The purpose of this paper is to address the motivation and leadership. This paper has addressed the motivation and leadership separately as well as the conjunction of both these phenomena as they are observed in the real world and acknowledged in the research has also been studied. Based on the motivation, the foundations of the leadership are set. A brief review of the evolution of leadership has been carried out, and this paper seeks to address what has caused the leadership theories to change. This is the motivation, and there are different theories that go away round and reach to the motivation again. Therefore, motivation is the impetus of leadership, and it is the core element of the modern organizations. The modern organizations regard leadership as the most essential phenomena that can make the organization successful or failed; therefore, these organizations tend to incubate leadership so as to develop strong organizational foundations of sustainability. Both the motivation and leadership go hand in hand and nonetheless, there are a clear and uncontroversial acknowledgment and need of motivation and leadership in the modern organizations.

1 Introduction

There have been numerous leadership concepts and theories in literature that define the state and dynamics of leadership in typically corporate context. It is a well-known fact that leadership is critical to organizational success as well development of personal career (John, 2015). This paper will explore the concept of leadership and motivation, and it will consider various leadership and motivation theories that have evolved over time. It has been recognized that the leadership and motivation are the most effective and critical drivers in the effectiveness of the organizations and leaders have an important role in the success of failure of the organization they lead (The American University, 2008). Motivation and leadership are the two important variables that are to be considered in this paper and linkage of these two factors are also to be addressed in this factor.

1.1 Background

The importance of leadership is widely recognized in the literature and the corporate organizations as well. Leadership is considered as a critical factor in success or failure of the organization. Leaders typically use motivation as their basic tool. The leadership utilizes the motivation and believes that this will raise the organizations and societies to a higher level (Rost, 1993). Motivation is the organized pattern of individual personal goals, emotions, and personal agency belief and in order to be motivated, a person must move in the desired direction with requisite energy and persistence (Mobley, Wang, & Li, 2011). The term motivation is derived from the term ‘movre’ which means to move; motivation is an urge which is created because of the absence of something desirable from the organization and to achieve something, a person become engaged in search behavior till he finds what he wants (Mukherjee, 2013). On the other head, the motivation is considered as the set of those psychological processes that cause arousal, direction, and persistence of voluntary actions that are directed toward a certain goal (Shah & Gardner, 2008). Motivation is, therefore, a stimulus or driving force to achieve a certain goal or desirable thing that urges a person to act in a particular way. Leadership and motivation are concomitant ideas, and both are deeply intertwined and interrelated. Motivation is what that differentiate a leader from the manager because the manager utilizes the coercive means to control the behavior whereas the leader directs the employees and inspires them to act in a particular direction. There has been much debate over the role of manager and leader and the most distinguishing factor that differentiate the leader from the manager is a motivation; therefore, motivation is the most critical and essential element of the leadership. This paper provides a brief review of the leadership theories and motivation theories and their linkages.

2 Review of theory

The definition of leadership is diverse and to have one single definition of leadership will limit the understanding, evolution and exploration of the various entities within the world leadership (Rutledge, 2008). Therefore, a brief evolutionary review of the leadership theories has been carried out in this section to address the early leadership theories and their evolution with the passage of time

2.1 Great Man Theory

In the preliminary era, the leadership theories were lacking any scholarly research and empirical data before the era of scientific management. Before the era of scientific management, there was a predominant theory of Great Man theory that was developed by Thomas Carlyle and according to this theory, the leaders had God gifted characteristics that differentiated them from their followers. This was the era when it was said that the leaders are born, not made. Whereas the upcoming era, research, and theories proved that the leaders are not born, the leaders can be made as well.

2.2 Scientific management

The scientific management is also known as Taylorism. Fredrick Taylor provided the leadership theory based on the management model, which considered productivity as an essential element. This was the time when the small factories were converting into large factories; the industrial revolution had provided impetus and Taylor provided the synthesis (John, 2015). He was the first person who studied the habits and motions of production workers and created a distinction between worker and manager.

2.3 Behavioral era of leadership

The behavioral era of leadership is comprised of the psychological theories into the field of business for the conception of leadership theories. These were the behavioral theories that explicitly negated the Great Man theory that the leaders are born, not made. This theory challenged the preliminary beliefs that a person can be trained to become a leader, and the leaders can be trained after incorporating modifications into their behaviors. This school of thought was diverged after the World War II between the performance based and relationship based leaders (John, 2015); some argued that the relationship-based leadership is essential whereas some established that the task or performance based leadership is critical to the success of the organization. These theories were furthered by the University of Michigan, and Ohio State leadership studies and this evolvement asserted that both relationship-based approach and the task-based approach are the part of a single continuum; a manager can select a particular approach according to the need of the situation. For example, in the time of stability, a leader can adopt the relationship approach to seeking sustainability whereas, in the time of crisis, the leader can adopt performance-based approach so as to meet the bare minimum requirements of the company to compete in the market.

