LEADERSHIP AND MOTIVATION

The Leadership and motivation are two important concepts that must be incorporated into the organizational structure of the companies.
We can list the basic of motivation:

 Effort and performance.
 Need satisfaction.
 Extrinsic and intrinsic motivation.

¿What is the definition about job performance?

Job performance has three components: Motivation, ability and situational constraints.
Job performance: how well someone performance a job.

The motivation is the effort put forth on the job, the ability is the knowledge, skills, and talent of job incumbent, and the situational constraints ( as the factors beyond individual’s control impacting performance).

We mentioned the basic of motivation. People has unmet needs. Needs are physical or psychological requirements that must be met. To satisfied needs, we have extrinsic and intrinsic rewards.
ER (Extrinsic rewards) are intangible and visible to others and contingent on performance. The intrinsic rewards are defined as natural rewards associated with performing a task for its own sake.

Job performance = Motivation X Ability X Situational constraints.

It’s very important to ask people about what their needs are, and satisfy higher-order needs by looking for ways to allow employees to experience intrinsic rewards.

When people perceive inequity (under-reward), react in different way:
 Reduce inputs (employee contributions to the organization).
 Increase outcomes (rewards employees receive from the organization).
 Rationalize inputs or outcomes.
 Change the referent (others with who people compare themselves).

Inequity is equal to under-reward. People feel anger or frustration, in other words, we can speak about over-reward, in this case, people feel a possibly experience guilt. In these cases we must work on these topics:

 Look for and correct major inequities.
 Reduce employees’ inputs.
 Make sure decision-making processes are fair (distributive justice and procedural justice).

The expectancy theory works with three components: valence, expectancy and instrumentality. In this case, motivation is equal to valence per instrumentality per expectancy.

Motivation = Valence X Expectancy X Instrumentality.

Valence is the attractiveness or desirability of a reward. Expectancy is the perceived relationship between effort and performance, and instrumentality is the perceived relationship between performance and rewards.

We find important differences between managers and leaders:

Managers

• Do things right.
• Status quo.
• Short-term.
• Means.
• Builders.
• Problem solving.

Leaders

• Do the right things.
• Change.
• Long-term.
• Ends.
• Architects.
• Inspiring and motivating.

Leaders have traits and behaviors. The traits that describe to the leaders are:

 Drive.
 Desire to lead.
 Honesty / integrity.
 Self-confidence.
 Emotional stability.
 Cognitive ability.
 Knowledge of the business.

The leadership behavior is related with the degree to which leader structures follower’s roles by setting goals, giving directions, setting deadlines, and assigning tasks and extend to which a leader is friendly, approachable, supportive, and shows concern for employees.
Leadership style is the way a leader generally behaves toward followers. They are generally incapable of changing their leadership styles.
The styles could be oriented in accordance with the group maturity. We have three factors that characterized this situation.

 Leader-member relations.
 Task structure
 Position power

Situational leadership theory said leaders need to adjust their leadership styles to match follower’s maturity. In this case, the maturity is the ability and willingness of worker to take responsibility for directing one’s own work.

Leader chooses style based on worker’s maturity for a specific task:

 Telling – high task / low relationship.
 Selling – high task and relationship.
 Participating – low task / high relationship.
 Delegating – low task and relationship.

Visionary leadership is nurtured by two basic principles, charismatic leadership and transformational leadership. The first creates an exceptionally strong relationship between leader and followers, the second, generates awareness and acceptance of group’s purpose and mission, gets employees to see beyond their own needs and self-interest, and goes beyond charismatic leadership. The transformational leaders are visionary and they use:
 Inspirational motivation.
 Intellectual stimulation.
 Individualized consideration.

Charismatic leadership is defined by Max Weber as “resting on devotion to the exceptional sanctity, heroism or exemplary character of an individual person, and of the normative patterns or order revealed or ordained by him”. He defines charisma as “a certain quality of an individual personality, by virtue of which he is set apart from ordinary men and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities”.
Charismatic people have a remarkable ability to distill complex ideas into simple messages (“I have a dream”); they communicate by using symbols, analogies, metaphors and stories. Furthermore they relish risk and feel empty without it, they are great optimists, they are rebels who fight convention, and they may seem idiosyncratic.

Servant-leadership is a practical altruist philosophy which supports people who choose to serve first, and then lead as a way of expanding service to individuals and institutions. Servant–leaders may or may not hold formal leadership positions. Servant-leadership encourages collaboration, trust, foresight, listening, and the ethical use of power and empowerment.

Finally, we should describe the concept of self-motivation.

Motivation is a firm desire full of hope supported on the belief that will take place. Before a person can motivate themselves must know and understand their basic needs and desires and also know how to stimulate them. Motivation includes expectation and faith, it's a word made by two words: reason and action. ¿What is the reason for the action? ,for example, in the case of a professional salesman: ¿What reason is so powerful and dynamic that will make me get up every morning to go out to sell? And also: Why I'm a seller, ¿what is the reason? If you have a good “why”, the “how” is easy. To live to be 100% motivated is important to define why we do things. These are the reasons to keep concentrate on the own goals and objectives and feel self-motivation.

Well, I guess we are already able to understand more about leadership and motivation, but I hope to present more material and different points of view on this subject for our next contact.
¡I see you in the next report!

Lic. Claudio M. Pizzi
Director