Limitations to employee motivation due to leadership styles in consumer durable industry

 

The word “motivation” came to light from a Latin word “movere” that means to move. Thus, it generates a reflection of uplifting the employees and supporting them to achieve certain objectives and goals (Korth 2007). The motivation is a strong element that strength the abilities and behavior and which activate the propensity to continue it is an internal force , which drives to accomplish un satisfied needs and to achieve a directive objectives (Dobre 2017).

What is Leadership?

A leader is one or more people who influence, train, equips others who have diverse abilities, skills and focus to achieve the organization mission and Objectives (Winston and Patterson 2006). In current rapid changing world, the organization leadership is contemplating as a censorious success factor and it is all managers’ responsibility to display the capability and at all levels of the organization also feel the need to cooperate with others to achieve the desired results (Korejan and Shahbazi 2016). Leadership positions are inveterate in work settings to help organizational to achieve the organizational goals and objectives which improves the productivity and profits and they should identify, establish and translate the direction for their followers and facilitate the organizational processes that should result in the achievement of this objective (Zaccaro & Klimoski 2013).

Leadership styles

Considering  the definitions there are many theories and strategies which explains the leadership styles from 1840’s.

• Great Man Theory – Which is introduce by Thomas Carlyle in 1840’s describes on capacity for leadership is inherent, that great leaders are born, not made (Amanchukwu et al, 2015)
• Trait Theory – Introduces by Francis Galton in 1930 – 1940‟s suggest on the aspects on people inherit certain qualities or traits make them better suited to leadership (Khan et al, 2016)
• Behavioral Theory - Kurt Lewin, John Fryer and others suggest in 1940’s describes that they belief on leaders can be create on learnable behavior (Sharpe 1993)
• Contingency Theories - Fiedler in 1964 illustrate on how the contingent factors influence design and function of leader (Vidal et al, 2017)
• Situational Theory - Hersey and Blanchard 1969 suggested that leaders identify the best solution based upon situational conditions or circumstances (Thompson & Glaso 2018)
• Skills Approach – Katz Mumford, Zaccaro, Harding, Jacobs and Fleishman suggested that learned knowledge and acquired skills/abilities are significant factors in the practice of effective leadership (Amanchukwu et al, 2015).
• Transactional Theory - Max Weber and Bernard Bass describes in 1978 focus on the role of supervision, organization performance and the exchanges that take place between leaders and followers (Kabeyi 2020)
• Transformational Theory - Burns , Bass & Avolio, Bennis & Nanus , Kouzes & Posner describes the concept as the connections formed between leaders and followers and effective components of leadership and charismatic approach (Korejan & Shahbazi 2016)

Limitations to employee motivation due to leadership styles

Motivation and leadership aspects are mostly combined in the current consumer durable industry and when evaluating leadership motivation is always incorporated with it (Karunarathne 2019). When evaluating the leadership theories it was noticed that the percent situation what the organization, which I worked for is following is transactional leadership model. Transactional leadership organizations are keener, and focuses on exchanges occur between leaders and followers. It allows organizations to execute their short-term objectives and goals, motivate employees with rewards, create more followers, and focus on improving the efficiency and to minimize risk in a challenging environment (McCleskey 2014). Considering the practice the organization motivate the employees with rewards and punishment schemes and tries to achieve short-term goals. Due to the chain of commands from top to bottom the organizations work on a clear structure on communication and guidance. Also, due to the chain of commands the organization can easily implement new procedures and it’s easy to follow from the employee end. Due to the transactional leadership style the organization follows a inflexible leadership and it discourages the innovation and creativity of the employees to find suitable ways and cost effective ways in this current pandemic and competitive environment. Also, it creates more followers than leaders and its more focuses on consequences instead of rewards (Sultana et al.2015). Considering above factors It’s more constructive to implement transformational than transactional in a growing organization (Bass 1990). It helps motivate the employees using much more collaborative aspects to gain trust and to be more engaged with the organization. Full range leadership theory evaluates the concept on improving productivity, communication, understanding, motivation and creativity, which will lead to increased company profits and revenue (Barbuto et at,2007). Considering the leadership styles and theories in practice its more effective and convenient to implement the transformational style using full range leadership theory within the organization and Converting the subordinates from transactional to transformational through full range style will improve the motivation and moral of them in the current pandemic situation and to innovate and implement new ways to reduce the operational cost (Sultana et at.2015).

