Leadership and Motivation as Essential Tools for Organizational Growth and Expansion

Leadership and Motivation as Essential Tools for Organizational Growth and Expansion ( A Case Study Of Union Bank Plc, Aba)

There has been no definite all embracing and universally accepted definition of motivation, rather many theories have approached the subject matter form the difficulty encountered by writers regarding the origin of motive and detailed mechanism involved in the need fulfillment, it needs to be mentioned that fear was the first means of motivating people to work.

In regard to this, Koontz O. Donnel wrote that until the last decade or two, fear have been the chief motivator. The emergence of revolution and strong agitation consequently changed the relationship between workers and the organizational movement. The behavioral scientists as well as the organizational theory analysis have proved that fear has failed completely as a motivator and this giving way to other theories that emerged latter, to further support this (stoner 1982) in his contributions to the work on motivation say that a different stage in evolution of management thought the marious managers in the respective stage subscribed to different models of motivations. He identified three models each depending on the management.

The models in accordance with how they evolved are:

1)      The tradition models

2)      The Human relation models

3)      Human resources models

However, In an effort to identify the peculiar nature of personal motivation such as: Economic theory, Reinforcement theory, equity theory of work motivation.

 

Process theory, Maslow hierarchy of need is stated below:

On the other hand, J. Stanley Adams argues that a major input into job performance and satisfaction is the degree of equity that the employee perceive in their work situation. Adams uses the terminology of person to man individual for when equity exists and other to mean any individual with whom the person is in a relevant exchange relationship.

2.1     NON-FINANCIAL MOTIVATION

Non-financial motivation is the intangible reward, which the personnel manager provides for his employees on workers to direct them towards the goals / objective of the organization Peter F. Drunker (1966) reveals that nobody knows which of the thing that has any impact that they have it satisfaction with one fellow worker more important in motivating people to work, than satisfaction with physical working condition? Is either of them important? One can be satisfied with what somebody else is going to perform. One has to take responsibility for ones own actions and their impact. To perform, one has to feel dissatisfied and will want to do better.

Responsibility, can not be bought for money, financial rewards and incentives are of courses important but they work largely negative. Discontents with financial rewards are powerful disincentives undermining and corroding responsibility for performance. But satisfaction and sufficient with monetary rewards are not the evidence that indicates a sufficient positive motivation. It motivates only where other things have made the workers ready to assume responsibility one can see this quitellearly when studying incentive pay for increased work. The incentive pay produces better output where there is already a willingness to perform better otherwise it is ineffectual and indeed sabotaged. Peter F. Drunker (1955) went on the say that to motivate the worker to good performance, it is equally important that management set and enforce high standard for its own performance of those function that determine the worker ability to perform.

One of the things that demoralize employees is to sit down around waiting for work while management fumble. No matter how much they pretend to themselves that they enjoy their pay, few thing constitute such conclusive proof of management incompetence in the employees eyes, to schedule so that there is always work to do for the man is not a minor matter, nor having the equivalent first class condition or maintaining it before it breaks down. These activities directly reflect management incompetence and its standards by making manifest to the worker, how good his management is and how serious it takes its work to be. The details of Eiton Mayo’s experiment at Hawthorne have been well documented in the reassemble room, he proved how closely the production and social function of management are linked.

Dramatic improvement in productivity was effected because the workers involved changed their attitude towards the organization when. Their co-operation was asked for and they were thus made to feel important. As well as the type of basic research, the behavioural scientist carried out applied research, on immediate industrial problem or may. Work as a consultant advising particular clients and helping them to implement changes, success in this approaching counts more than any thing use in ensuring his acceptability to practicing manager which is so essential if he is to get their continue co-operation in future research. A more recent example of involvement in this way can be seen in the work of Dr. Eilient Jaguaras, the Professor of sociology at Brunel University at Ctlacier metal company. He concluded that it should be a mortal acquaintance group.

Its size is controlled by the rule that its members should be able to recognize one another and agree each other by name possibly the best known research study on motivation is that of Herzberget (1959) Sunleyed groups of engineers and accountants, many different categories of workers and people and basis of analysis of individual happiness in their work and others who were unhappy. The following are list of nonfinancial motivational factors:-

1)      Sense of achievement

2)      Recognition of achievement by supervisor

3)      Being given responsibility.

4)      Times of advancement and promotion

5)      Awareness of prospects for further growth

6)      When work is interesting.

On the other hands de-motivating incidents attributed to

1)      Poor features of an organization policies or administrative procedure.

2)      Poor quality of supervision

3)      Different relationship between staff.

4)      The impact of the job on the personal life of the individual concerned.

