Fluent Essays

Write a paper in response to the questions listed below. Include a minimum of two citations from the assigned reading from Chapter 9 in which you apply the concepts to the questions. (Note: It is not necessary to do any outside research beyond the information in Chapter 9). Provide a detailed explanation for your discussion that demonstrates clear, insightful critical thinking. Write a substantive response to the following, with citations that include the page reference from Chapter 9: Share from your own experience, either as a follower or a leader, three change initiatives (one from each category—anticipatory, reactive, crisis). For each, describe the situation, the need driving the change, and the urgency of the change.  Select the change that was most significant to you.  Restate the type of change (anticipatory, reactive, crisis) you are describing. Discuss your personal readiness and the organization’s readiness for change. Refer to the three barriers (failure to see, failure to move, failure to finish). Describe the outcome of the change initiative and refer to lessons acquired from Chapter 9 on how to initiate positive change in an organization Your discussion should be 400–500 words in length Some people believe it is virtually impossible to motivate anyone and that leaders can do little to influence people’s decisions regarding the direction, intensity, and persistence of their behavior. Clearly followers bring a lot to the motivational equation, but we feel that a leader’s actions can and do affect followers’ motivation levels. If leaders did not affect followers’ motivation levels, it would not matter whom one worked for—any results obtained would be solely due to followers’ efforts. But as you will read in  Chapter 16 , whom one works for matters a lot. We hope that after reading this chapter you will have a better understanding of how follower characteristics (needs and achievement orientation), leader actions (goal setting), and situational factors (contingent rewards and empowerment) affect how you and your followers are motivated (and demotivated). Moreover, you should be able to start recognizing situations in which some theories provide better insights about problems in motivation levels than others. For example, if you think about the reasons you might not be doing well in a particular class, you may see that you have not set specific goals for your grades or that the rewards for doing well are not clear. Or if you are working in a bureaucratic organization, you may see few consequences for either substandard or superior performance; thus there is little reason to exert extra effort. Perhaps the best strategy for leaders is to be flexible in the types of interventions they consider to affect follower motivation. That will require, of course, familiarity with the strengths and weaknesses of the different theories and approaches presented here. Similarly, we need to consider how the five motivational approaches can be used with both individuals and teams. Much of this section focused on applying the five approaches to individuals, but the techniques can also be used to motivate teams of followers. For example, leaders can set team goals and provide team rewards for achieving them. Leaders can also hire team members who have high levels of achievement orientation and then provide everyone on the team with the decision-making latitude and skills needed to adequately perform their jobs. Leaders can also assess their teams’ current position on the hierarchy of needs and take actions to ensure that lower-order needs are satisfied. Again, having a good understanding of the five motivational approaches will help leaders determine which ones will be most effective in getting teams to change behavior and exert extra energy and effort. One of the most important tools for motivating followers has not been fully addressed in this chapter. As described in  Chapter 15 , charismatic or transformational leadership is often associated with extraordinarily high levels of follower motivation, yet none of the theories described in this chapter can adequately explain how these leaders get their followers to do more than they thought possible. Perhaps it is because the theories in this chapter take a rational or logical approach to motivation, yet transformational leadership uses emotion as the fuel to drive followers’ heightened motivational levels. Just as our needs, thoughts, personality traits, and rewards can motivate us to do something different, so can our emotions drive us to engage in and persist with particular activities. 376 A good example here may be found in political campaigns. Do people volunteer to work for these campaigns because of some underlying need or personal goals, or because they feel they will be rewarded by helping out? Although these are potential reasons for some followers, the emotions generated by political campaigns, particularly when the two leading candidates represent different value systems, often seem to provide a better explanation for the large amount of time and effort people contribute. Leadership practitioners should not overlook the interplay between emotions and motivation, and the better able they are to address and capitalize on emotions when introducing change, the more successful they are likely to be. A final point concerns the relationship between motivation, performance, and effectiveness. Many leadership practitioners equate the three, but as we pointed out earlier in this chapter, they are not the same concepts. Getting followers to put in more time, energy, and effort on certain behaviors will not help the team to be more successful if they are the wrong behaviors to begin with. Similarly, followers may not know how and when to exhibit behaviors associated with team effectiveness. Leadership practitioners must clearly identify the behaviors related to performance and effectiveness, coach and train their followers in how and when to exhibit these behaviors, and then use one or more of the theories described in this chapter to get followers to exhibit and persist with the behaviors associated with higher performance levels. Managing followers’ performance and achieving team and organizational goals are critical leadership responsibilities and should be the main reason people are placed in positions of authority. Put another way, athletic coaches, military commanders, and restaurant or retail store leaders should be picked for these roles because of their ability to motivate followers to exhibit the behaviors needed to achieve winning results. But this is often no easy task. Followers may not understand what they have to do or the degree to which they need to exhibit certain behaviors for the team to win; followers need to be monitored and usually need feedback, coaching, and some kind of motivation to exhibit the right behaviors; and leaders need to be able to differentiate between high and low performers and administer rewards in a fair and