CHARISMATIC LEADERSHIP AND MOTIVATION

By Joanne Lee, Reiss Motivation Profile® Master Trainer

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6/1/12 10:19 AMHRM Asia - Charismatic Leadership and Motivation

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Charismatic Leadership and MotivationHRM 24 May 2012

A mark of leader is the ability of a leader to lead teams. A mark ofa good leader is the leader’s effectiveness in leading teams thatdeliver results. A mark of a great leader is the ability of a leader toget the team to deliver consistent results over a sustained periodof time.

A great leader knows that the secret to leading a team effectivelyover a sustained period of time revolves around the idea ofknowing what drives employees, in other words, employeemotivation.

Over the years, the term, “employee motivation” has spun off aplethora of management theories of varying degrees ofcomplexity. For instance, improving job security or enhancingcareer prospects are often cited as ways to boost employee

motivation.

These theories, while useful in shedding some ideas on how to motivate employees, do notaddress one fundamental aspect of employee motivation: that is, a team, which is made up ofindividuals, each have their unique set of motivators.

Under the influence of a charismatic leader, an employee may be convinced to give up some oftheir basic desires in exchange for the common good of the organization. For instance, anemployee may be persuaded to take on additional roles within the company, which entailsfrequent overseas trips. This same employee is driven to work to provide for his family, a priorityhe holds in his life. So, while he might initially appreciate the additional monetary compensationfrom his additional role, his frequent trips also means he would have less time to spend with hisfamily. Over time, the sustained denial of him not being able to spend time with his familycreates tension for him. And increasing his salary or expanding his roles at this point isn’t goingto motivate him significantly as his basic desire to spend time with his family is simply not met.

Hence, the working relationship breaks down.

Some leaders argue that at the workplace, it is not the “responsibility” of a leader to meetemployee’s personal desires, such as family time. But human beings have many desires thattogether make a person whole. So if an employee’s desires happen to be in that realm of family,meeting those desires head – on will drive the employee to work effectively.

Managing Team Dynamics

Imagine how forwarding a charismatic leader can be, when that leader is able to identifypotential causes of conflict within a team, and take proactive steps to prevent or resolve themquickly when conflicts arise.

Again, how leaders can achieve this is to understand what actually drives a person to do thethings they do.

For instance, Employee A who is a manager is driven by the need to feel a sense ofaccomplishment achieved by completing a project. She will do whatever it takes to get theproject completed, even at the expense of upsetting her colleagues. Employees B and C, whoare in her team, are driven by the need to maintain harmony and balance. Employee A wants tointroduce a competitive strategy among her team members to get the project completed quickly.But her strategy upsets the harmony among her team members B and C, who resist herattempts, causing tension. And because they don’t like confrontation, they show their resistanceby not showing up to work on time, or they get tasks done slowly. All of them end up frustratedand unfulfilled.

Let’s say Employee A learned that what motivated her team members B and C to work washarmony and balance. To get her project completed, she changed her strategy to a morecooperative one, one that depended on them supporting each other, rather than competingagainst each other. That way, they will all win – the project gets completed, the harmony ismaintained, and all three are satisfied.

A hallmark of a charismatic leader is the ability to understand what really drives a person. Indoing so, they can do what they do best – push their team to the next level of effectiveness andperformance.

Joanne is an executive coach from Reiss Asia who has leveraged on her 20+ years ofmanagement experience in finance and banking industry by working closely with professionalsand executives, helping them discover what motivates them, aligning their work to theirdreams to become better performers at work and accelerating their career progression andresults.

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