organization would like to have a satisfied work force if it does not make organization function better.

– Rewards and incentives• A reward is a token (monetary or otherwise) given

to an individual or team in recognition of some contribution or success.

• An incentive is the offer or promise of a reward for contribution or success, designed to motivate the individual or team to behave in such a way as to earn it.


• Not all incentives are in monetary terms.• Different people have different goals.• There are no of reasons why a person is motivated

to work.– The human relations school of management theorists

regarded work relationships as main source of satisfaction and reward offered to the worker.

– Later writers suggested a range of higher motivations» Job satisfaction, interest and challenge in the job

itself – rewarding work» Participation in decision making – responsibility and

involvement


– Pay has always occupied a rather ambiguous position, but since people need money to live , it will certainly be part of the reward package an individual gets from his work.

• Non Monetary Rewards– Job satisfaction

• Job design is the way in which tasks are fragmented or grouped to form a given job

• It acquired prominence when human relations theorists became interested in the role of job satisfaction in employee performance.

• Jobs made up of low skilled, repetitive tasks could offer little satisfaction to the workers.


• Such tasks came to be seen as socially isolating, meaning less and monotonous.

• They were identified as the cause of stress, low morale, fatigue, inattention – and resentment against management.

• A systematic approach to job design as a source of job satisfaction was put forward by Frederick Herzberg who coined the term job enrichment.

• Job enrichment is planned, deliberate action to build greater responsibility, breadth and challenge of work into a job.


• Job enrichment is in effect a vertical extension of the job design. It might include

– Removing controls– Increasing accountability– Creating natural work units, teams or client relationships– Providing direct feedback on performance– Introducing new tasks or special assignments

• Job enlargement is the attempt to widen jobs by increasing the number of operations in which a job holder is involved.


• Job enlargement is limited in its ability to improve motivation since, as Hertzberg points out, to ask a worker to complete three separate tedious, unchallenging tasks is unlikely to motivate him more than asking him to fulfill one single tedious, unchallenging job.

• Empowerment: the purpose of it is to free someone from rigorous control by instructions and orders and give them freedom to take responsibility for their ideas and actions, to release hidden resources which would otherwise remain inaccessible.


– Non Cash Incentives• Incentive and recognition schemes are

increasingly focused not on cash, but on non cash awards. Traditionally aimed at sales people, gifts and travel incentives may be offered to staff.

– As prizes for workable suggestions on quality improvements or cost reductions.

– As rewards for performance improvement, achievement, loyalty , teamwork and so on.

– To encourage internal competition.


• Pay as Motivator?– What do people want from pay?

• the most important functions of a pay for organization are attracting, keeping and motivating staff.

• Pay has a central but ambiguous role in motivation theory.

• It is not listed in any needs list but can be means to satisfy a long list of needs.

• The size of their income will affect their standard of living


• People may like to earn more but are more concerned

– To earn enough pay– To know that their pay is fair in comparison with the pay

of others both inside and outside the organization

• Payment systems then have to tread the awkward path between equity and incentive.

• Pay as hygiene factor: it can create satisfaction or dissatisfaction but can not be a motivator.

• The only reason to work? People get into jobs which are monotonous and are dead ended but they get what they want. High salary!


• People working at such jobs seek for a suitable balance of

– The rewards which are important to them.– The deprivations he feels able to put up with.

Organizations are obliged to reward or remunerate employees for the amount and standard of work agreed in the contract of employment: to give a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work. In addition the organization may wish to offer monetary incentives to employees, if they work longer or more productively. Monetary incentives include performance- related pay, bonuses, and profit sharing. So do they work?


– Cash incentives: there are certain difficulties associated with incentive schemes based on monetary reward.

• There are other factors involved in the achievement of results, may be the worker has put his effort but the desired result not achieved because of some constraints. Such as resource unavailability or market conditions.

• Increased earnings simply may not be an incentive to some individuals. An individual who already enjoys a good income may be more concerned with increasing his leisure time.


• Even if employees are motivated by money, the effects may not be altogether desirable. Individual bonuses, for example may encourage self interest and competition at the expense of team work. Payment by results may encourage attention to output at the expense of quality, and the lowering of standards and targets.

• Workers often suspect that if they regularly achieve high levels of output, they will make it look too easy so that management will set higher performance targets. Work groups therefore tend to restrict output to a level that they feel is fair but safe.

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Content 3 Motivation Theories & Management Practices