Transcript

Leading: Motivating Employees and Managing Style 

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Leading: Motivating Employees and Managing Style 

Introduction

With the current trend towards downsizing that organizations are using to cut costs, it is more important than ever that managers become motivators. Those that have survived downsizing find themselves taking on more responsibilities or doing the work in different ways than what they were accustomed. It is in most people’s nature to resist change, even if only for a short time. Because ‘survivors’ are in a precarious position, managers need to think of ways to reassure them that their positions are secure and at the same time motivate them to do the work that needs to get done. But how do managers motivate people? What method is the best method to use? Are managers the only ones capable of motivating people? These subjects are addressed in this lesson along with some theories both on motivation and leadership?

What is Motivation?

Although some people erroneously label motivation as a trait, it actually is an interaction between a person and a situation. Motivational drive or how much effort a person exerts toward attaining a certain goal may differ from person to person or from situation to situation. The term motivation is formally defined for this course as the processes that account for an individual’s willingness to exert high levels of effort to reach organizational goals, conditioned by the effort’s ability to satisfy some individual need. Three things stand out in this definition: effort, organizational goals and need. When the employee exerts effort correctly, that is toward organizational goals, then the needs that he has, whatever they might be, will be met.

Early Theories of Motivation

Three early theories that are widely known look at motivation from different aspects. The first, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory, uses a pyramid to depict how people’s needs go from physiological to self-actualization and the fact that the needs that are satisfied first are the lower-order needs. The theory also stresses that the lower-ordered needs are external needs while the higher-ordered ones are internal needs. Once one need is substantially satisfied, the person moves on to the next higher level, although no need is entirely satisfied. How does it fit

in with motivation? Maslow infers in order for a person to be motivated, the manager must understand what level the person is on and work at satisfying his needs at or above that level.

The next theory is McGregor’s theory X and Theory Y. His theory X was a negative view of people and stated that workers have little ambition, dislike work and want to avoid responsibility. Theory X indicated that the only way to motivate that individual was to closely control his work effectively. On the other hand, his

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Leading: Motivating Employees and Managing Style 

Theory Y stated that workers can exercise self-direction, accept and actually seek out responsibility and consider work to be a natural activity. His Theory Y is what he assumed best fit workers and that managers should handle their employees accordingly.

The final early theory was Herzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene Theory. He believed that individuals’ attitudes toward work determined their success or failure. In his theory he suggested that the opposite of satisfaction was no satisfaction and the opposite of no dissatisfaction was dissatisfaction. How was this theory used to motivate? In reality the information on satisfaction and dissatisfaction, only was a key to bringing about harmony in the workplace. He believed that in order to motivate people, motivators would have to be emphasized. Motivators are factors that increase job satisfaction and drive.

Contemporary Theories of Motivation

In addition to the early theories, there are six contemporary motivation approaches that although not as well-known as the earlier theories, are reasonably supported by research. A chart that follows this section summarizes those approaches and details their main components.

The Three-Needs Theory identifies three components associated with what an employee needs: need for achievement; need for power and; need for affiliation. Also discovered in this research is the fact that employees that have a high need for achievement don’t necessarily make good managers because they focus on their own accomplishments while high affiliation and power needs are closely related to managerial success.

The Goal-Setting Theory is the proposition that specific goals increase performance and that difficult goals when accepted, result in higher performance than do easy goals. With respect to motivation, the theory suggests that specific and challenging goals are superior motivating forces. Further, it states that individuals that have a high sense of capability respond to negative feedback with increased effort and drive. However, it does point out that these implications are culture-bound and do not necessarily apply to cultures where performance is not regarded as highly by subordinates as it is by managers and where subordinates are not reasonably independent.

In the Designing Motivating Jobs approach or JCM, job design, job enlargement through increasing job scope (adding more tasks horizontally), job enrichment through increasing job depth (adding more responsibility vertically) and the job characteristics model are examined. Not only does this approach offer guidance on ways of motivating employees through making jobs more satisfying but from the model come suggestions on how mangers can accomplish it. Five suggestions are offered to managers for job changes: 1) combine tasks or put fragmented jobs back together; 2) create natural work units; 3) establish client relationships through the serving employee; 4) expand jobs vertically and; 5) open feedback channels.

