Performance and Motivation at Work

Motivating for Performance: What Makes a Company a Great Place to Work?
Introduction
Motivating for performance is one of the most important issues a great leader and manager can address. Entrepreneurs like Richard Branson have been given extra attention in recent years as researchers seek ways to understand what make a company a great place to work for. Branson’s Virgin Group is routinely listed as one of most desired places to work, and Branson’s personal charisma and devotion to embracing the public good through a variety of corporate social responsibility aims (De Vries, 1998) has helped to create a positive workplace culture—an essential element when it comes to motivating for performance (Ladkin, 2008). Branson shows that great leaders focus on vision and also on getting out of the way of competent workers. Rather than try to micromanage everything, leader have to trust their workers to do their jobs—and they do this because they know they have hired the right person for the job. Great leaders and managers motivate for performance by creating a great workplace environment, in which every worker is perfectly situated and respected for what he or she brings to the workplace. The respect shown to these workers is then passed on to consumers. This paper will look at different management and leadership concepts and theories that help to explain how to motivate for performance and create a workplace culture that workers want to be a part of.
Management/Leadership Concepts
Managers are crucial to an organization’s success and to enhancing the performance of workers because they are tasked with maintaining order, discipline, processes and systems within the organization. Without them, no one is there to oversee how things go—and things can quickly break down and spiral out of hand when there is no oversight or sense of accountability. Leaders are crucial to the success of the organization because they have to be able to guide, direct and lead workers in situations that require new mindsets, new visions, and new solutions to challenges and obstacles. Leaders have to be able provide the motivation and managers have to be able to implement the motivational drivers—such as intrinsic and extrinsic motivators, like praise and appreciation for a job well done, raises or bonuses for project goals being met, and so on (Gerhart & Fang, 2015).
Leaders also have to be able to demonstrate a variety of styles and techniques to facilitate employee motivation. The use of skills like social and emotional intelligence, leadership styles like transformational leadership and servant leadership, and the use of incentives based on an assessment of individual worker needs can all be ways to promote motivation in the workplace. Managers and leaders will typically use a combination of metrics to help determine where performance is lacking and use a different set of metrics to determine what the individual worker is missing in terms of needs that, once satisfied, will allow the worker’s performance to increase. Managers can utilize a variety of measurement tools to obtain this data. Leaders can use their personal charisma to help motivate as well—by communicating the vision for the company that they have and demonstrating through their own actions how to attain that vision. In the case of Branson, respect towards all persons and communities is the example he gives and a willingness to do whatever it takes to promote his brand and let people that he and his company put service first (De Vries, 1998).
Two Management/Leadership Theories
Maslow (1943) first identified a theory of human motivation that could be used in management with his hierarchy of needs model. This model showed that human beings have different stages of needs that have to be satisfied for the person to move upwards towards self-efficacy—i.e., a state where they are self-driven, self-motivated, and self-determining. The manager’s goal in an organization, upon applying the theory of Maslow (1943), is to identify the needs of the individual workers through direct observation and one-on-one interviews. Once identified, an intervention can be developed that is suited to each worker that enables them to have their needs met so that they can move up to being entirely self-motivated. For example, one worker may be stuck at the bottom of the needs hierarchy because he lacks shelter. A manager could make arrangements within the community to find temporary housing for the individual. This would allow the worker to begin addressing the next level of needs—relationships. The manager could support the worker’s need for human interaction by promoting worker socials and expressing supportive remarks to the individual. This would allow the worker to feel more appreciated and confident, and the next level of needs could then be tackled. By approaching workers in this manner, a manager or leader acts both as a true friend and as strategist who understands the importance of having all parts of the puzzle aligned to achieve the goal.
