Motivation-Leadership Assignment PDF

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Motivation – Leadership Assignment

Start your answer: 1. Identify the main motivational issues in this case for Larissa? After reading the case, we had noticed that there are some issues, which the company was not able to motivate Larissa effectively, including a lack of self-esteem and boredom. Lack of self-esteem: Lack of self-esteem is an intrinsic factor. According to the Two Factor Theory of Frederick Herzberg, intrinsic factors, even though their absence does not much dissatisfy, their presence strongly motivates employees. Also, as Maslow stated in his Need Hierarchy Theory, there are 5 stages of needs that once they pass one stage, they will not be motivated by it and move to the next stage. It can be inferred from the case that Larissa was in the 4th level of needs - Self-esteem, as she has been recognized as one of the best employees and earned some rewards for her work, and continue motivating her, she must move on to the next stage. However, what managers did seem to hurt her self-esteem. When the CEO - Tony decided to hire another sales representative - Earl, her productivity begun to decrease. Mateus, the manager of the sales department which Larissa and Earl worked, decided to give half of the client of Larissa to Earl, which made her feels less valued. Although she was the only sales representative in this role, it did not mention that she was overloaded. Even more, Mateus decided to give Earl half of Larissa’s clients, who she has put a lot of effort for a long time to build good personal relationships with them. It seems that the managers might not talk to Larissa in advance and consider Larissa’s opinion regarding hiring someone as well as dividing tasks. She was a “Senior”, who has made a lot of profound contribution to the company for a long time, while Earl was just a “Junior”, but instead of adding more tasks or heightening her position, the manager decided to make her equal to Earl and even reduced her tasks. Mateus also did not invite Larissa to join him and Earl when Earl was introducing himself to clients at the party. In this case, she feels

demotivated as she feels like she is no longer important in the company which she has been working for a long time. Boredom: Another motivational issue is when they had already hired someone to do the same work, they should have promoted her to a higher position, changed to a different position (can be job rotation) or made her role more “meaningful” (job enrichment or job enlargement), for her not to be bored on her working environment and this can be termed as lack of challenging work. For all, we know someone who keeps on doing the same work over and over again can result in demotivation, which is another thing that could happen to Larissa. She had already proved that she is good at being a sales representative and been recognized as the best employee for three years then she should be promoted to another level in order for her to develop her knowledge towards selling.

2.

Identify the Leadership problems in this case Lack of clear and effective communication - open, 2-way communication: Tony,

the CEO, and Katherine, assumed the head of HR department, were discussing in private about the sales situation without consulting with Matues’s, the manager of the sales department, and Larissa, the one that was supposed to know about this change as she was the only salesperson in her field at the company, she knew her area like the back of her hand. Moreover, even though Matues was not a part of the decision, Tony and Katherine, without discussed in detail, just pushed their responsibility to Matues, and made him decide what to do with Earl while it did not seem necessary to add one more sales representative (We can assume that Earl was hired due to his competence and experience in sales, not because the company was really in need of sales people). One more thing is communication ambiguity. In the email Tony sent Larissa, he mentioned if she needed help from Earl - “an excellent worker”. We believe Tony did not mean to overlook Larissa, but because of the ambiguity in meaning and the fact that they did not have any conversation about Earl before (all conversations were between Mateus and Larrisa), Larissa thought she was not important and capable anymore, which led the tension to a new level (we can see her tone in the replied email).

Poor vision: In the case, we just know that the company had a new sales representative, but we did not know which department he applied for. We assume that Tony saw Earl was a competent sales person and Tony invited him to work in his company; but either Tony, Katherine or Mateus was clear about the “goal”: In which department he would work and what his specific tasks, what we expected from him. Worse, Tony and Katherine avoided solving those questions and placed all responsibilities on Mateus, and Mateus, as he was confused too, made decisions which negatively impacted Larissa. Did not understand employees to the fullest: It is clear that Mateus did not fully understand Larissa in this situation. He thought there were no problems with her as she had less work to do, but he did not know that really inside, she felt hurt because her motivation was different - her current amount of workload, her autonomy and loved to be respect and treated fairly to what she has contributed. Did not pay attention to detail: As a manager, attention to detail is very important, but it seems that Mateus did not handle the situation at the party very wisely. He did not ask Larissa to join him and Earl when Earl introduced himself to clients, who Larissa took years to build relationships with. We believe Mateus did not mean to ignore Larissa, but his act really hurt Larissa, made she feel that she was nothing and unfair as Earl got everything too easy. Empowerment: According to Job Characteristics Model - Hackman & Oldham, Autonomy (empowerment) has a close connection to Responsibility. When Earl was added, Larissa’s autonomy was limited. She did not have full control of her contact list, which was not easy to build. In other words, she might feel like her benefits and rights were removed. This made her feel disappointed and less responsible/committed in her work. 3. Provide at least one suggestion as to how to improve Larissa’s performance? From problems and issues, we identified and discussed in the previous question, the key things in the case are effective communication. Were managers and Larissa sat

and discussed before making the decision, they would not have to deal with those difficulties. In our opinion, one of the best solutions right now is Tony, Katherine and Mateus need to meet Larissa and explain to her that they did not mean to overlook her it was just a misunderstanding due to ineffective communication. Once Larissa fully understand, managers can re-divide the tasks - instead of put Larissa and Earl at the same level, they can assign Earl to be her assistant and let him deal with smaller tasks such as sending out emails, helping Larissa maintain the customer list, assisting her in meetings with customers, etc. instead of just giving him half of the clients and let him work with them from A to Z. Make sure everybody are clear about their tasks/goals/targets and what managers expect. We believe once we have a better conversation, all doubts will be clear and take appropriate action, we will make Larissa “great again” and fully leverage the talent of Earl. As Larissa has been working in the organization for very prolonged stretch of time, she has been buckling down for the organization and put forth a strong effort. An individual who as a rule work like this longing to esteemed and perceived for his or her work. With this the enormous issue was correspondence on the off chance that they would have spoken with one another appropriately, at that point Larissa would not had been discouraged after duke coming. In addition, giving an effective and appropriate data in regard to their work in organization will make work progressively exact and simple. They should offer sensible lodging. Besides, Larissa ought to have demonstrated her point and ought to have asked anything she need to know, it would have been an alternate situation. Larissa would not had confronted this discouraged inclination on the off chance that she had fearlessness and legitimate correspondence with Tony or Earl....