Strategic Leadership : Motivation and People Management

Definition of Strategic Leadership

Strategic Leadership is the ability to anticipate, envision, maintain flexibility think strategically and work with others to initiate changes that will create a viable future for an organization. It involves the process of providing direction and necessary inspiration to create or sustain in organization. Thus, a strategic leader main task is " identifying threats and opportunities and formulate strategies for the survival and prosperity of organization ". Strategic leaders concerned beyond the management task but also the ability to put a direction for organization, taking into the consideration of future challenges and needs and produce into a framework which finally being implemented by people. In order to ensure people are working towards the same direction, the strategic leaders also need to empower people continuously.

Strategy in school of leaders, also can be derived as the ability to translate the vision and moral purpose into action. In order to do that, it must be people oriented which involve the process of awakening people, aligning and motivating them by creating an understood value from within the organization.

Strategic leadership most of the time required to develop a strategic plan in organizational process and people management. As mentioned, it is far beyond the management tasks, a strategic leader must ensure all the managers are clear and well verse of ‘what organization want’, so that the managers know ‘what people should do to meet what organization want’. The capability of management to translate the clear vision into the outline is reflecting the capability of strategic leadership which performing well.

 Developmental Leadership

Expertise and growth may diverse due to varies task being experienced after dealing with problems and the challenges. In the other hand, various activities also can enhance leadership development such as:

• Multisource feedback workshop – 360-degree feedback to access the strengths and developmental needs of individual

• Developmental assessment centers – more intensive procedures and more comprehensive set of measures to increase self-understanding, identifying strengths and weaknesses and assess developmental needs

• Developmental Assignments – a temporary leave from regular job to reflex on the experience and identify lessons that were learned for value added purpose

• Mentoring - more experienced and senior individual do the monitoring, facilitating and guidance to empower leadership competencies in a protége

• Executive Coaching - coach is employed for limited period and provide coaching in schedule timetable during the employment period to facilitate learning of skills that are relevant for current or future leadership responsibilities

• Simulations – flexible and realistic various situation-based learning cases for exercise in training field for better understanding of challenging possibility issues may occur in future

• Personal Growth Programs – can be conducted in workshop, conference for intact management group, typically involved a series of psychological exercises in which participants attempt to understand their purpose for living and working.

Training conducted in various way (formal or informal such as experience and self-activities) contribute to strengthen skills of strategic leadership which may affect the success of the organization. From time to time, training may diverse in adaptation to the current change, but it still remains as the most competitive strategy for long term organizational effectiveness.

Motivation and Team Building

As leadership success requires motivating followers, motivation is the set of forces that causes people to engage in one behavior rather than some alternative behavior.

Baron (1983, in Mol, 1992) defined motivation as a set of processes concerned with a kind of force that energizes behavior and directs it towards achieving specific goals.  According to Palmer (2005), a fundamental part of a motivation strategy must be that the process of achieving the goal is itself motivational. According to the sixth edition of Leadership: Theory and Practice defines leadership as a “process whereby an individual influence a group of individuals to achieve a common goal".

Motivation and leadership can be defined as an individual who refer to a strategic leader, involve in influencing people with a set of process in order to energize people behavior towards achieving the organization’s objectives. When leadership is used to channel motivation, the motivated people usually are the employees who perform well as a return whenever they are correctly motivated.

Strategic leader should understand how team members are motivated and manage motivational factors to retain the talent within the organization. This is one of the most critical part to be carried out by a strategic leader since some motivation may work on some members of the team, while the others need different motivation factors to maintain job performance.

There are three common aspects of theory in motivation involved which are:

(i) Content Theory: “What motivates us?” - also sometimes called needs theories of motivation. They look at motivation from the perspective of people needs and aspirations.

(ii) Process Theory: “Why and how motivation occurs?” - can define on how people are motivated. They are concerned with the process by which motivation occurs, and how we can adjust our processes to alter motivation levels.

(iii) Reinforcement Theory: “How outcomes influence behaviors?” – to identify what motivates good and bad behavior in the workplace. It also suggests an approach to influence the behavior team.

Hierarchy of Need

According to Abraham Maslow, as his concept first introduced in 1943 “ A theory of Human Motivation’ suggests that people needs lower down in the hierarchy must be satisfied before individuals can attend needs to higher up. As psychoanalysis and behaviorism tended to focus on problematic behaviors, Maslow was much more interested in learning about what makes people happy and the things that they do to achieve aim. As humanist, he believed that people have an inborn desire to be self-actualized, that is to be all they can be.