2.4 Situational and Contingency theories

The study of Ohio State University and the University of Michigan had agreed on the variableness of the leadership approach as per the behavior, and this led to the foundation of situational and contingency theories. The contingency theory asserts that there is no fixed approach to leadership, or there is no single road to leadership. On the other hand, the situational theory asserted that various leadership approaches could be selected as per the need of the situation.

2.5 Transactional leadership

The transactional and transformational leadership theories are the most recent theories (John, 2015). Transactional leadership can be defined as clarifying and focusing the role of employees, considering their task requirements, providing rewards when necessary and incorporating punishments contingent to the performance (John, 2015).

2.6 Transformational leadership

On the other hand, of transactional leadership, the transformational leadership established that the leader is someone who transforms employees to let the organization achieve its goals rather than their self-interests. In the transformational leadership, leader dominates the followers, and they feel admiration, trust, loyalty and respect towards their leader. The transactional and transformational leaderships are contemporarily referred to as a single continuum and the scholars agree that effective leaders have a trait in accordance with both transactional leadership and transformational leadership theory. The contingency and situational theories have also incorporated in the history of leadership and, therefore, this is the reason that researchers agree that a good leader must adapt the necessary leadership style according to the needs of the situation (John, 2015). It was James McGregor who put forward the transformational theory, and he asserted then leadership phenomena occurs when a person engage with others in such a way that both leaders and followers raise one another to a higher level of motivation and morality (Rost, 1993).

2.7 Expectancy theory

The motivational model i.e. expectancy theory suggests that individuals by adopting actions that maximize the possibility of the desirable outcomes provide aspiring leaders a unique ability to assume leadership roles by respectively meeting both the needs of the follower and organizational requirements (Isaac & Zerbe, 2014). The research conducted by Isaac & Zerbe (2001) focused on the links between the expectancy theory and the leadership concepts. Of course the leader needs a force with which it can drive its followers, and this force is motivation. By applying the motivational model, an individual having the role of manager or supervisor can transcend their roles as potential leaders. The leadership is considered as an important organizational aspect to remain competitive in the global market; therefore, this is not negligible. In an organization, there can be more than one leader, for example, CEO will lead the whole company whereas departmental manager will lead its own department and so on. The leaders are characterized by taking control of the situations whereas the managers are characterized by living according to the conditions rather than controlling them; therefore, a manager can become a leader, a supervisor can become a leader and almost every employee can become a leader in any job role if it meets the motivational model criteria of leadership (Isaac & Zerbe, 2014). The Vroom Expectancy model is based on the basic assumption that people consciously select the courses of actions that are aligned with their beliefs, attitudes and perceptions in a desire to enhance pleasure and avoid pain. The main sources of motivation in the expectancy theory are the external or extrinsic motivators. The external motivators are the motivators that fuel behaviors rather than the intrinsic motivators where a person is motivated by the internal force such as job satisfaction. Thus, a leader will, therefore, select the course of actions that are comprised of the external motivators to make the follower conscious to follow in order to maximize their self-interests.

2.8 Self-Leadership

The self-leadership is comprised of the internal forces or intrinsic factors of a person as opposed to extrinsic factors defined in the expectancy theory. Self-leadership is a term that is used to describe exerting control on the individual by themselves to control their own behavior in a particular way. Self-leadership is generated primarily from the self-influence and self-control. This concept has emerged from the social learning literature, self-control literature, self-leadership and intrinsic motivation literature (Neck, 2006). This theory suggests that a person can utilize his own will to influence his or her behaviors and can develop motivations as well. For example, if a person thinks to buy a luxury car and this persuasion is self-based rather than leader-impinged, then the action that will be carried to achieve in the response of this stimulus will fall under the category of self-motivation and self-leadership.

3 Link Between Motivation & Leadership

3.1 Early Theories

From the historical review of the leadership, one can understand the relationship between leadership and motivation. In recent studies in Harvard Business Review, Kotter argued that the difference between manager and leader is about dealing with complexities and change. Kotter established that a leader brings his or her own vision, and he or she tends to bring change in the organization to incorporate his or her vision in the organization (John, 2015). The recent theories distinguished that leaders set the direction whereas manager sets the budgets. The previous approaches to leadership beginning from the scientific management to transformational and transactional leadership made half attempt on the inspiration, vision, and motivation whereas they made a full attempt on the spectrum of human desires and human needs. Motivation is, therefore, a significant part of the leadership construct.