The important concept emerging form such surveys is that all the motivational factors relate to content or jobs while the de-motivational factors concern the context in which the jobs are performed the fact that the former is within the immediate control of superiors clearly indicate that all managers can rightly be expected to have a positive impact in stimulating their staff, that the causes of dissatisfaction lie more outside their control does not however mean that they are absolved from the responsibility of removing and frustrating influences rather it demands that they work harder at doing so.  Analyzing job satisfaction means looking at the individual needs at work and the extent to which they are being met. But this must be done realiside cally and set against the pressure and restraints which bear on the organization itself may prevent it from providing maximum job satisfaction. This job satisfaction must be considered in two ways. Firstly in terms of the fit between what the employees are seeking from the firm. Secondly in terms of what the employee is seeking from the firm, secondly in terms of what the employee is seeking from the firm and what he is receiving.

Erdmum Ford (1972). The fact above may be represented diagrammatically below.

INDIVIDUAL ENVIRONMENT

Peer group norms Individual needs and aspirations individual expectation of knowledge contract psychological contract efficient / rewards contract ethical contract, task structure contract Personal history, family back ground education, training job experience.
In plant norms and culture Individual experience of knowledge contract psychological contract, task structure contract Technology
Management attitude and ideology Job situation Administrative structure.

 

  1. 2 PHILOSOPHIES OF HUMAN NATURE AND MOTIVATION

Douglas McGregor (1960) stressed the importance of understand the relationship between motivation and behavior. He believed that managers usually attempt to motivate employees by one or two basic approaches. He referred to these approaches as theory X and Y or traditional view of management suggest as that management are required to coerce, control or threaten employees in order to motivate them. Theory X also shows the manager as an authoritarian leader whom motivates primarily through threats and fears. In contrast to this. McGregor proposed on alternative philosophy of human nature, which he referred to as theory Y which depicts managerial leadership through motivation by objectives, such manager can achieve success when he permits subordinate contributions following theory Y, a manager basically believes that people are capable of being responsible and mature thus they do but require coercion or excessive control by the manager in order to perform effectively.

The two theories of McGregor are based on the following assumptions about human nature.

 

 

THEORY   X THEORY  Y
The average person has inherent dislike for work and will avoid it if he can The expenditure of physical and mental effort in work is as natural as play or  rest.
Because of these human characteristics of dislike of work, most people must be coerced, controlled, directed and threatened with punishment to get them to put forth adequate effort towards the achievement of organizational objective. People will exercise self direction and self control in the service of objectives to which they are committed.
The average person lack ambitions avoids responsibility and seeks security and economic rewards above all. The average person learns under proper conditions not only to accept but also to seek responsibility
Since most people are self centered they are not concerned with the goals of the organization. The capacity to exercise a relatively high degree of imagination, ingenuity and creativity in the solution of organizational problems is widely not narrowly distributed in the pollution.

 

Another theory is THEORY 2. Which has been proposed by many psychologists to compliment theory Y assumptions.

The theory states that the responsibilities sought by employee and over which they are capable of self control are culture related. As a result of changing societal needs and goals, yesterdays. Motivation may not be effective today. Therefore there is need to re-visit methods of motivating subordinates in order to instill quality into today’s operations.

There is also the theory which distinguishes between financial motivational factors (Hygiene factors) and non-financial motivational factors (motivators) is that of Frederick Herzberg (1966) which proposes that there are in reality two significant different classes of factors and thus two different continuum. One class is refered to as hygiene factors, which make up condinuum ranging from dissatisfaction to no dissatisfaction. These factors according to Herzberg relating to environment and are external to the job- Therefore, they do not serve to promote job satisfaction rather their absence or deficiency can create dissatisfaction. An organisatiion that meets hygiene needs of its employees will eliminate dissatisfaction but will not create job satisfaction.

 

These hygiene factors include:-

1)      Inter-personal relations

2)      Company policies and administrative practices

3)      Working conditions

4)      Supervision

5)      Status

6)      Job security

7)      Pay / salary

8)      Personal life

9)      Benefits

The second class factors or needs referred to as motivation make up a continuum leading from no job satisfaction. They are:

1)      The work it self and work challenging

2)      Recognition

3)      Achievement

4)      Possibility of growth

5)      Advancement

6)      Responsibility

7)      Status

These are concerned with the work it self, rather than its surrounding physical, administrative or social environment. They are internal to the job itself and if the workers are to be truly motivated, the job itself is the major source of that motivation.