transparent manner. Leaders who shirk these responsibilities in order to be popular and avoid negative Glass Door reviews or employee engagement survey ratings usually manage teams that report lower levels of morale and effectiveness. Some people believe it is virtually impossible to motivate anyone and that leaders can do little to influence people’s decisions regarding the direction, intensity, and persistence of their behavior. Clearly followers bring a lot to the motivational equati on, but we feel that a leader’s actions can and do affect followers’ motivation levels. If leaders did not affect followers’ motivation levels, it would not matter whom one worked for — any results obtained would be solely due to followers’ efforts. But as y ou will read in Chapter 16 , whom one works for matters a lot. We hope that after reading this chapter you will have a better understanding of how follower characte ristics (needs and achievement orientation), leader actions (goal setting), and situational factors (contingent rewards and empowerment) affect how you and your followers are motivated (and demotivated). Moreover, you should be able to start recognizing si tuations in which some theories provide better insights about problems in motivation levels than others. For example, if you think about the reasons you might not be doing well in a particular class, you may see that you have not set specific goals for you r grades or that the rewards for doing well are not clear. Or if you are working in a bureaucratic organization, you may see few consequences for either substandard or superior performance; thus there is little reason to exert extra effort. Perhaps the bes t strategy for leaders is to be flexible in the types of interventions they consider to affect follower motivation. That will require, of course, familiarity with the strengths and weaknesses of the different theories and approaches presented here. Similar ly, we need to consider how the five motivational approaches can be used with both individuals and teams. Much of this section focused on applying the five approaches to individuals, but the techniques can also be used to motivate teams of followers. For e xample, leaders can set team goals and provide team rewards for achieving them. Leaders can also hire team members who have high levels of achievement orientation and then provide everyone on the team with the decision - making latitude and skills needed to adequately perform their jobs. Leaders can also assess their teams’ current position on the hierarchy of needs and take actions to ensure that lower - order needs are satisfied. Again, having a good understanding of the five motivational approaches will help leaders determine which ones will be most effective in getting teams to change behavior and exert extra energy and effort. One of the most important tools for motivating followers has not been fully addressed in this chapter. As described in Chapter 15 , charismatic or transformational leadership is often associated with extraordinarily high levels of follower motivation, yet none of the theories described in this c hapter can adequately explain how these leaders get their followers to do more than they thought possible. Perhaps it is because the theories in this chapter take a rational or logical approach to motivation, yet transformational leadership uses emotion as the fuel to drive followers’ heightened motivational levels. Just as our needs, thoughts, personality traits, and rewards can motivate us to do something different, so can our emotions drive us to engage in and persist with particular activities. 376 Some people believe it is virtually impossible to motivate anyone and that leaders can do little to influence people’s decisions regarding the direction, intensity, and persistence of their behavior. Clearly followers bring a lot to the motivational equation, but we feel that a leader’s actions can and do affect followers’ motivation levels. If leaders did not affect followers’ motivation levels, it would not matter whom one worked for—any results obtained would be solely due to followers’ efforts. But as you will read in Chapter 16, whom one works for matters a lot. We hope that after reading this chapter you will have a better understanding of how follower characteristics (needs and achievement orientation), leader actions (goal setting), and situational factors (contingent rewards and empowerment) affect how you and your followers are motivated (and demotivated). Moreover, you should be able to start recognizing situations in which some theories provide better insights about problems in motivation levels than others. For example, if you think about the reasons you might not be doing well in a particular class, you may see that you have not set specific goals for your grades or that the rewards for doing well are not clear. Or if you are working in a bureaucratic organization, you may see few consequences for either substandard or superior performance; thus there is little reason to exert extra effort. Perhaps the best strategy for leaders is to be flexible in the types of interventions they consider to affect follower motivation. That will require, of course, familiarity with the strengths and weaknesses of the different theories and approaches presented here. Similarly, we need to consider how the five motivational approaches can be used with both individuals and teams. Much of this section focused on applying the five approaches to individuals, but the techniques can also be used to motivate teams of followers. For example, leaders can set team goals and provide team rewards for achieving them. Leaders can also hire team members who have high levels of achievement orientation and then provide everyone on the team with the decision- making latitude and skills needed to adequately perform their jobs. Leaders can also assess their teams’ current position on the hierarchy of needs and take actions to ensure that lower-order needs are satisfied. Again, having a good understanding of the five motivational approaches will help leaders determine which ones will be most effective in getting teams to change behavior and exert extra energy and effort. One of the most important tools for motivating followers has not been fully addressed in this chapter. As described in Chapter 15, charismatic or transformational leadership is often associated with extraordinarily high levels of follower motivation, yet none of the theories described in this chapter can adequately explain how these leaders get their followers to do more than they thought possible. Perhaps it is because the theories in this chapter take a rational or logical approach to motivation, yet transformational leadership uses emotion as the fuel to drive followers’ heightened motivational levels. Just as our needs, thoughts, personality traits, and rewards can motivate us to do something different, so can our emotions drive us to engage in and persist with particular activities. 376