The Equity Theory states that an employee compares his or her job’s input-outcomes ratio with that of relevant others and then corrects any inequity. The others that is referred to in the

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Approach Developer Highlights

Need for achievement – desire to succeed

Three-Needs Theory David McClelland Need for power – make others behave

Need for affiliation – need for interpersonal relationships

Goal-specificity – increases performance

Challenge (difficult goals) – higher performance, if accepted

Goal-Setting Theory Feedback – self-generated more powerful than external

Self-efficacy – belief that one is capable

Public goals – strengthens commitment

Reinforcement Theory

Behavior externally caused – reinforcers (rewards) – immediately following behavior increase repetitive behavior

Job design – the way tasks are combined to form complete jobs

Job enlargement – horizontal expansion of jobs through job scope which indicates the number of different tasks and frequency of tasks in a job

Designing Motivating Jobs

Job enrichment – vertical expansion of job by adding planning and evaluating responsibilities through increasing job depth or degree of control employees have over their work

Job characteristics model – conceptual framework for analyzing jobs or guiding managers in designing motivating jobs – includes 1) skill variety; 2) task identity; 3) task significance; 4) autonomy; 5) feedback;

Equity Theory J. Stacey Adams Deals with comparisons and proposes that employees believe that the more one puts in (inputs), the more that person should get out

Leading: Motivating Employees and Managing Style 

definition represents 1) others; 2) the system; and 3) self. The employee may correct the inequity in a number of ways. They will either distort their own or others’ inputs or outcomes; behave in some way to induce others to change their inputs or outcomes; behave in some way to change their own inputs or outcomes; choose a different comparison person; or quit heir job.

The Expectancy Theory regarding motivation emphasizes rewards. The individual considers how hard one has to work to achieve a certain level of performance, whether it is necessary to work at that level, if one can work at that level, whether or not a reward will be given for working at that level and if the reward is, in essence, worth it.

HOW DO THEY COMPARE

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Leading: Motivating Employees and Managing Style 

(outputs)

Expectancy Theory Victor Vroom Action based on expected outcome of action as well as attractiveness of outcome

Combining or using a combination of the theories addressed in this section would be a better solution to solving problems with motivation than choosing in single approach. The manager should consider first of all what type motivational problems he or she is having and proceed from there.

Current Issues in Motivation

Managers today are faced with a variety of motivational issues. Can managers motivate professionals in the same manner that they motivate non-professionals? Can they motivate groups of people for which they have charge in different cultures in the same way? Can they motivate teams in the same manner that they motivate individuals? The answer is neither yes nor no. However, the approaches and theories addressed in the lesson do give the manager some insight as to how with different situations.

Because cultures are different, how people of that culture react to certain stimuli is going to be different. Investigation into some of the traditions and beliefs of various countries will give the manager a clue as to how workers in that society may be motivated. Workers in non-industrialized countries will not respond in the same manner as those in industrialized countries. Workers in non-democratic societies will respond differently than those in democratic ones and

so forth and so on. Then again, what people value most in various societies will be different. Where internal gratification may be high on one culture’s scale, external gratification may be high on another’s.

With regard to motivation, the manager needs to be aware of his or her ‘audience’, so to speak. Even in the same culture, different groups will respond to different types of motivation in varied ways. As an example, single working moms may value on-sight childcare facilities whereas this would not appeal to single adults with no children. Single working moms may also consider such motivations as flextime or flexible work hours. Some people like the idea of having a three- day weekend and may prefer compressed workweeks where they work four 10-hour days rather than five 8 hour days. All of these suggestions serve as motivation to employees depending upon where their priorities lie and what they want in response to their effort.

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Leading: Motivating Employees and Managing Style 

Professional workers are different than the nonprofessionals. First of all, they are committed to their field of expertise and in fact, their loyalty is more often to their profession than to their employer. They are generally not motivated by money as they are usually well paid. Motivation with professionals lies with the challenge of the job, support from others and the recognition that their work is important.

