Inspiring Leaders Understand QWL
May 26, 2007 by Jonathan Farrington
During the course of this week, we have looked at the qualities of inspiring leaders. The question is, why do these traits produce results?
Pay is only one component of job satisfaction. Other factors like respect and prestige can be tremendously important in making staff feel good about their jobs. The reason that inspiring leadership produces results is that it contributes directly to fulfilling many of people’s emotional needs but thanks to Professor Frederick Hertzberg we can now go much deeper into this.
Hertzberg has promoted a theory of motivation which goes a long way forward from the original theory of “Carrot and Stick”, or indeed its extension ‘The Reward Theory’, still used by many leaders and Companies to try and exhort greater efforts from their staff.
It stems from two-statements:-
- What makes people happy and motivated at work, is what they do.
- What makes people unhappy and demotivated at work, is the situation in which they do it.
Leaders are going to have to become familiar with three new letters that are going to become increasingly important in the management of people in the future. The three letters are:-
Q.W.L. – standing for ‘The Quality Of Work Life’
Leaders, who want to motivate their staff, are going to have to improve their Q.W.L.
This starts by defining people as they are, not as we want them to be. Many workers who we have assumed to have the characteristics which we wanted them to have are now saying: – “We are not like that. Treat me the way I am, not the way you believe me to be”.
So the big revolution leaders are going to have to face is that of identifying the needs of the people – not their own projected needs.
That’s it for another week, have a great weekend – JF
Hey Jonathan, very interesting series of posts this week. I just wanted to chime in; i actually have a lot to say but I will try to curb my download…
QWL is an interesting buzz word in our corporate setting. I agree that people are movtivated to work well based on the “environment” they work in and leaders have 80% responsibility of creating the kind of work environment that people want to work in. I give leaders 80% responsibility because they have the upper hand in most situations on influencing the environment. BUT I also believe employees have a responsibility to the work environment – they influence the environment by what they bring to the table, their work ethic, how they treat one another, etc.
Work Environment = QWL. So though the term is relatively new, work environment is not new and has always been the responsibility of the leaders in any given organization.
Lastly, I DO NOT believe that people motivate people. I believe a person is either motivated or they are not. I believe that each person has a switch on the inside of themselves and they have sole responsibility of turning the motivation switch on. Does the work environment or QWL affect them in turning it on? Absolutely! But they have to decide they want to turn it on. That they are motivated. Leaders influence the work environment that help people to decide whether they are movtivated to contribute and to add value to the repective organziation they are working for. All of the things you wrote about are extremely important for leaders or those aspiring to be leaders, but employees have a responsibility to respond. Not everyone is motivated even in a great work environment. Who’s responsible?
Arlene, thank you for that thought provoking comment: To a degree, I agree with you, in so much as I believe we should all adopt the maxim: “If it’s to be, it’s up to me” and accept full responsibility for both our attitude and our motivation.
However,where we have to play a part as leaders, is by understanding that everyone needs some form of motivation to get them to do anything. This really means “sufficient reason” for doing it. It can take very little to motivate someone to do something pleasurable. It can take quite extreme circumstances to get that same person to do something objectionable.
The key point is that what constitutes sufficient motivation can be judged only by the person being motivated. Circumstances that would motivate one person will leave another unmoved.
The task of a leader lies firstly in assessing what will motivate an individual and secondly in applying that motivation.
Everyone is constantly subjected to a variety of motivating factors. The more basic the factor, the stronger it is in determining the course of action which will be taken.
From experience, I know that the eight key factors which can either motivate or demotivate are:
Financial motives,
Relationship with manager,
Co-operation with others,
Job content,
Promotion,
Responsibility,
Recognition and praise,
Achievement.
There are others of course, but those eight are the ones I try to get right with my teams.
Jonathan