Figure 1 : Maslow’s Motivation Theory

There are another theories in a similar vein to Maslow, which also can be categorized into three categories: the existence needs, relatedness needs and growth needs by Clayton P. Alderfer in 1969.

Both of these theories suggesting good leaders should recognize people are different. Leaders and managers need to have this level of understanding if they are in the position of motivating their team members. Good leaders need to recognize some people come to work to earn money (existence needs / psychological needs) and have no desire either to get on with others or not or earn promotion (growth needs / esteem needs). Some may work to meet people and have personal challenge and sense of achievement (relatedness needs / self-actualization needs), or maybe work to gain experience for their resume in applying another better job or any combination of these.

Different level of needs should use different level of motivation approach by the organization. Strategic leadership should have coverage of all the needs to ensure the talent keep performing well and to do so, organization should recognize motivation factors of each people inside from time to time.

The signals of demotivated employees also should be well monitored by strategic leadership and there should be either intervention plan or the assessment and team building activities to keep people on the track.

Two Factor Theory

Criticizing human always have no limit on their own needs, hierarchy needs of theory may be different compared to Motivation–Hygiene Theory or Dual- Factor Theory introduced by Frederick Herzberg in 1959. This theory is regarding the factors of satisfaction (motivators / satisfiers) and factors of dissatisfaction (hygiene factors / dissatisfiers) may influence people’s motivation in workplace.

Figure 2 : Two Factor Theory of Herzberg

The most ideal situation is high hygiene and high motivation state, which at this point, employees are very motivated and barely have any complaints but in real situations they might be several state occurs whereby the most common situations  can be employees not really motivated and see their work simply as pay check (high hygiene and low motivation) or employees are motivated and love their jo but they have complaints about salary or most of the time regarding work conditions (low hygiene and high motivation). While organization should avoid the most being at the worst possible situations (low hygiene and low motivation) , employees are not motivated to complete the task and have a lot of complaints due to the weaknesses of the organization in leadership.

Strategic leaders suggested to take away or minimize the dissatisfaction by figuring out all the important factors. Several aspects such as the bureaucracy within the organization, supervision, working environment, salary, career development and job guarantees should be into consideration to motivate the employees in this theory.

To motivate people, organization should outline clearly the conditions for good performance, appreciating employees’ contribution, tailoring the work to employees’ talents and activities, giving them responsibility as possible, offering career growth and development opportunities.

Acquired Needs Theory

Dominant Motivator	Leadership Approach
Achievement	Non routine
(Desire to solve problems)	Challenging tasks with clear and attainable objectives
	Fast and frequent feedback on their performance
	Continually give them increased responsibility for doing new things
	Keep out of their way
Affiliation	Let them work as a part of the team
(Desire to establish and maintain personal relationships)	Lots of praise and recognition
	Delegate responsibilities for orienting and training new employees to them
	Make them great mentors
Power	Let them plan and control their jobs
(Desire to influence others behavior)	Include in decision making
	Assign them the whole task rather than just a part of the task

Looking at conventional management perspective, money is the best motivation factor while facing current challenges in leadership, people are more motivated by their need for achievement, power and affiliation as promoted by David McClelland in 1961 in the book of “The Achieving of Society”. Organization is suggested to use below approach in motivating the employees:

Figure 3 : Dominant Motivator of McClelland

As human are complex in their needs, there are neither any of the motivation theories nor the needs are the most suitable to be applied. Therefore, organization should be able to understand human behavior and their various needs in various stage of employment level within the organization. 

People Management

While strategic leadership take place in team building and motivating people within the organization, people management involves in managing relationships to ensure desired outcomes are achieved so that the team members and individual performance is maximized. As diversity in the workplace increasing, people management skills mean more than just having the posture and the look of a boss in workplace. People management involve in forming and cementing relationships, providing the right motivation, keeping team members on track, understanding the needs of individual and helping people meet their goals.

Process Motivation Theories

The psychological and behavioral processes that motivate a person to act in a particular way are referred to a process theory of motivation. These theories go a step further by trying to understand why people have different needs and why their needs change and how people choose to try to satisfy needs in different ways. Organization may be able to offer people needs and as a return, they will maintain keeping the best team player within the organization. As organization always believes in human development activities as the main success factor, it is undeniable that organization will always formulate and strategize the best motivation factors for their people.

Equity Theory

John Stacey Adam’s equity theory in 1963 helps explain why pay and working conditions alone do not determine motivation for people to maintain in the organization. As people tend to compare themselves with others, there are two main principles in this theory: (1) The needs to be balance between work inputs (effort) and outputs (reward) and (2) Workers need to feel fairly treated as a comparison among their collegeagues.

