Mba 612: The Power of Effective Leadership in Workforce Motivation

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Primary Research

For the purpose of this research, a face-to-face interview has been conducted with Mr. Taha Dahabra, Senior Project Manager at a major construction company in Dubai, and professional project management professional. Mr. Dahabra is considered as a leadership expert based on his occupation, knowledge and expertise in subject matter. An oral questionnaire was provided to the interviewee and he was asked to provide a brief about the problem of leadership and motivation at his workplace, his information and experience from relevant research and common practice and, lastly, his own insights and recommendations.

Mr. Dahabra suggested that the areas of employees dissatisfaction at work often comes from lack of good communication, trust problems, interpersonal relationships, unrealistic high standards and long term orientation within team, which usually result in poor work quality and lack of motivation among team members. Moreover, he added that people often refer to leadership as a position or a person, while in fact; it is a set of behavioral skills and techniques that can be acquired through pertinent learning and experience.

On the other hand, he suggested that common areas of employees dissatisfaction can be controlled with strong leadership skills and a transformational leadership style which focuses on acting as a role model, forging an environment of trust, good communication, allowance for input and treating others with respect and dignity. According to him, this leadership style is has the greatest impact on teams' motivation and improved performance.

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Analysis and Discussion

Based on the interview analysis and findings, it is evident that one of the main responsibilities associated with leadership is motivating teams, which can facilitate in the case of transformational leadership styles. It is true that appreciation and reward systems can help; however, it is through real involvement and engagement that employees feel true appreciation and develop intrinsic motivation towards their work.

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Conclusion and Recommendations

At the most basic level, leadership theories and findings indicate that effective leadership can have powerful impact on individuals’ performance and organizations’ outcome. It is evident from previous research that transformational leadership style is the best fit with intrinsic motivation while transactional leadership has very little effect in motivating teams. While this research paper focuses on enhancing intrinsic motivation, it might be interesting to examine the skills and techniques required to enhance extrinsic motivation. It could be found that transactional leadership works better in the case of extrinsic motivation. Moreover, while this research focuses influence of leadership in motivating followers, it is worthwhile to investigate the methods that keep leaders themselves motivated.

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References

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