The Roles of Leadership

What defines leadership? Executives ask this question every time they choose a new leader or train their current leaders. Organizations must understand the fundamentals of leadership before making decisions about their leadership. Leaders are not created overnight. Becoming an effective leader involves considerable time and effort to hone the necessary skills and abilities. Training helps, but understanding the concept of leadership is critical.

From more than 12 years experience working with leaders in Fortune 500 companies and organizations around the world, Cornelius & Associates has determined that a leader must take on certain “roles” to be truly effective. The Role of a Visionary; The Role of Integrity, Honesty and Values; The Role of Releasing Potential and Energy; and The Role of Leading Change (Planned Change and Emergent Change).

While each role is unique, they are also interdependent. The skills leaders learn to perfect one role will also help leaders master the other roles. In the next few newsletters, we will explore these leadership roles- what they are and how to hone your skills for each role.

The Role of Releasing Potential and Energy in the Organization

Within each person is the often-untapped potential for enthusiasm and motivation that produces high job performance. Leaders must be able to release this potential and energy in their employees and peers as a fundamental skill for achieving high performance in an organization.

Ingredients for High Performance

For people to perform at the highest level, a leader must insure that the four essential ingredients of successful performance are in place. These are:

A goal
Employees must understand what specifically needs to be accomplished.
A plan
Employees must have the experience, knowledge and ingenuity to develop a plan to attain the goal.
Talent
Employees must have the requisite underlying aptitudes and abilities to carry out the plan.
MOTIVATION
Employees must have the passion and energy to carry out the plan (i.e. motivation). In most cases, all other things being equal, the difference between success and failure often lies in how well the leader can create an environment in which people are willing to expend the energy and effort to ensure success.

As leaders, we know motivation is critical to success. However, it is also important to know that there are two types of motivation, and that one produces more sustained energy in the organization than the other.

Types of Motivation

The two types of motivation are extrinsic and intrinsic. Historically, supervisors and managers have used extrinsic motivation exclusively, which relies on position power. However, we believe leaders must learn to use intrinsic motivation, which instead relies on the internal motivation of individuals.

Extrinsic motivation exists when the source of the motivation comes from outside the employee by way of rewards or punishment. According to the principles of extrinsic motivation, people will work hard if we offer good performance appraisal ratings, incentives, prizes, salary increases, and promotional opportunities (i.e., rewards). They will also work hard to avoid the negatives, such as poor performance appraisal ratings, low increases, discipline, or dismissal (i.e., punishment). External motivation is a very powerful motivator, but has its limitations in most organizations.

Intrinsic motivation exists when the source of motivation comes from the job itself. According to the principles of intrinsic motivation, people will work hard if the tasks they have to do are interesting and challenging. If so, they will get a sense of achievement and a feeling of pride and accomplishment at work, which "turns them on." This type of motivation is more difficult to achieve at work, but holds many benefits over external motivators.

At work, leaders should strive to create an environment that is intrinsically motivating. Here are some reasons why:

	Close supervision is no longer possible. We can’t be in all places at all times. In these times, many organizations are being asked to “do more with less,” which has lead many organizations towards a self-management style. This type of hands-off management requires increased initiative, commitment and energy on the part of the employees.
	Attracting and Retaining Employees. In today’s competitive workplace, salaries and benefits are no longer enough to attract employees and keep them satisfied. We must make the actual work more fulfilling and energizing so employees see an advantage of staying with your company, instead of just moving on to an organization that can offer a larger salary.
	Traditional Reward Limitations. We realize that traditional rewards do work. For example, if you offer someone a bonus for completing a project before the deadline, that will often motivate the employee to try to do just that. Not only is this type of motivation temporary, but it also creates employee expectations of similar motivators in the future. Another problem with this type of external motivator is that in today’s economy, many organizations can’t afford to spend this type of money motivating their employees.
	Traditional Penalty Limitations. The flip side of the coin works as well. For example, if you threaten an employee with a demotion if the project isn’t completed before the deadline, this employee is still very motivated to accomplish their goal. However, there are many drawbacks to this form of external motivation. First, that employee is motivated, only out of fear, to do exactly what is asked of them. The project may be completed before the deadline, but the employee might also have made grave errors in the project trying to avoid punishment. The second major drawback to using punishment as a motivator is creating an environment of fear and apathy. If a leader constantly uses this fear of punishment as a motivator, employees will most likely begin to look for another job where they don’t feel like they are constantly justifying their positions.

Create an Environment of Intrinsic Motivation with FLAME

By creating an environment of intrinsic motivation, you will have employees that are self-directed and motivated to accomplish goals for the good of the organization. There are many tools leaders can use to create intrinsic motivation at work. In this issue of the newsletter we will focus on one tool: adding FLAME to the job.

The first step in creating an environment of intrinsic motivation is to look at the work or task itself. From our years of working with leaders, we have determined that there are five characteristics of work that make it more intrinsically motivating: Feedback, Lots of Skills, Autonomy, Mine and Effect (FLAME).

Feedback

This refers to feedback from doing the task itself, not external feedback from peers or supervisors. When people realize how well they are doing the task as they are doing it, to that extent the job has a higher potential for intrinsic motivation. To add FLAME to the job, build feedback systems into the tasks so people know right away how well they are doing.

Lots of Skills

Jobs become more interesting and exciting when they require people to exhibit a variety of different talents and abilities, such as problem-solving, decision-making, communication, customer service skills, software skills, etc. These jobs have more potential for intrinsic motivation. To add FLAME to the job, change the work to build in a variety of different types of skilled activities.

Autonomy

If employees are told what to do, when to do it, and how to do it, very little intrinsic motivation can exist. Give people the discretion to act and to make decisions that affect their jobs. By allowing them to be self-directed you will find many times they will take proactive steps on their own, such as suggesting improvements or solutions to problems. To add FLAME to a job, allow people the discretion to make the decisions that affects their job and their customers.

Mine

When you can structure employees’ work so they believe it is theirs (MY customer, MY workstation, MY project, MY task), the potential for intrinsic motivation goes up. When people feel a sense of personal ownership and task identity, they are more likely to be intrinsically motivated. To add FLAME to a job, introduce “ownership” in the work.

Effect on Others

When people feel that what they’re doing at work has a significant impact on the lives of others, to that extent the job is more intrinsically motivating. Employees might sometimes feel they work in a vacuum and that their work affects no one else in the organization. The best way to show employees their effect on others is to increase their understanding by having them visit their customers, both internal and external. To add FLAME to a job, help raise your employees’ awareness of the impact that they have on the others, both inside and outside of the organization.

Adding FLAME to a job creates an intrinsically motivating workplace. By creating an environment of intrinsic motivation in your organization, you will have people who are not only motivated and energized, but are also proactively working to help take your organization to the next level of success.

Taking on the role of releasing potential and energy in your organization is a step towards becoming a leader. Stay tuned for the next issue of Impact, where we will explore some tools that are helpful in the Role of Leading Planned Change in the Organization.