Reference

    Bernard M.Bass (1990), From transactional to transformational leadership: Learning to share the vision, Organizational Dynamics Volume 18, Issue 3, Winter 990, Pages 19-31

    Bruce E. Winston and Kathleen Patterson (2006), An Integrative Definition of Leadership, International Journal of Leadership Studies, Vol 01

    Buddhika Karunarathne (2019), Impact of leadership styles on employees’ motivation, a case study of shahjalal islami bank limited, Bangladesh

    Geir Thompson and Lars Glaso (2018), Situational leadership theory: a test from a leader-follower congruence approach, Leadership & Organization Development Journal.

    Gelmar Garcı´a Vidal, Reyner Perez Campdesun (2017), Contingency theory to study leadership styles of small businesses owner-managers, International Journal of Engineering Business Management.

    Jim Allen McCleskey (2014), Situational, Transformational, and Transactional Leadership and Leadership Development, Journal of Business Studies Quarterly

    Jone E Barbuto  and Lance L. Cummine (2007), Full Range leardership, University of Nebraska- Lincoln

    Korth, M. 2007. Maslow - Move Aside! A Heuristical Motivation Model for Leaders in Career and Technical Education. Journal of industrial teacher education, 5-36.

    Louise Sharpe and Nichola Starrier (1993), Towards a Cognitive-Behavioural Theory of Problem Gambling, British Journal of Psychiatry, p.407

    M. Moradi Korejan and H. Shahbazi (2016), An analysis of the transformational leadership theory, Journal of Fundamental and Applied Sciences

    M. Moradi Korejan and H. Shahbazi (2016), An analysis of the Transformational leadership Theory, Journal of Fundamental and Applied Sciences

    Moses J.B. Kabeyi (2020), Transformational Vs Transactional Leadership with Examples , The International Journal Of Business & Management

    Ovidiu-Iliuta Dobre (2017), Employee motivation and organizational performance, Review of Applied Socio- Economic Research

    Rose Ngozi Amanchukwu, Gloria Jones Stanley and Nwachukwu Prince Ololube (2015), A Review of Leadership Theories, Principles and Styles and Their Relevance to Educational Management, School of Public Health Nursing, Rivers State College of Health Science and Technology

    Stephen J. Zaccaro and Richard J. Klimoski (2013), Understanding the Performance Imperatives Confronting Today's Leaders, The Nature of Organizational Leadership

    Umme Salma Sultana, Mohd Ridzuan Darun and Liu Yao (2015), Transactional and transformational Leadership, Which works best for now?, International Journal of Industrial Management

    Zakeer Ahmed Khan, Dr. Allah Nawaz and Irfanullah Khan (2016), Leadership Theories and Styles: A Literature Review, Journal of Resources Development and Management.

How to motivate employees in consumer durable industry

In correct context the employees have various needs and want which will motivate them to drive for the company goals and objectives. Some employees are motivated by rewards while others focus on achievement or security on their work environment and it's critical for an organization to identify and evaluate on what motivates its employees if they aspire to achieve better heights (Lee and Raschke 2016).

Employee motivation is a vital aspect in any industry or organization and its something that every organization must do regularly to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of their staff (Sabir 2017). Considering the motivational theories, scholars describe motivation factors in various forms, which will illustrate on Table 01 below.

Table 01: Employee motivation theories

                                                                              Source : Lee and Raschke (2016)

As Randall and others describe in 2006, motivation is an act of providing employee a reason or inducement to do or achieve a certain objective or task and it’s a feeling of passion, interest or devotion that makes them buoyant on themselves and their employment. Motivation and job satisfaction are two key elements for better performance of any organizations and it induces employees to establish an extreme application of their effort to achieve the objectives (Rahman et al. 2018). Some employees tend to produce low potential in their work environment due to the lack of exploitation of the skills and abilities, lack of competition and challengers and due to unpleasant leadership style or policies in the organization (Al-Madi et al. 2017).  

Its utmost important to keep employee motivation in a considerable level for further performance of consumer durable industry in this challenging environment. Below aspects will influence employees to be more motivated in consumer durable industry.

Salary, Wages and Extrinsic reward

Considering the salary and wagers the management must focus on major components of the structure of each and every employee, such as payments, which hearten the employees by rewarding them according to their performance, personal or special allowance on their skills, abilities, implementation and service period, additional wages, such as vacation with pay, pensions, bonuses (Al-Madi et al. 2017). Income of an employee plays a major role in his or her motivation and job satisfaction and it has a capability to keep and motivate employees for a greater performance without apathy the values and other motives (Liaci 2020). Salary and wagers are external motivators and the satisfaction on those components are not acquired from the activity itself but comparatively from external repercussion impulsion the achievement of the objectives (Shoraj and Llaci 2015). In consumer durable industry organizations used bonuses, incentives, promotions, salary increments to motivate their subordinates.

