The inextricable link between leadership and motivation

"Leadership" is a poorly understood term in many businesses and industries. Anyone attempting to lead another individual or group is attempting to motivate. So to start, let me define motivation.

Motivation is "the inner control of behaviour as represented by physiological conditions, interests, attitudes and aspirations". Motivation is not movement generated by external forces. External forces are usually either bullying or bribery.

There is one old article that I used in the early seventies to prepare an address to the assembled senior executives of a major company. That article reinforced my understanding of the word.It iswittily written to describe the common misunderstandings about motivation.

Most managers nowadays would agree that slave driving or in Herzberg's terminology "negative physical Kita" is not motivation. Herzberg uses the training of a large dog as an illustration. While the dog is still a pup, the toe of a shoe can be used to ease it out of its master's favourite chair. When the dog is fully grown and, not unlike unionised labour, capable of a snarling response, it will remove itself in response to a proffered dog biscuit.

If rear thrust is not motivation, why do so many managers believe that frontal pull or enticement is motivation? In an era when political correctness was not considered of great importance, Herzberg stated it this way: "It is because negative Kita is rape, positive Kita is seduction . . .Seductionsignifies that you were a party to your own downfall. That is whypositive Kita is so popular - the organisation does not have to kick you, youkick yourself."

My experience is in heavy industry, but leadership and motivation are similar in all workplaces be it the factory, the military, the public service department or the teacher's classroom. In such places, two theories have found use in explaining behaviour. They are the Craftsmanship Theory and the Indifference Theory. These two theories are generally used to form a dichotomy for the description of an organisation as a whole. Whereas, in reality, they are a dichotomy for description of the individual involved.

In any workplace or sample of people, there will be those, the craftsmen for want of a better term, who are truly motivated to perform any worthwhile task to the best of their ability. At the other end of the continuum there will be those who will deliberately perform any given task to the lowest possible standard in the longest possible time. These slackers, or rogues, pollute the working environment of the craftsmen.

In an organization, it is the leader's task to ensure that the craftsman attitudes are stimulated and the indifferent attitudes suppressed. The craftsman is in a position of conflict. He is presented with a picturedrawn by the slackers, and sometimes by other leaders or people with a different axe to grind describing, in their picture, the employers as grasping, as exploiters, as a group uninterested in the welfare of the majority of the population. Unless the employer is able to resolve the conflict between the craftsmen's desire to do a craftsman's job and their suspicion that they are being imposed upon, capable people will do shoddy work and go home to sweat blood "building a model ship in a bottle."

This conflict can only be resolved if the leader provides adequate evidence that the picture drawn by the disgruntled is untrue. In the present business environment in Australia, indeed in much of the world, this has become nigh on impossible. How can the Chief Executive, on a salary fifty or more multiples of the wages of the lower level employees, pass any effective genuine motivation down through the five or six effective levels of the hierarchy in a large business? Qantas and baggage handlers come to mind.

The principal asset the Company can have in presenting its own picture is competent management - in the front line particularly. How are those at that level likely to believe they are working towards a worthwhile aim in the present situation?

Consider the situation confronted by the leading supervisor in a manufacturing department with a few hundred employees in a large industry. That senior supervisor or superintendent is in a position to directly stimulate the craftsmen attitudes and to suppress the indifferent attitudes. On the job, the craftsmen know whom the rogues and slackers are, and if the supervisor is considerate towards the craftsmen and those he is not sure about. The superintendent and his subordinates can be tough on those that are found to be rogues and decisions concerning the rogues will largely be accepted.

If the superintendent can't cure a particular rogue and he must try, he is in a position to get rid of him and he should. It is elementary justice that those who are willing should not be "poled upon" by the slackers. I have used the position of superintendent for a good reason. This word best describes the highest level at which a supervisor can be known personally by a large majority of the manual employees, certainly key ones, and by the people at the very top. His/hers is the highest level at which an officer can be considered as a go between, as the Company's representative to the manual employees and their representative to, in their eyes, the "great white fathers."

These considerations do not appear applicable in financial and service industries, probably because such industries produce nothing physical - although senior officials do like to talk about products - and because the businesses can survive for a significant time on the cash flow from services that have been provided in the past.

An example would be the insurance industry. A work to rules strike would simply delay both claims and renewals, so what the business loses on the roundabout it gains on the swings and there is no real competition except on price. Customers only find out how good the "product" is after a disaster.

Prior to the mid to late seventies there was a theory that was practiced in many large Australian companies: Each full salary step in a business hierarchy should be about 30-40 per cent. It was also accepted that a successful business needed no more than five or six direct in line steps. I have heard it argued that the Catholic Church manages successfully with four supervisory steps. Although, the child abuse situation has brought that reputed success into doubt. Six steps at a salary increment of 35% would indicate a top multiple of six (1.35), 4 per cent, a multiple of about eight.

I recall the day in the seventies when a major Australian company abandoned that theory with the aim of providing incentives for upper levels of management. The company had been very successful up until that time. There is also an economic argument against wide income spreads. Excess income can only be wasted on foolish consumption or on helping to cause asset value inflation, to the disadvantage of those already disadvantaged, but that is a separate subject.

There was then another valuable theory for a business long-term success - no senior manager should be a one-man band. Decisions in a large company should be made by a group of various specialists, of near equal status, so that any one person has little to fear from any other. An executive committee responsible to the directors is such a committee.

Returning to the workplace leadership, being understanding and considerate involves many things besides the personal problems of individuals. It involves ensuring a clean safe plant with reasonable amenities and proper training. It means the superintendent must ensure that a man is paid the correct wage and any other entitlements without fuss and that if an employee wishes to raise a complaint with the Company, his supervisor will arrange for a meeting with the superintendent as early as practical. It means that signs such as "Staff Only • All Enquiries at Window,'" belong in the garbage can.

It means where possible, industrial decisions based on a wise evaluation of the intangibles by those closest to the situation, provided they are capable, with only guidance from rules. I recall asking a senior industrial officer what a company's policy was on a particular matterand receiving the reply: "What are you trying to achieve? If it is worthwhile we are here to help you achieve it."

Sure, what I am saying is from Herzberg - fix the hygiene factors. But it is also from, "The Managers " by R. Lewis and R. Stewart. "It is management's job to make workers feel that their humanity is recognized, to give their individual worth its due, to consult them about changes, to encourage them to express their opinions, to listen patiently while these -however inchoate - are expounded, to set up for them a ladder of promotion (but only to promote those good enough), to be immensely considerate and to be seen to be considerate; and thus to put into operation the one formula which psychologists say will get more out of working people than any material incentive scheme."

In summary, leadership is helping individuals fully develop their better internal drives, to improve their internal satisfaction, and move them towards making an improvedcontribution to a societal or team goal.