Another theory of leadership that could apply to the workplace problem of motivating for performance is the theory of cultural dimensions put forward by Hofstede (1980), who showed that in the globalized world, workplace environments have become more and more diverse. In order to properly secure a high-performing workplace environment, managers and leaders must develop a sense of the different cultural dimensions, as these will inform the worldview, habits and communication methods and expectations of various workers who hail from different parts of the world. A manger or leader in any of today’s organization has to be cognizant of the fact that individuals from different parts of the world have their own cultural cues, needs and expectations—and it is up to the leaders to be aware of what they are. To keep the workplace environment and organizational culture respectful and workers motivated, managers and leaders must demonstrate respect and appreciation in diverse ways.
The Importance of Management Leadership to Personal Development and Change
Managers and leaders have to help workers with personal development and change issues because no one individual is static: factors are constantly coming and going that impact a person’s life and ability to perform at a high level. Helping workers to cope with stress, whether internal to the workplace or external to it, is one issue that managers and leaders routinely face when trying to implement a change in the workplace or promote some aspect of personal development. The nature of management leadership is such that development and change are normal processes that come with the turf. To expect workers to automatically all be at the highest levels of self-determination is to go into the field naively. In reality, most workers struggle with issues in their personal as well as public lives and navigating the obstacles they face can be quite difficult. The management leader has to always be supportive of the personal development of workers. To that end, effective use of social and emotional intelligence can apply. Likewise, a manager who can bring a sense of the cultural dimensions and how the order in which workers’ needs should be satisfied can also assist in the process. Overall, the management leader has to provide a welcoming workplace culture where individuals can feel respected, appreciated, and supported (Ladkin, 2008). By focusing on purpose, using techniques like onboarding and mentoring, and creating an environment that allows the workers to understand what is expected of them and know where they can go for assistance when needed, the management leader can proactively promote personal development and change by bringing all workers into the organization fully and for the long-term.
Future Application to the Management Field
The future application to the management field that these concepts, theories and practices can have is substantial. First, managers can use them to better take the time to get to know their employees, as this will help them to identify potential problem areas and begin developing strategies to help the worker develop personally and embrace changes that the organization needs them to embrace so that they can perform at the highest levels. One of the benefits of this is that it ensures that turnover does not become a problem and that the organization can retain workers for the long-term. When turnover rates are high, company costs can explode, as hiring, training and onboarding workers can become quite expensive if required continuously. Another benefit of this is that it creates healthy and positive relationships between managers and employees, which can of its own accord help to facilitate performance growth. As Schyns and Schilling (2013) showed, when managers act disengaged and do not communicate with their employees, they inadvertently turn off workers, which typically results in performance decreases and in some cases outright deliberate acts of sabotage.
Second, managers can use these concepts, leadership styles and tools to create a workplace culture that is respectful of diversity and appreciative of different workers’ cultural dimensions. A positive workplace culture is needed to create a place where workers want to be. As Branson shows, by demonstrating respect for employees and treating them the way that anyone would want to be treated, the manager effectively creates a workplace that is attractive (De Vries, 1998). People want to work for companies where they feel welcomed and where they feel their talents can be utilized. The manager who applies the theories of Maslow and Hofstede while utilizing a variety leadership styles, such as transformational leadership and servant leadership, will be able to create that environment consistently.
Conclusion
When it comes to promoting performance and creating a great place where workers want to work, managers and leaders have to be mindful, first and foremost, of the workers needs. These may be personal, professional or cultural. In any case, the manager/leader must be aware of them and must be able to utilize a variety of metrics to identify them and how they can be addressed. Workers want to go where they will feel appreciated, supported and incentivized. There is a trade-off that they acknowledge: by giving the company their time, they want something in return. The successful manager will understand the interplay between intrinsic and extrinsic motivators that facilitate a happy return for workers. From commonplace praises and demonstrations of appreciation to promotions, raises, bonuses and other types of rewards for meeting performance goals, there are a variety of ways managers can promote performance and create a company where people want to work. Their use of social and emotional intelligence and their understanding of how to help workers develop personally to better achieve organizational objectives will also be of substantial use.
References
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