Employee Motivation Motivating Employees Motivating Employees Requires

Employee Motivation

Motivating Employees

Motivating employees requires exceptional leadership. There are many competing theories of available today. This essay examines two theories that have gained some popularity. The first leadership model is referred to as servant leadership. The concept of servant leadership was first introduced by Robert Greenleafe in the 1970's and subsequently the idea was picked up by many mainstream leadership theorists such as Stephen Covey (Dierendonck, et al., 2010). This leadership concept is now on its fifth generation and still retains popularity today. A servant leader uses the leadership position as simply one way in which they are able to provide service to others. It stands in distinct contrast to other to many commonly held notions of leadership. The leader is this style of leadership will hold the employee in high regards exude traits such as compassion and caring for others. From the employees' perspective, receiving such support from their superiors can be an incredibly motivating situation.

A servant leader is constantly scanning to try to identify anything they can do to support their employees so that the entire team can be more successful. This is entirely opposite for more traditional leadership approaches in which the leader or manager tends to dictate orders to subordinates (Wheeler, 2011). One of the worst things that leaders can do is let their own ego prevent them from tackling the real obstacles that exist in their team and this actually works to demotivate their subordinates. Thus this style of leadership requires that servant leaders have high self-esteem and generally are not driven by the lust of status and power. This form of a fostering motivation is a real alternative to contemporary models; especially in the wake of countless examples of the misuse of corporate power.

Servant leadership has a foundation that is built on empathy. A leader must truly be in touch with the challenges that their employees' faces in order to better serve them. As a consequence the leader doesn't typically view themselves as the typical leader, but rather as more of a servant that is ultimately responsible for the development the people that depend on them. Without the ability to empathize with their coworkers the leader cannot give them the individual attention that they need to be motivated towards the organizational goals.

Level 5 leadership is another theory that shares many similarities with the servant leadership model. This model identifies organizations that have been exceptionally successful and have maintained a level of success that has also stood the test of time. Jim Collins makes an discerning discovery based upon some research he presents in his book "Good to Great" (Collins, 2001). Collins makes the assertion that "good" is the enemy of "great." Most people would believe that being great was just a step up from being good. However, Collins on the other hand, argues that this paradigm is entirely wrong. He contends that the development of truly great leaders is an entirely non-linear phenomenon.

Collins led a team of researchers that scrutinized over fourteen hundred Fortune 500 companies. Of all the companies considered, only eleven were identified that could quantifiably be known for achieving greatness for an extended period of time. In the study, companies had to perform in such a way that their stock returns were at least three times greater than the average market return. Not only did the companies have to beat the market average, but they had to do it for fifteen years in a row and to this period must have started right after a major organizational transition to be included in the list.