Contingent workers include part-time employees, contract employees, students, working mothers (some of whom may not have to work), and retirees (again, some of whom may not have to work). How does a manager motivate these individuals who work for various reasons but may not feel an integral part of the company? Some of these employees work by choice but not out of necessity. For those employees that do it out of necessity, the employer or manager can motivate through the opportunity to become permanent employees. An other way may be through the offer of training to help develop marketable skills.

Low-skilled and minimum wage employees are another group that may require different methods for motivation. Raises or bonuses are always an option

but may not be something that the manager controls. These incentives, however, are not the only ones. The manager could also offer a simple heart-felt praise for a job well done or set up some type of employee recognition program.

The manager has a number of options available to him or her for providing motivation through various reward programs. Some managers will choose to use open-book management as a way to share information about how the company is doing and how important the employees’ contributions and the decisions they make are to the overall success of the company. Yet another motivator is an employee recognition program. This can be as formal as a celebration when individuals perform above and beyond the call of duty or make special contributions to completing certain tasks or as simple as a certificate of achievement or even a special parking space designated for the employee of the month. A final motivator is one that has been relied on for years and that is still effective, according to studies. This motivator is a pay-for-performance program. This can be done in the form of wage-incentive plans, profit-sharing, lump-sum bonuses or piece-rate pay plans. In this category, a final option that many companies have used is stock option programs in which employees are offer stock in the company at a set price. When the company does well, the value of the stock goes up and conversely, when the company does not do as well, the value of their stock goes down. Because employees have an interest in the company, it is to their advantage to do everything honestly possible, to make sure that they gain value in their stock.

Motivation: From Theory to Practice

Although there is no hard and fast set rule about how managers should and can motivate employees, there are some suggestions that may work within the different cultures and work groups that managers find themselves supervising. The manager might discover that using one suggestion may not work whereas combining some suggestions together may prove fruitful.

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Leading: Motivating Employees and Managing Style 

Recognize Individual differences Match people to jobs Use goals – be specific Ensure that goals are perceived as attainable (remember perception does not always

mean reality but the employee must see them as realistic) Individualize rewards – what may be a reward to one may not be to another Link reward to performance – rewards linked to poor performance only reinforce that

same behavior Check the system for equity – when employees don’t feel that they are being treated the

same as those that they are similar to, they respond negatively Use recognition – when someone is doing a good job, don’t hesitate to let them know

that they are appreciated (reinforcement should come immediately following behavior) Don’t ignore money – money is usually a good motivator, even for those that are already

adequately compensated

Managers versus Leaders

What makes a good leader? Are all leaders management material? A leader is someone who can influence others and who has managerial authority. By this definition, all leaders should be managers. But this is the definition that is being used for this course. In truth, all leaders don’t make good managers because although they can influence others, they may not possess the other skills necessary to be an effective manager, that is, plan, organize and control. For this course, leadership is the process of influencing a group toward the achievement of goals.

Early Leadership Theories

Man has always studied situations or events to see why they are as they are and if any other possibility for outcome was conceivable. That’s not necessarily a bad thing but it does provide a multitude of information to sort through to come to the bottom line. Just as there are any number of theories, approaches, studies and applications regarding motivation, there are a number of theories and studies that address leadership. Some of the more well-known theories include trait theories, researched and developed in the 1920s and 1930s, and leader behavioral theories conducted by various universities and other researchers.

Trait theories sought to determine if there were any common traits that leaders possessed that non-leaders would not. Among the traits looked at were

Physical stature Appearance Social class Emotional stability Fluency of speech Sociability

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Leading: Motivating Employees and Managing Style 

This research yielded no results as the researchers could not identify any traits that they could say were inherent in leaders and not in non-leaders. However, studies that were done on the process of leadership, itself, and not just on the person, prove to be fruitful. The seven traits that they identified that were associated with effective leadership were drive, desire to lead, honesty and integrity, self-confidence, intelligence, job-relevant knowledge and extraversion.

As leader trait theories did not pan out, researchers turned their attention to behavior theories. There are four main behavior theories that deal with the nature of leadership. The University of Iowa did studies that looked at three different leadership styles. The styles were autocratic, democratic and laissez-faire (a French idiom which means ‘to leave alone’).