Frederick Herzberg (1973) advocates that job enrichment refers to basic change in he content and level of responsibility of a job so as to provide for the satisfaction of the motivational needs of personnel. The individual is provided with an opportunity to derive a feeling of greater achievement, recognition, responsibility and personal growth in performing the job. These motivational factors are non-financial in nature. J. sterling living stone (1969) holds that management should recognize that there are many factors that affect job performance, which are:

1)      Skill and abilities of personnel

2)      Level of education and training

3)      Existing technology

4)      Available equipment and tools to perform the job. A manager may not be able to motivate and employee to better job performance if the employee does not posses the educational skills training and equipment to perform the job effectively. If any one of these factors is inadequate, performance may be adversely affected.

An employee may posses the necessary skills and be highly motivated to perform a certain job efficiently, but his or her overall performance level may be quiet low because he our she may not know how to do the job.

2.3     EXPECTANCY MOTIVATION THEORY (VICTOR VROOM)

Victor Vroom proposed the expectancy theory of motivation. This theory explains motivation from the point of view that how hard a person works essentially depends upon the expectation of the person from the hard work. The theory is based upon three key variables: valence, instrumentality and expectation valence means the strength of a person’s preference for a particular outcome. This could also be described as the expected value or anticipated satisfaction from the out come of a particular behavior. Valence could be considered to be positive or negative. According to the theory, it is positive where the person prefers achieving the outcome to not achieving it on the other hand, it is negative where the person prefers to avoid the out come.

Instrumentality means the relationship between reward desired by the individual and his or her performance in terms of achieving the goals or objectives of the organization. To explain further, vroom distinguished between first and second level outcome of behavior. The first level outcome relates to the performance of the individual in the organizational goals (performance or first level outcome bring rewards second level out come) which may be in the form of pay promotion or recognition instrumentality is then the extent to which first level outcome lead to second level outcomes. Expectancy in this context means the likelihood or probability that the choice of a particular action will lead to the desired out come. In other words, it is the relationship between a chosen course of action and its expected outcome (first level outcome). The nature of action of effort applied in the organization by the worker is determined by its propensity to lead to desired reward. Expenditure is reduced to a probability of between certainty and impossibility.

Effort (expectancy) Leads to Performance instrumentality Leads to Reward (valence)

Expectancy motivation theory model.

The motivational force in Vroom’s theory can be explained as follows:-

That the worker will put in more efforts to work when he or she believes and acts in agreement with the following principles.

1)      That hard work leads to favourable performance

2)      That favourable performance lead to rewards.

3)      That reward satisfy important needs.

4)      That there is a high urges for need satisfaction which compels people to put effort in certain desirable directions

5)      That there is a probability that effort will lead to favourable performance and that favourable performance will lead to reward.

6)      That where the probability of reward is perceived to be low, efforts seen not worth while.

Though Vroom’s theory is found highly valuable in management practice, it is criticized on the account of the following.

1)      It is complex, involving numerous variables and difficult to test.

2)      The mathematical model adopted in determine the strength and direction of behavior further makes.

The application of the model difficult in explaining behavior in practical and real situation.

However, the theory has been noted to have some important implication for managers. It confirms the need for managers to clearly explain the relationship between efforts and rewards in the organization.

Secondly, for the fact that individual differ in the value (valence) they attach to the rewards received from their managers it becomes necessary for managers to place emphasis on matching the organization rewards with the needs or desires of workers for it to e more meaningful and effective.

2.5     SITUATIONAL / CONTINGENCY THEORY OF LEADERSHIP

Leadership could be explained to be situationally based. This suggests that effective leadership can vary from one situation to another. therefore, the most  effective leadership depends on the situation or prevailing condition. This approach sees leadership as being influenced by a number of complex variables such as individual differences, group structure, organizational policies and structure, management practice, leadership but fails in another. It is imperative, variables on their leadership effectiveness and the need to carryout their acts contextually. Two popular contingency models developed to further explain how leadership is contingent on situational factors include. Fred fielder’s contingency model, which asserts that effective leadership depends on the characteristics of the leader and the situation. This explains why a manager may succeed in a particular leadership attributes may be required under certain situations. Fielder identified three important bases of situational differences. Leadership approach and orientation. This is the characteristic approach of a leader to leadership problem.

Two important approaches are identified.

1)      Relationship oriented approach.

2)      Task oriented approach.

In relationship, oriented style, leaders show primary concern to developing good relationships and interpersonal relationship with their subordinates as a way of building conducive atmosphere to enhance performance.

On the other hand task oriented leaders show primary concern on how to ensure that subordinates perform at high levels. They focus on task accomplishment and show more interest on the systems and structures that will lead to improved staff performance, while relationship oriented leader capitalize on interpersonal relationship oriented leader capitalize on interpersonal relationship as a key motivational strategy, task-oriented leaders really more on definite structures, rules and work methods that are more effective.

