Motivation Towards Team Altruism: A Leader's Role

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Transactional Leadership

In contrast to transformational leadership, another common theme found in leadership research is transactional leadership. Earlier defined as leadership that is task focused, the transactional leader uses praise, disciplinary power, reward, and the withholding of punishment to maintain a flow of mission achievement. The transactional leader focuses on current operations more than the forwarding of subordinates, or in this arena, team performance. Many researchers, most notably Bass (1985), argue that transactional leadership can build foundations through developing clear expectations and responsibilities. Though this may be true, there exist several concerns with transactional leadership as a catalyst to altruistic behaviors.

The primary concern with transactional leadership traits and the promotion of altruistic teams lies in the potential failure of expected output. For the employee under a transactional leader, this failure often results in immediate and severe consequences. These consequences include removal of bonuses, reduction in pay and even relief from the team, or firing. This stern leadership often does the opposite within team dynamics when the focus is to build team altruism. This thought is supported by Cha, et al (2007), who determine that “collectivistic teams had particularly strong team potency, and, consequently, higher performance when they perceived the leader as being more transformational” (p.1027). The strong potency referred here, are the existing values of the team. In summary, Cha, et al., believe that those teams with collective tendencies and high altruistic values benefit most from transformational leader, not the iron fist, focus only on the now, transactional leaders.

The Altruistic Leader

A leader’s altruistic traits have a direct positive effect on promoting team altruism and success. A great deal of recent research within the last five years, in the fields of management and success, has looked towards this type of leader role within an organization. According to Moss and Barbuto, altruistic leadership plays a critical role on transformational leadership (2010). A transformational leader possess charisma and compassion, but without a narcissistic tendency. These leaders succeed with an innate belief in others capability to succeed, not their own. This selfless belief in others is the definition of an altruistic leader. The altruistic leader has an advantage with selfless service as setting the example for individuals and teams to follow.

Bass, Avolio, Jung and Berson (2007) research transformational leaders serving within the United States Army. They argue that a leader’s altruism is a great motivator to team success especially during times of transformation. Bass et al., (2007), research centers on the selfless service of the platoon leader. The platoon leader and officers, offer a perfect example of the importance of altruistic traits in leaders to motivate the same actions from subordinates. A leader who arrives early to a formation in the rain and stays late leading from the front, through selfless service, sets the example. Soldiers, like civilian employees, can see right through egotistical leadership based on self-promotion.

Altruism

According to Li et al., altruism is the act of performing cooperative behaviors to benefit others or the collective’s welfare (2014). In the majority of today’s organizations, management looks to altruism as a welcome motivator as individuals, especially in team settings, conduct codependent and voluntary actions that benefit others. Unlike other motivators that focus on task, altruism and prosocial motivation focus on the well-being of others and those who practice it are more likely to achieve success in the long run. There exists a problematic shortage of research behind the motivators of team altruism though. This large omission becomes a further issue as employers look to teams, and teams of teams to solve problems and accomplish missions.

An Opposing Motivator on Team Success - Egoism

The presence of egoism within team dynamics is no different than its presence within individual leaders. A very primal and inevitable human trait, individuals will promote self-interest and in turn sacrifice the interests of others. Li et al. (2014), summarize the inevitable presence of egoism within the work team stating that, “a work team setting also provides opportunities for team members to behave egoistically and to promote self-interest” (p. 543). Where egoism becomes an issue though is if organizational practices purposefully or inadvertently promote egotistical behaviors.

It is apparent that egoism is present and often developed in many organization, though to which level and why remains the biggest question. Schroeder, Hill and Johnson (1982) support the notion of organizational development of egoism stating that, “unfortunately, current organizational practices and theories tend to employ egoistic based approaches to solve this problem, such as rewarding cooperative behavior and punishing uncooperative behavior” (p.133). Additional research on egoism in many instances goes as far as to state that its practice is of benefit to performance. Though egoism is not a popular accepted motivational factor of success, it is always close to the minds of scholars. Many of these scholars argue that benefits of egoism increase self-awareness and pleasure within employees. Within each of these areas, they point that the feeling of personal achievement furthers motivation for success, be it within a team, or individually.

A specific sub-section of egoism, classical egoism states that each person should live to achieve his or her rational self-interest. Tibor (2003) argues that “as living beings we need a guide to conduct, principles to be used when we cannot assess the merits of each action from the start” (p. 10). He expounds, arguing that the natural tendency for egoism to develop higher self-interest supersedes any negative effect it has on the absence of altruism. It can be argued though that ample transformational leadership though, can provide team members a confidence through leadership’s assessment of individual merits and more importantly team merits.

Implications

In line with the findings and connections discovered and addressed within this review of the literature, a few specific areas can have an immediate effect on managerial practices and leadership occurring now. A manager who possesses the necessary traits of transformational leadership previously discussed must know how to employ