Motivation and Leadership

Motivation

Motivation is the inner drive that makes a person willing to put in effort towards a goal. Content theories explain what motivates (Maslow, Herzberg, McGregor's assumptions); process theories explain how motivation works (Vroom).

Maslow's hierarchy

Needs are satisfied in order, and a satisfied need no longer motivates.

1. Physiological - food, water, shelter, basic pay
2. Safety - job security, safe conditions, pension
3. Love and belonging (social) - friendship, team membership
4. Esteem - recognition, status, promotion
5. Self-actualisation - realising one's full potential

Maslow himself did not draw the familiar pyramid.

Herzberg's two-factor theory

Also called the motivation-hygiene theory, it was based on interviews with about 200 engineers and accountants in the Pittsburgh area.

• Hygiene factors (dissatisfiers): company policy and administration, supervision, salary, working conditions, relations with boss and peers, status, job security. Their presence prevents dissatisfaction but does not motivate.
• Motivators (satisfiers): achievement, recognition, the work itself, responsibility, advancement, growth.

The opposite of satisfaction is no satisfaction, not dissatisfaction. Motivators are built in through job enrichment.

McGregor's Theory X and Theory Y

• Theory X: people dislike work, avoid responsibility and must be closely supervised and controlled. It leads to an autocratic style.
• Theory Y: work is natural, people exercise self-direction and seek responsibility. It leads to a participative style and appeals to Maslow's higher-order needs.

Vroom's expectancy theory

Motivational force = Expectancy x Instrumentality x Valence

• Expectancy: belief that effort will lead to performance
• Instrumentality: belief that performance will lead to a reward
• Valence: value the person places on that reward

Because the terms are multiplied, a zero anywhere makes motivation zero. Example: expectancy 0.8, instrumentality 0.5, valence 0.6 gives 0.8 x 0.5 x 0.6 = 0.24.

Leadership styles

Leadership is the ability to influence people to work willingly towards goals. The classic three styles come from the 1939 study by Lewin, Lippitt and White:

Approaches to leadership

• Trait approach: leaders are distinguished by personal qualities such as intelligence, self-confidence and integrity. Its weakness is that no universal list of traits has been agreed.
• Behavioural approach: what matters is what the leader does. The managerial grid belongs here.
• Situational (contingency) approach: no single best style exists. Fiedler's contingency model matches the leader to the situation using leader-member relations, task structure and position power. Hersey and Blanchard's situational leadership (1969) varies the style - telling, selling, participating, delegating - with the readiness (maturity) of followers.

The managerial grid

Robert Blake and Jane Mouton (1964) plotted concern for production on the horizontal axis and concern for people on the vertical axis, each scored 1 to 9.

Exam pointers

• Maslow 1943, Herzberg 1959, McGregor 1960, Vroom 1964, Blake and Mouton 1964.
• In Herzberg's theory salary is a hygiene factor, not a motivator.
• Theory X pairs with autocratic leadership, Theory Y with participative leadership.
• In the grid the first number is concern for production, the second concern for people.
• Vroom's terms are multiplied, not added.
• Laissez-faire is also called free-rein leadership.