Leading: Human Factors and Motivation

Leading
• Leading is defined as the process of influencing people so that they will
contribute to organization and group goals.
– Involves considering of human factors, motivation and some other internal
human process
– Aim is to establish an environment where individuals will work together
in groups to achieve common objective.
Motivation
• The willingness to exert high levels of effort to reach organizational goals,
conditioned by the effort’s ability to satisfy some individual need.

The Need-Want-Satisfaction Chain

Need Want Tension

Satisfactio Actions

Mcgregor’s Theory X and Theory Y

• Theory X Assumptions:
1. Average human beings have an inherent dislike of work and will avoid it if they
can.
2. Because of this human characteristic of disliking work, most people must be
coerced, controlled, directed, and threatened with punishment to get them to put
forth adequate effort toward the achievement of organizational objectives.
3. Average human beings prefer to be directed, wish to avoid responsibility, have
relatively little ambition and want security above all.
• Theory Y Assumptions:
1. The expenditure of physical effort and mental effort in work is as natural as play
or rest.
2. External control and the threat of punishment are not the only means for
producing effort toward organizational objectives. People will exercise self
direction and self control in the service of objectives to which they are committed.
3. The degree of commitment to objectives is in proportion to the size of the rewards
associated with their achievement.
 4. Average human beings learn under proper conditions, not only to accept
responsibility but also to seek it.
5. The capacity to exercise a relatively high degree of imagination, ingenuity, and
creativity in the solution of organizational problems is widely, not narrowly,
distributed in the population.
6. Under the conditions of modern industrial life, the intellectual potentialities of the
average human being are only partially utilized.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory

NEED
General Organizational

Self Challengin
Achievemet actualizatio Challeng
i
Jo
Status Estee
title
Friend
Frindshipie Belongingnes
at work

Pensio
Stability Securit
pla
Base
Food Physiolog
Salary

Weaknesses of Maslow’s theory

• Five levels of need are not always present.
• Ordering or importance of needs is not always the same
(importance vary with change in career).

The Two-Factor Theory of Motivation(Proponent : Fredrick Hertzberg)

 Motivation Factors
• Achievement
• Recognition
• The work itself
• Responsibility
• Advancement
and growth

Satisfaction No satisfaction

Hygiene
• Supervisor
• Working
• Interpersonal relations
• Pay and
• Company policies
administratio

Dissatisfactio No
– Criticisms of the Two-Factor Theory
• Interview findings are subject to different explanations.
• Sample population was not representative.
• Subsequent research has not upheld theory.

Expectancy Theory Proponent : Victor Vroom

Basics of expectancy theory:
– A theory of motivation that suggests that motivation depends on two
things – valence and expectancy.
– Force = valence x expectancy
– So for motivation to occur both these elements must have values greater
than zero i.e. positive.
The expectancy model:
 Outcom Valenc

Environmen Outcom Valenc

Motivatio Effor Performanc Outcom Valenc

Abilit Outcom Valenc

Outcom Valenc

• Suggests that motivation leads to effort, when combined with ability and
environmental factors, that results in performance which, in turn, leads to various
outcomes that have value
(valence) to employees.
• Efforts to performance expectancy
– Strong (1.00) , unrelated (0) or some what related (0 – 1.00)
• Performance to outcome expectancy
– High (1.00), indifferent (0) or moderate (0 – 1.00)
• Out comes and valence
– Positive, negative or indifferent.

Equity Theory
Proponent: J. Stacy Adams
• Equity theory refers to an individual’s subjective judgments about the fairness of
the reward she or he got relative to the inputs (effort, experience, education etc.)
in comparison with the rewards of others.
• There should be a balance of the output/input relationship for one person in
comparison with that for another person.

Outcomes (self) Outcomes (other)

=
Inputs (self) Inputs (other)

• Results:
 – Inequitable: dissatisfaction, reduced output, departure
– Equitable: continuation at the same level
– More than equitable: harder work, discounted reward

Reinforcement Theory
An approach to motivation that explain the role of rewards as they cause behavior to
change or remain the same over time.
– Assumes that behavior that results in rewarding consequences is likely to
be repeated, whereas behavior that results in punishing consequences is
less likely to be repeated.

• Kinds of reinforcements
– Positive reinforcement (e.g. praise)
– Avoidance (e.g. escaping reprimands)
– Punishment ( e.g. fines)
– Extinction (e.g. withdrawing incentives)