UNIVERSITY OF IOWA STUDY Style Characteristics Study Results

Centralizes authority

Autocratic Dictates work methods

Unilateral decisions

Limits employee participation

Employees assist in making decisions

Seemed to indicate that the democratic style contributed to both good quantity and quality of work

Delegation of authority

Democratic Employee assists in goals and work methods

Feedback

Complete freedom to make decisions

Laissez-faire Complete freedom to complete work however they saw fit

Later studies indicated these initial study results were not conclusive since further testing on autocratic and democratic styles showed that sometimes the democratic style produced better performance and sometimes the autocratic style produced better performance. What the study did reveal was that a leader’s behavior had a dual nature requiring focus on both the task and people as essential. The next three studies did just that.

Researchers who conducted the Ohio State studies started with over 1000 behavioral dimensions and narrowed it down to just two that they felt accounted for most leadership behavior. These dimensions were initiating structure which refers to the extent to which a leader was likely to define and structure his or her role and the roles of group members in the search for goal attainment and consideration which was defined as the extent to which a leader had job relationships characterized by mutual trust and respect for group members’ ideas and feelings. Although it appeared that those leaders that rated high in both dimensions experienced success more than those that rated low in either of them, there were enough exceptions to these result to indicate a missing factor in the theory may have been not to include situations as part of the study.

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Leading: Motivating Employees and Managing Style 

The University of Michigan Studies were similar to those done at Ohio State in that they, too, identified two dimensions accounting for leadership behavior. The following chart summarizes their study.

UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN STUDY Dimension Characteristics Study Results

Emphasized interpersonal relationships Researchers strongly favored

employee oriented as they were associated with high group productivity and high job satisfaction

Employee oriented Took personal interest in needs of followers

Accepted group member differences

Emphasized technical or task aspects of job

Production-oriented Mainly concerned with accomplishing group’s tasks

Group members seen as means to an end

The final study produced a managerial grid. It answered nothing about what constituted an effective leader but did provide a framework for generalization of styles of leadership. The grid was nine by nine, giving a total of 81 possible outputs but only 5 of them were emphasized. Of those emphasized, researchers concluded that the 9,9 grid location style or that of team management performed best.

Contingency Theories of Leadership

Contingencies use if-then logic. If this condition exists, then that is what should be done. Four contingency theories that showed some promise with regard to leadership were the Fiedler, Hersey-Blanchard, leader participation and path-goal. The Fiedler Model said that effective group performance depended on the proper match between the leader’s style of interacting with his or her followers and the degree to which the situation allowed the leader to control and influence. It used a questionnaire with contrasting adjectives from which those tested had to choose called the least-preferred co-worker (LPC) questionnaire. Based on how a respondent answered, respondents were grouped as relationship oriented or task oriented. It then matched the leader with the best situational factors suited for his or her style. The problem with his theory is that it assumed that a manager could not change his or her leadership style to do deal with changing situations. So if situations changed, you were left with only one alternative and that was to replace the manager.

Hersey and Blanchard’s theory focused on situational leadership. The theory puts emphasis on follower readiness which is the extent to which people have the ability and willingness to accomplish a specific task. It holds that regardless to what the leader does, effectiveness depends on the actions of his or her followers. The situational leadership theory (SLT) uses the same two leadership dimensions that Fiedler used, that is task and relationship behaviors and then combine them to yield four separate leadership styles: telling (autocratic), selling

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Leading: Motivating Employees and Managing Style 

(persuasive), participating (sharing in decision making) and delegating (provides direction and support).

Victor Vroom who developed the Expectancy Theory on motivation worked in conjunction with Phillip Yetton to develop a model on leadership called the leader participation model. Their model came with a set of rules and therefore was referred to as a normative model. The concept was that the leader behavior must adjust to reflect the task structure, whether it be routine or not or somewhere in between. The leadership styles that the model generated were

Decide – leader makes decisions alone and informs group Consult individually – leader consults with individuals for suggestions, then decides Consult group – leader consults with group for suggestions, then decides Facilitate – leader presents problem to group, acts as facilitator, provides boundaries Delegate – leader allows group to make decision within boundaries

Variations and improvements have been made to this model including the Time-Driven Model which is short-term in nature and the Development-Driven Model which places no value on time.