Figure 4 : Adam’s Equity Theory

Through this theory, whenever people feel they are doing great work, they also feel that they should be recognized for it. Fairness and equity are key components of a motivated employees. The individuals are motivated by fairness, and if they identify inequities in the input or output ratios of themselves and their referant group, they will seek to adjust their input to reach their perceived equity. This theory also suggests that the higher and individual’s perception of equity, the more motivated they will be and vice versa.

For Adam’s Equity Theory of Motivation, there are four referent groups people compare themselves with:

-       Self-inside: the individual’s experience within their current organization.

-       Self-outside: the individual’s experience with other organizations.

-       Others-inside: others within the individual’s current organization.

-       Others-outside: others outside of the individual organization.

For example, if employee in the company compare themselves to another employee with the same job scope in another company, they know socially then the referent group is others-outside. If they were to compare themselves to what they earnt in their previous job, then the referent group is self-outside.

Adam’s Equity Theory still holds even when people compare themselves to others doing very different roles and earning very different compensation. It is always worth remembering that Equity Theory applies in a very broad sense. Each person will respond to perceived inequality in their own individual and unique way.

Although it is difficult for organization to recognize the reference of employees to define their perception whenever they are under rewarded, this theory recommends strategic leadership to be aware of any signals of perception which might occur and planning for an equitable reward especially for high performers among them to keep maintaining their performance for the organization.

Expectancy Theory

Figure 5 : Victor Vroom Expectancy Theory

Victor Vroom developed this theory in 1964, concluded that people’s motivation depends on three factors: expectancy, instrumentality and valence. According to him, behavior is the result of a conscious choice from alternatives. Employees must have a preference for getting the most possible joy from their work with little effort. Employees will increase their efforts at work when the reward has more personal value to them. Both organization and employees aware of three processes:

-       Increased efforts will improve work performance;

-       Increased performance will lead to bigger rewards;

-       The offered reward will be appreciated by the employees

An organization therefore has to find out together with the employees which rewards motivates and values employees the most.

Goal Setting Theory

Edwin Locke in 1968, found that individuals who set specific, difficult goals performed better than those who set general and easy goals. Locke proposed five basic principles of goal – setting element: clarity, challenge, commitment, feedback and task complexity. Effective goal-setting principles:

Goal Principles	Characters
Clarity	Clear Measurable Achievable – specific Has timeline for completion
Challenge	Have a decent level of difficulty
Commitment	Put deliberate effort into meeting this goal
Feedback	Set up method to receive information on work progress
Task Complexity	Give enough time to overcome learning curve involved

Strategic leadership should work with employees to set goals that are appropriate and achievable given their abilities. Communication and meeting can assist towards achieving the target also to set clear action plan considering the complexity of the task. As many current organizations nowadays use to invite the employees to participate in setting the key performance index, employees are automatically having clear vision on what to work on achieving the goals set together which may provide relevant performance during the process involved.

Reinforcement Theory

As no motivation theory can work well in order to achieve organization objectives, Burrhus Federic Skinner (B.F Skinner) in 1960’s actively promote reinforcement theory in his writing at Harvard. He stated that individuals would tend to repeat activities that had positive outcomes and conversely behaviors that produced negative result in fewer of those behaviors. The fundamental principle of reinforcement theory is that actions and behaviors that result in positive consequences will be positively reinforced and hence, repeated while activities with negative consequences can be met with undesirable consequences and will therefore become less frequent.

Figure 6 : Reinforcement Theory Diagram

For the effectiveness of the reinforcement theory, a schedule of reinforcement which gives when and how positive or negative reinforcement is provided necessary: (1) Continuous Reinforcement, which happens every time the employees demonstrate the desired behavior and; (2) Intermittent Reinforcement since a manager cannot always be available to offer reinforcement for desired behaviors, this type of schedule is what is used in many organizations which are:

• Fixed Interval Schedule – is done in between fixed time periods like with a biweekly paycheck;

• Variable Interval Schedule – given at different times, no schedule is followed such as surprised inspection; and

• Fixed Ratio Schedule – given after a number of set out desired behaviors are achieved such as praise for excellent job.

This theory can be an effective tool to give positive reinforcement to outstanding performer and negative reinforcement to negative performer as well. Also, it may come in hand to punish bad behavior as a lesson to the others within organization which may motivate them as well to perform in the outline given.

As a nature of the human being, reinforcement is a good approach making people understand the principle of the nature: good people being rewarded, while the other way around will be given some negative reward as punishment. Other than it will make people becoming more discipline and accountable in their manners, it is believed that good behaviors will create good return as well for the organization and people.

