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The manager’s role is to organise resources and employees to achieve the best results for an organisation. How a manager perceives his employees will  affect his skill at motivating staff. Consider these two approaches below.

The pessimistic manager
The pessimistic manager may assume the following about most employees:

• People do not enjoy work; they will try and avoid it if possible
• People are not ambitious
• People do not like responsibility
• People prefer to be told what to do
• Most people are not creative when solving problems
• People are only motivated by basic needs for security
• The majority of people are self-centered, and so will need to be controlled in order to work towards organisational goals and objectives
• People are resistant to change
• Most people are not intelligent.
• People are gullible

This attitude towards management and employees assumes that people at work are motivated firstly by money closely followed by basic security needs.

In order to control employees the pessimistic management may rely on coercion, threats and tight control command. The pessimistic manager could be passive and simply hope for cooperation. Neither of these solutions are productive styles of management. The first will result in hostility, employees may purposely under perform, and workers may unite in opposition to management. The second approach does not motivate at all, it may encourage apathy.

The pessamistic approach assumes that once a need is satisfied it no longer motivates hindering the need to satisfy higher-level needs. More money becomes the only form of motivation. Employees will use work to satisfy this basic need only; their higher needs (see McLelland: Motivational Drives) will have to be fulfilled elsewhere. As we will see later – employees can be most productive when their work goals align with  higher level needs.

Pessimism in management that recognises only basic needs for motivation usually encourage employees to work without responsibility, enthusiasm or creativity,  promoting an environment where employees dislike their work, avoid responsibility, have no interest in organisational goals, resist change, etc., thus creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The Optimistic Manager

Maslow’s Hierarchy looks at mans basic needs for survival food, shelter etc. in a working environment money is the only currency that will satify these needs. Managers should also be interested in higher-level needs (see McLelland: Motivational Drives), needs that are continuing needs as in seldom completely satisfied, such as self esteem and self actualisation. As these needs are on going and not so easily attained, the promise of more can more easily be used to motivate and reward employees.

The pessimistic manager may assume the following about most employees:

• Work can be fun/rewarding/enjoyable
• If employees are committed they can be self directed and creative when working towards organisational goals
• If rewards can fulfil higher needs such as self fulfilment, employees will be more committed to maintaining quality and productivity
• Enthusiasm, commitment and creativity can spread
• Most people can handle responsibility
• In the right conditions people will seek responsibility

Here there is an opportunity to align organisational goals with personal goals by using higher needs such as self fulfilment as a motivator.

There may be employees that are not as responsive when offered the promise of higher need fulfilment. There may be employees that will still need a level of control to make them productive. They may however develop as they work in an environment that encourages responsibility and creativity and control can be relaxed as employees develop.

Silicon Beach Training offer a Staff Motivation course.

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employee, employee motivation, higher needs, Key motivational practices, management, manager, Motivating teams, motivation, needs, resources, skills, team motivation

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This entry was posted by Heather Buckley on Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008 at 2:57 pm and is filed under Management Skills. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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