The final model is the Path-Goal Model that says it is the leader’s job to assist his or her followers in attaining their goals and to provide the direction or support needed to ensure that their goals are compatible with the overall objectives of the group or organization. It derives its key elements from the Expectance Theory of motivation. It was developed by Robert House who identified four leadership behaviors:

Directive leader – autocratic (see University of Iowa Study) Supportive leader – friendly and shows concern for followers’ needs Participative leader – consults with groups for suggestions, makes decision Achievement-oriented leader – challenges followers to perform at their highest levels

Unlike Fiedler who believed that a manager could not change his leadership style, House went on the assumption that leaders were flexible and could essentially change their leadership style to fit the situation. The contingency variables used by House were the environment (those that were outside the control of the follower) and the ones that are part of the personal characteristics of the follower.

Cutting-Edge Approaches to Leadership

The latest views of leadership in organizations include transformational-transactional leadership, charismatic-visionary leadership, and team leadership. In contrast to the majority of leadership styles that have been addressed so far is the transformational leader. Transformational

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leaders are ones who provide individualized consideration and intellectual stimulation, and who possess charisma. They are not necessarily in opposition to the transactional leader who guide or motivate employees but rather built upon the foundation of the transactional leader. They inspire, excite and help followers look at old problems from a different perspective.

Charismatic and visionary leaders are somewhat similar in that exhibit great influence over people. The charismatic leader is enthusiastic, self-confident with a personality and actions that influence people to behave in certain ways. Visionary leadership is the ability to create

and articulate a realistic, credible, and attractive vision of the future that improves upon the present situation. The charismatic individual uses his or her personality to persuade people to do something or act in a particular way and the visionary uses his or her creative mind to portray such a picture as to persuade those with the talents and know how to use their skills to make the picture a reality. There are some that believe that a person is born with charismatic traits while others believe that this behavior can be taught. Whether naturally innate or learned, one

cannot understate the influence that a charismatic individual has on getting things accomplished. There are three qualities that visionaries are said to possess: ability to explain the vision to others, ability to express the vision not just verbally but through behavior and the ability to extend or apply the vision to different leadership contexts. It is with these qualities that visionaries encourage others to bring about the vision.

Very few sizeable organizations don’t employ teams to accomplish special or difficult tasks. Recall that the formation of teams goes through five stages: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjournment. Normally teams are made up of individuals who have regular job assignments and are from different areas of the organization. Since these type teams eventually will adjourn, there is a particular type of leadership required for them. In the role of a team leader, a manager becomes more of a facilitator than supervisor. There are four specific roles associated with team leadership:

Liaisons with external constituencies – interfacing with whomever the team needs him or her to get the resources, information, etc. to accomplish the assigned goals

Troubleshooters – try to sit in on meetings and resolve any problems that may arise Conflict manager – tries to resolve intra-team conflicts by getting to the root of the

problem and identifying who is involved and looking at possible resolutions Coach – they clarify expectations, roles, teach, offer support and whatever else is

needed to help the team get the work done

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Leading: Motivating Employees and Managing Style 

Leadership Issues in the Twenty-First Century

Leadership issues are managed by use of various types of power. Whether situations arise that are major in scope or whether small incidents occur in the workplace within the realm of a manager’s territory, managers rely on some type of power to handle them. The type power exhibited depends in large part on the situation. Five sources of power have been identified and may be used at any given time either independently or in conjunction with others. These five sources are:

Legitimate power- or that derived by virtue of one’s appointed position Coercive power – the ability of a leader to punish or control Reward power – power to give positive benefits or rewards Expert power – the ability to influence based on expertise, special skills, or knowledge Referent power – that which arises out of resources or personal traits that one has and

that are admired by another

As a consequence of all the illegal moves made by prominent business owners and executives today, trust is one of the qualities that employees most value in their leaders. Without trust and credibility, employees find it to follow without question. The main component of credibility is honesty and followers judge a person’ credibility in terms of honesty, competence, and ability to inspire. Researchers apply five dimensions to the concept of trust:

Integrity – honesty and truthfulness Competence – technical and interpersonal

knowledge and skills Consistency- willingness to protect a person,

physically and emotionally Loyalty – willingness to protect a person,

physically and emotionally Openness – willingness to share ideas and

information freely

Traditional methods of management have given way to contemporary ones as trends tend toward empowerment of employees and self-managed work teams have emerged. It is important that followers trust their leaders as it translates into positive job outcomes including job performance, organizational citizenship behavior, job satisfaction and organizational commitment.

