First Level Leadership

Employee Motivation: Keep a Firm Hold on Your Responsibility, Especially During The Hours of Transition

The Weight of Employee Motivation

What advice will you give him? 

Can you help my friend Steve Samuel in his hour of distress? 

He has been recently promoted and is now the head of department. Needless to say, he is highly motivated. His scope of management involves managing various section heads along with some clerical staff. Apart from that, he is obliged to take on the responsibility of the IT department as well.

So what did he first do? He was a model of punctuality; he neither arrived too soon, nor too late. To make time to get through the day, he adhered to the strictest punctuality.

 Therefore, punctuality was his watchword

In order to be fair, he introduced a time street for the staff. He came down hard on those who were late. And if you could not come up with a reasonable excuse, you would get a special note in your personal file – courtesy Steve.

Soon they protested against Steve going needlessly so far

However, the computer department protested the introduction of the new rule because they worked overtime and at odd hours.

But Steve was not prepared to listen. Everything fell on deaf ears in the name of fairness. He even pinned a notice on the bulletin board.

What did it do to the employee motivation?

The staff decided to retaliate back by refusing to work at odd hours and by refusing to work late. People felt that it was unfair to give an explanation for a five minute delay in the morning when they were expected to work late after office hours.

There was a mass protest against the new system and also against Steve. This shocked him. He had to bow down.

What advice would you give to Steve? Where did the go wrong? 

Error No.1: He took the decision without consulting the other section heads. 

Error No. 2: The notice on the bulletin board was an action, which did not leave any room for him to retreat. With the result the staff motivation dropped considerably. 

Error No. 3: He showed lack of commonsense to understand the link between his actions and their motivation.  

Error No. 4: He swept like a new broom. He rushed into making changes before he had even built trust. 

Error No. 5: He did not take time to find out who were the dominant people in the group/team. Things are not always what they appear to be at the first sight. 

Though Steve had a good management experience, unfortunately he had never received any formal leadership training.

Remember: Employee motivation is one of the required attributes of an effective leader. You need to be conscious of the factors that lead you towards motivation. A good understanding of the process of employee motivation will enhance your success. 

The performance of your employees is a product of both ability and motivation. Performance = Ability x employee motivation 

Epilogue:

On becoming a leader, resist the temptation to make a flying start and plunge into the task of trying to solve all the problems alone and at once. I know you want to look good, and sooner the better; but have patience.

Avoid the temptation of over supervision: 

1) One of the inevitable by-products of over supervision is resentment which has a direct link with employee motivation. 

2) Another effect is passive resistance to the new demands. 

3) Even worse for the group, over supervision makes your team members too dependent on you. They start coming to your with every problem, their self motivation and confidence drops, and their initiative is stifled. 

Watch out for some of these traps when you take up a new role. 

Good luck!

PS:

At this stage you may be interested in the "Motivation Theory "

You must also know the limitations of Motivation Theories

What is Intrinsic Motivation?

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