3.2 Transformational and transactional theories

Further, the transformational and transactional theories also recognize the linkage between motivation and leadership. This can be derived from the leader-follower relationship in transformational leadership as this leadership style allows the follower to move beyond personal interests because of the inspiration, charisma, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration (John, 2015). Leadership affects the level of maturity and ideals of the follower and they also affect the pre-occupations, self-actualization levels and well-being of organization and others. The transformational leadership recognizes that if a leader embraces these factors, it will let the followers motivate his or her employees to achieve the organizational goals.

3.3 Five best leadership practices

The five best leadership practices consist of the model the way, inspiration of shared vision, challenging the process, facilitating others to act and encourage people at their heart. This leadership theory also regards motivation at the heart of leadership process as this includes all the psychological factors that create a stimulus for the others to act in a particular way.

3.4 Maslow’s Hierarchy theory

The Maslow’s hierarchy theory considers the pyramids of the needs and these include the physiological needs, security needs, social needs, self-esteem needs and self-actualization needs. Maslow argued that a person intends to fulfill these needs in progression and if the appropriate and linked provision of these needs are made with the performance, this can result in the motivation of a person.

3.5 Difference between motivators and non-motivators

There are also the factors that can motivate a person whereas there are also the factors that do not motivate the factors. This distinction must also be considered in the study of the motivation and leadership and attention to non-motivators should also be paid. The non-motivators are considered as hygiene factors i.e. the factors whose presence will not let the worker be dissatisfied however it will not make the worker motivated. For example, if the workers are provided health and safety things such as air-conditioning etc. this is a hygiene condition, and it will not motivate the workers; however if the workers are provided the appropriate direction and equipped in a way that they can achieve their goals, it is a motivating factor. The difference between the hygiene factors and motivators can be made based on the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as well, and the needs that serve the basic needs such as provision of food and healthy and safe working environment is basic need, this will not motivate the worker, however providing progressive benefits such as social and self-esteem benefits i.e. a luxury car can motivate the worker. Therefore, lower level needs can be termed as non-motivators, and they are termed as hygiene factors i.e. their presence is necessary however their absence can affect the performance adversely. On the other hand, addressing the higher level needs will result in motivation among the workers.

3.6 Institutionalization of motivation

In the past times when the organizations did not have any formal departments, it was the responsibility of the leaders to motivate the people, however in the present time, the act of motivation is mostly cared by the HR department (Roussel, Swansburg, & Swansburg, 2006). HR department usually sets the incentives, reviews performances and delivers a hire and fire policy of the organization which urges the behavior of the employees to go or act in a particular way. Instead, this is a mechanized approach, and this is more manager-oriented approach rather than leadership oriented approach. The HR approach can be reinforced by monstrous-manager approach i.e. the manager that coerces the people to act in a particular way whereas the leader creates a stimulus and psychological urge to act in a particular way; the different between the two is fear and passion. The leadership focuses more on the passion rather than controlling the behaviors through fear. The presence of leader is also necessary in addition to the presence of the HR department. If the job designing and motivation are done appropriately under the guidance of a leader, then HR department will, therefore, act as an agent of the leader rather than acting in its own reign as monstrous-manager of the people. The leader, therefore, will be free to set the direction of the organization and reinforce the vision rather than individually motivating each employee. A leader cannot consider every aspect of the individual needs; therefore, there is a need for hierarchy of leadership from top to the bottom of the organization whereas the role of the HR is that of facilitator in this process.

4 Conclusion

The motivation and leadership go hand in hand. The review of literature addresses the leadership theories and these theories starts from the inheritance based leadership capabilities to moving forward to acquire leadership capabilities and reaching a present form of transactional and transformational leadership. The contingency and situational theories have moderated the overall evolution of the leadership literature, research, and studies, and it asserts that the leadership approach can be selected as per the need of the situation. This approach was typically and originally applied in the relationship and task based relationship, however; this theory remained universal with the emergence of new theories. Even in the present era of transformational and transactional theories, the impact of the contingent factors is widely accepted, and the scholars and researches focus on the adaptability of the suitable leadership style as per the situational factors. The strong link between the leadership and motivation has been observed, and this strong relation has been found in every theory except the Great Man theory of leadership, which asserts that leaders are born, not, made. Although this concept was swiftly changed after, the behavioral studies and research proved that it is possible to mold the behaviors in such a way that the leaders can be made. The organizations specifically the corporate organizations and institutions urges a strong demand for leadership in their organizational framework as they regard it as a key factor in success or failure and, therefore, it can be established that leadership and motivation are the two most critical success factors of the modern organizations.

5 Works Cited

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John, B. D. (2015). Leadership and Motivation. Research Starters: Business (Online Edition), 2015.

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Leadership and motivation

Paper: Leadership and motivation