The issue of ethics cannot be ignored in the workplace, either. Too many instances of immoral behavior have surfaced over the last several years. Instances of insider trading, along with blatant misuse of company funds for self-gain are repeatedly in the news. Profits at any cost are no longer the order of the day. Leaders have had to step up to the plate and do what they can to control the damage that a handful of dishonest individuals in high places have caused.

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Customers need to know that goals are not just stated but are real and employees need to know that someone is at the helm that can be trusted. Ethical behavior is not just spoken but it is lived.

Online leadership is another issue that has surfaced with the introduction of the Internet. Most research regarding this subject surrounds virtual teams. Recall that virtual teams are teams linked using computer technology. How does a leader communicate sincerity via an email or the like? There are certain techniques that have proven effective in this type of communication. Some suggestions include writing communications in the same manner as your team is use to you speaking. If you speak informally, your written communication should also be informal. Avoid using all capital letters as it is seen as equivalent to shouting. If you are communicating with individuals that are unfamiliar with the jargon or language that is customary in your organization, avoid using it and instead use language that someone not in your culture would understand. Online managers, just like their counterparts, have to define the performance that you expect of the team members. Online managers also need to be facilitators. Recall that facilitators encourage and run interference such as making sure that the team has the resources and information needed to get the work done. Online managers also have to deal with rewards providing rewards to the team. They need to ask the team members which rewards are most important to them and then provide them in a timely fashion. Finally, online managers must convey a sense of mutual trust.

Another issue facing today’s leaders is empowerment of employees. Empowerment solves several different dilemmas for the manager. It allows for quick decisions to be made by those people who are the most knowledgeable about the issues, it provides some relief to the manager as downsizing has increased the manager’s span of control and it benefits those employees that seek autonomy and possess an internal locus of control.

Cross-cultural leadership opens the question again as to whether a manager can lead one group of people in the same manner as he or she leads another. In some instances this may work and in others it may not. Evidence, however, as shown that transformational leadership style appears to be effective regardless to what country the leader is in. Those elements of transformational leadership that appear to be universal are vision, foresight, providing encouragement, trustworthiness, dynamism, positiveness and proactiveness.

With respect to gender differences and leadership, the general conclusion is that males and females do use different leadership styles. Women tend to prefer the democratic style while men migrate toward the directive, command-and-control style. However, as women move into male-dominated jobs, women longer tend to use the democratic style but tend to be more autocratic.

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Leading: Motivating Employees and Managing Style 

With so many corporate scandals in the news today, the ‘savior CEO’ phenomenon has passed. People have become disenchanted by this syndrome due in part to the ridiculously large bonuses received by CEO’s despite the fact that their corporations have done poorly on earnings. When businesses are downsized with the excuse that jobs have to be cut to save on costs but top executives still receive bonuses and raises, people begin to question the sincerity of these companies. Where does this trend stop? Large companies must answer to a Board of Directors and it is there that decisions must be made concerning the image that the company wants to convey. CEO’s need to understand that what they do reflects on the company. Workers need to know the type of company they are working for and be able to have a sense of pride about it because it is a company that does the right thing from the top down. CEO’s must lead by example.

What does it take to become an effective leader? There are no cut and dry answers but some suggestions concerning leadership are in order. Companies need to recognize that everyone is not qualified to be a leader. People that engage in self-monitoring are usually flexible enough to change their behavior to adapt to the situation. Also, individuals who have a motivation trait may make good leaders. Although some qualities are inherent in an individual, one cannot overlook the benefits of training, as well. Finally, leaders need to know when it is appropriate to stand in a position of leader and when it is appropriate to be able to either delegate or facilitate.

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