In describing situational characteristics, fielder adopted a hypothetical position that leadership style is an enduring characteristic that manages cannot change their leadership style and hey cannot adopt different styles in different situations. Based on this he identified three important situational characteristics affecting leadership effectiveness, which are leader member relation, task structure, power position (Bartol and Martin, 1998 and Jones etal 1998). These factors determine the degree of situational control for the leader Leader-member reactions focuses on the extent which a leader has the support of his member. Where a leader lacks its support of his or her group member, obviously this situation will rather spell leadership failure.

Task structure: This pertains to how effectively a task is structured with particular regard to goals, methods and performance standards, where these are not clear enough it may cause confusion disillusionment and consequently poor performance which translates into ineffective leadership.

Position power: This means the amount of power the leader can exercise in the organization power is considerably needed for effective leadership. The level of it the leader possesses and can exercise at anytime in the organization largely affects the outcome of leadership process.

Houses path: God contingency theory of leadership. Robert house developed the path goal theory of leadership in an attempt to explain how leadership behaviour can positively influence subordinates motivation and job satisfaction. The name derives from its focus on how leaders influence the way subordinates perceive work goals and the paths to accomplish both work goals (performance and personal goals (intrinsic and extrinsic rewards).

The bases of path-goal theory is that effective leaders motivate employees by clearly identifying the out come subordinates try to gain from their employment using such out come to reward subordinates for higher performances, clarifying and maintaining the paths leading to the accomplishment of work goals. The path goal theory anchors on the expectancy theory of motivation. Ti is a contingency theory because, like fielder’s model, it proposes that the process of motivating a subordinate depends heavily on the nature of subordinate and the type of work done.

2.6     MOTIVATION OF THE NIGERIA WORKER

The discussion on motivation will be incomplete without x-raying the Nigeria experience. It is common to hear many Nigeria managers and administrators comptain that the attitude to work and productivity of the average Nigerian worker manager particularly in the public sector is generally poor. On the other hand, the workers complain that the system does not recognize and reward hand work common features of the attitude to work in the public sector include lateness and absenteeism, sluggishness, frequent labour unrest, high rate of with drawal, aggression, fixated behaviour and looking forward to gratification and favours. The question then asked is what is wrong with the Nigeria system and how can it be improved to enhance workers motivation and productivity.

So far much of the explanations of the problem with the system relates to the missing link in the motivational efforts of the managers and leaders (Ejiofor 1987) Ejiofor based his analysis of the situation on vroom’s expectancy theory. According to him, there is a missing link (instrumentality) between the workers performance and reward in the system. The basis of the expectancy theory is that all things being equal, an able worker will be motivated for higher productivity if he or she perceives that there is a positive and strong relationship between his or her effort (performance) and reward. If on the other hand he or she does not see the reward to be contingent on hard work, then the desire to work hard is not considered necessary.

Efiofor (1989) and others contend that many Nigeria workers do not perceive their advancement on the job to be strictly dependent upon how hard they work. Instead, they believe that it depends on such extranecus factors as who you know’ ‘god-fatherism’ favourism ‘long lea, ‘stateism’ chiche etc which ever coplies.

Consequently, even where the zeal to work hard is naturally present in the worker it could not be manaifested because he or she feels that the efforts would neither be recognized nor regarded or at a worse he or she can get the desired out come by building the necessary connections.

Another important factor observed to play a demotivating role in the workers is the reward system itself it is generally considered to be poor and not commensurate with efforts and economic conditions.

The imbalance is mainly attributed to the poor economic conditions experienced in the country. Since the 1980s economic conditions have been harsh, with dwindling value of the income consequently, a salaried worker finds it difficult to make ends meet.

2.7     SUMMARY OF LITERATURE REVIEW

Motivation is an essential requirement for improved workers performance. It is simple considered to be the level of efforts applied by a worker towards attaining the desired goals of the organization. Every manager would naturally want to see his workers work hard at all times. But hard work is not always forthcoming on its own, thus requiring the manager to do something to stimulate it.

Many behavioural scientists have written extensively on the subject of motivation in an attempt to provide in bases for eplning, predicting and motivating behaviour. Among the popular motivational theories are McGregors theory X and Y, Maslow’s need hierarchy theory, Herzberg’s two facors and vroom’s expectancy theory. Motivation theories being board generalizations many not directly provide answers organizations require a set of motivational strategies, techniques and means capable of taking care of situational and individual differences on the job.

The Nigeria worker, particularly those in the public sector, at present are complaining of inadequate motivation the problem is seen to relate to the missing link between performance and reward.

Experiences in the system show that advancement on the job do not always depend upon how hard one works but on other factors like personal relationship with the boss and favours poor reward system and communication gap between managers and employees are also observed to have immensely contributed to demotivate workers in our system.

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