The Analysis on Case Study : How Motivations Benefit Employees and Google? 

As Google is a non-mover since 2017, being awarded as the World Most Attractive Employers in business and also in the engineering/IT rankings (according to WMAE Report 2018), Google also still being recorded to be in the list among 100 World Most Valuable Brand which shows the secret success that already well known among the world is the way it motivates people within the organization.

Figure 7 : Top 100 World Most Valuable Brand

Applying Maslow’s Theory, google has stunningly motivates the employee’s needs by providing them with free gourmet food, snacks and nutritionist in their cafeteria as they believe that by providing food to the employees, the employees may save their time and focus on the productivity more. The company also provides a fitness center, yoga classes, along with a personal trainer to satisfy social and self-belonging needs of the employees to get motivated and keep producing well.

Using Herzberg’s Theory, Google apply a lot of unique company’s policy which increase the level of people’s satisfaction also such as offering various perks that go beyond typical perks such as healthcare, or vacation time. New parent enjoys six weeks of paid leave to new dads, along with 18 weeks for new moms. During this paid time off employees will also continue to collect any bonuses and their stocks will continue to vest. On top of the paid time off, Google also gives “baby bonding bucks” which is money given after a baby is born to an employee to help with baby expenses. Once the employee returns to work free on-site child care is available to them.

Google’s Tech Stop is open to employees 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Employees may use 80 percent of their work time on work related to their primary job. The other 20 percent of their work time is left to the employee to work on “passion projects” that the employee believes will benefit Google. This allows employees to manage their work accordingly up to the standard and goals of the company. Google employees are given the possibility to use Google products before they are available to the public. Using this technology first allows employees the chance to give feedback to improve the products, potentially helping to shape technology in the future. Google embrace the creativity and ideas of its people, which fulfilled the need of achievement by McClelland’s Theory which benefit company as they provide opportunity for the people to solve problem with very minimum level near to zero supervision from organization.

Google is among the best company shows how people-oriented cause the company to outshine among the world rank. People are treated as the real capital (human capital) which provenly shows the actual reason for the revenue its create every year since it’s establishment, this company is really good in getting the best from it’s people throughout the last time.  

By paying attention more on people, they develop direction that strongly trusted and clearly visional by the people within the company. As the focus on the workplace that brings comfort which motivates people, they just succeed in attracting the most talented people to work and remain with them. 

Conclusion

Motivated employees can directly lead to the organization improvement which translated into a success for the organization. While productivity increase, employees also achieve working satisfaction by functioning well whenever they contribute to the organization too. Strategic leadership picturing the need of majority people within organization and making them satisfy as well as the organization also achieve the gain from the productivity of its people.

Employees who are motivated to go to work will generally put their best effort in the task assigned to them. As employees who are satisfied also want to see the company, they are working for succeed, many of them will contribute for better ideas, translating the ideas into better work plan and actions which make the best of teamwork and excel in operational level.

As motivation is the element of managing people and building team, the strategic leader is the person who strategist those plans and make it happen to obtain the prosperity for the organization continuously.

For further understanding or more ideas on how to strategic leaders should manage negative people in organization, feel free to watch video below :

References :

1. Leadership : Theory, Application and Skill Development : 2014, Sixth Edition by Robert N. Lussier, Christopher F. Achua

2. The sixth edition of Leadership: Theory and Practice

3. Herzberg, F (1959), Work and Motivation. Behaviour Science Concept and Management Application : Studies in Personnel Policy

4. Vroom, V.H (1964). Work and Motivation. Oxford, England : Wiley

5. How to Use Motivation Theories to Help Improve Team Performance at https://www.educational-business-articles.com/motivation-theories

6. Reinforcement Theory in the Workplace : https://bizfluent.com/info-8546181-reinforcement-theory-workplace.html

7. ResearchGate Publication : 24 ISSN 2326-3636 Volume XII Number 3, Journal of Strategic and International Studies titled : Google’s Secret to Motivating Their Employees Successfully by Yvette Essounga-Njan, Virginia State University, Petersburg, Virginia, USA Angelique Hughes, Madonna University, Livonia, Michigan, USA

8. World’s Most Attractive Employers 2018 at : https://universumglobal.com/worlds-most-attractive-employer-rankings-2018/

9. World's Most Valuable Brand : https://us.kantar.com/business/brands/2019/worlds-most-valuable-brands-2019/
10. Leading With Strategic Thinking : Four Ways Effective Leader Gain Insight, Drive Change, and Get Results : Aaron. K.Olson, B. Keith Simerson