Intrinsic rewards

Intrinsic rewards describe as intangible in nature and are appreciation, caring attitudes from employers and job rotation. These elements are within the job itself as satisfaction, contentment from fulfilling a task and admiration from employes (Zafar et al, 2014). The loyalty of employees are more dependent on the rewards and recognition and consumer durable organizations contribute toward to retain the skilled and knowledge employees within their organization for a much longer period.

Training and development

By using the training and development helps the organizations increase the commitment and motivation of the employees and it creates escalate on job performance on individual employees (Meyer and Allen1991). Staff training and development are a substantial strategy for motivating employees will lead to improve their own abilities and skills to be more innovative and creative (Al-Madi et al. 2017). The consumer durable industry tends to implement and invest more on training and development to uplift the standards and abilities of their employees to create more customer-centric environment, better service, improve innovation and creativity in the current pandemic situation.

Information accessibility and Communication

An organization grapples to motivate their employees to survive and compete in a dynamic competitive environment profitably as motivation puts personal expident into action, improve level of efficiency of employees, enables organizations to accomplish a feasible competitive advantage and to achieve organizational goals (Mohsen et al., 2004). Its more important to have clear communication and information accessibility within organization frame work to be more clear on the objectives and goals and on what the employees can expect by achieving them (Shoraj and Llaci 2015). Relationship and communication between management and subordinates is a key ingredient for the increase or decrease in performance and higher levels of those elements will produce a higher level of results.

Also in consumer industry organizations tend to create a work friendly environment, Encourage friendly competition, Create a career path, Encourage team work, reward based on the Feedback process, Prioritize Work-Life Balance, Create Recognition Rituals and goal setting to motivate them in current pandemic situations.

Reference

 

Almas Sabir (2017), Motivation: Outstanding Way to Promote Productivity in Employees, American Journal of Management Science and Engineering

Dritan Shoraj and Shyqyri Llaci  (2015), Motivation and Its Impact on Organizational Effectiveness in Albanian Businesses, Article first published online: November 9, 2015; Vol 05

 

Faisal N. Al-Madi, Husam Assal, Faiz Shrafat and Dia Zeglat (2017), The Impact of Employee Motivation on Organizational Commitment, European Journal of Business and Management

Joshua Randall, Stacy Novotny Seth Larson (2006), Is it Really all about the Money?: Motivating Employees in the 21st Century, Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato, Vol. 6

Llaci, S. (2010). Business management. Motivation. Tirane, Albania: albPAPER.

Md. Habibur Rahman, Mst. Rinu Fatema and Md. Hazrat Ali (2018), Impact of Motivation and Job Satisfaction on Employee’s Performance: An Empirical Study, Asian Journal of Economics, Business and Accounting

Meyer, J. and Allen, N. (1991), “A three component conceptualization of organizational commitment”, Human Resource Management Review, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 61-90

Michael T.Lee and Robyn L.Raschke (2016), Understanding employee motivation andorganizational performance: Arguments for aset-theoretic approach, Journal of Innovation & Knowledge. Published by Elsevier Espa ̃na.

Mohsan, F., Nawaz, M. M., Khan, M., Shaukat, Z., & Aslam, N. (2004), Are Employee Motivation, Commitment and Job Involvement Inter-related: Evidence from Banking Sector of Pakistan. International Journal of Business and Social Science, 2, 17, 226-233.

Nida Zafar, Sana Ishaq, Shaista Shoukat and Muhammad Rizwan (2014), Determinants of Employee Motivation and its impact on Knowledge Transfer and Job Satisfaction, International Journal of Human Resource Studies

Motivation concepts used in consumer durable industry cont.....

Still no any single theory explains all the characteristic of motivation but current theoretical clarifications do often describe the basis for the improvement of methods to uplift the motivation expects in human nature.

Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory

Herzberg, Mausner and Snyderman in 1959 introduced the Two-Factor Theory, which is known as motivation-hygiene theory and it was determined by Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (Alshmemri et.al 2017). Motivation is an intramural strength , which depends on the needs and wants that navigate a person to achieve (Hong and Waheed 2011). After interviewing two hundred engineers and accountant estimations, Herzberg elaborate the theory using two sets of factors such as motivation and hygiene, which influence employee working and behavioral attitudes and performances (Stello 2011).

·        Motivation – which can influence the employee to work hard and to improve productivity

·        Hygiene factors – which will not influence the employee to work hard of improve productivity but will influence to become unmotivated

Motivation Factors are Intrinsic Factors that will increase employees’ job satisfaction; while Hygiene Factors are Extrinsic Factors to prevent any employees’ dissatisfaction (Fauziah et.al 2013). Motivation factors included achievement, recognition, the work itself, responsibility, advancement and the possibility for growth, while hygiene factors included company policies and administration, relationship with supervisors, interpersonal relations, working conditions and salary (Alshmemri 2017). Mainly the theory lines up with planning and controlling the employees at work and the two factor theory will illustrate in Figure 01.

                                        Source - Fauziah et al. 2013

Hygiene factors are not present in the actual job itself but surround the job and truant of this factor will influence employee to work barely harder (Fauziah et.al 2013). Motivation is touch on the satisfaction aspect and hygiene will influence the dissatisfaction of an employee, which will illustrate in figure 02.

Figure 02: Impact of motivating and hygiene factors

        Source – Expert program management (2016)

Application to consumer durable industry

The two factor theory describes and evaluates more aspects to measure the motivation levels in his or her work environment. The theory argued on meeting hygiene factors of employees would not motivate them to deploy effort, but would only avert them being disappointed (Stello 2011). In an organization, meeting employees’ hygiene factors will only obviate employees from becoming actively dissatisfied but will not motivate them to contribute more effort toward better performance and efficiency (Hong and Waheed 2011). These factors will provide a better understanding of how to keep the employees more satisfied within the organizational environment and to create a favorable workplace.

Hygiene factors

• Interpersonal relations - Personal and working relationships between the worker and management or supervisor which include job-related interactions and social discussions in the work environment and during break times. A fine, friendly, and appropriate relationship should exist between management and employee and it will help motivate them within the workplace (Alshmemri 2017).

• Salary – Includes wage or salary increases or unfulfilled expectations of wage or salary increases or decrease. The salary or pay structure should be fair and reasonable and competitive with the market (Fauziah et.al 2013).

• Company policies and administration - Policies should not be too rigid and should be fair, clear and must also be equivalent to those of competitors (Hong and Waheed 2011).

• Supervision – This describes the supervisor’s willingness to delegate responsibility or educate integrity and job skill or knowledge (Alshmemri 2017).

• Working conditions – This includes equipment, the working environment, the amount of work, space, ventilation, temperature and safety which needs to be in adequate level for more motivation and satisfaction (Hong and Waheed 2011).

Motivation factors

• Advancement – This evaluates the promotion opportunities and upward status or position of a employee in an organization which will motivate and engage him or her to increase the productivity and efficiency (Fauziah et.al 2013).

• The work itself- This describes on how the content of job tasks and assignments has either a positive or a negative effect upon employees and it must be  interesting and provide enough of a challenge to keep employees motivated (Hong and Waheed 2011).

• Possibility for growth – This aspect provides the employee the opportunity to learn new skills, improve his ability and to experience personal growth and be promoted and continue the career ladder (Stello 2011).

• Responsibility - Employees should “own” their work and not micromanaged by the management which will motivate the employee on creativity and innovation (Alshmemri 2017).

• Recognition – The organization must praise and recognize of their employees achievement and successes to keep them satisfy and to be engaged (Hong and Waheed 2011).

• Achievement – Providing an employee with a sense of achievement will bestow proud feeling of having done something difficult but worthwhile (Fauziah et.al 2013).

Reference

                  Christina M. Stello (2011), Herzberg ’ s Two-Factor Theory 1 Herzberg ’ s Two-Factor Theory of Job Satisfaction : An Integrative Literature Review,

                  Mohammed Alshmemri (2017), Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory, Life Science Journal, p.12

                   Mohammed Alshmemri; Lina Shahwan-Akl and Phillip Maude (2017), Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory, Life Science Journal.

                  Tan Teck-Hong and Amna Waheed (2011), Herzberg's motivation-hygiene theory and job satisfaction in the malaysian retail sector: the mediating effect of love of money, Asian Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 16

                   Wan Fauziah Wan Yusoff, Tan Shen Kian and  & Mohammad Talha Mohamed Idris (2013) Herzberg’s two factors theory on work motivation: does its work for today’s environment?, Global journal of Commerce and management perspective.