Motivation and Leadership

This article discusses the impact of job pressure on employee motivation and leadership styles. It also explores the relationship between job stress and employee health and organizational health.

Running head: MOTIVATION AND LEADERSHIP
Motivation and Leadership
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

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MOTIVATION AND LEADERSHIP
Case Incident 1: Long hours, hundreds of emails, and no sleep: Does this sound like a
satisfying job?
Motivation and leadership:
Watters and Diezmann (2015) mention that career develop calls for taking job pressure.
Professionals view job pressure as one of the means to attain career development and hence view
it as source of motivation. Bakker and Demerouti (2014) support this view and mention that job
pressure is the outcome of the responsibilities which professionals handle at workplaces. The
increasing power of the professionals to handle pressure increases as they develop their
managerial skills and decision making power. Iqbal, Anwar and Haider (2015) point out that this
managerial skills of employees to take decisions are closely related to the types of leadership
style adopted to lead specific group of employees. They point out that departmental heads
instruct and command the junior employees owing to their lack of decision making power and
experience. The departmental heads in this case follow authoritative of leadership. Bartholomew
et al. (2014) opines that management of business organizations often put pressure on employees
to boost their performance. High performance of employees can be well linked to the high
organizational performances. Bakker and Demerouti (2014) mention the employees view this
opportunity as a scope to achieve professional development. Thus, job pressure to a certain
extent can be used to boost staff performance and boost their motivation. As far as leading
experienced employees are concerned, the departmental heads delegate power to them.
Staff management and staff performance:
The senior employees are more experienced and have more managerial skills compared
to the junior employees. The senior managers here use delegating power and encourage
experienced managers to take part in decision making. Silcox, Boyd and MacNeill (2015) point

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out that here the style of leadership used is participative leadership style. Sagnak (2016) points
out that participative leadership style motivates employees more than authoritative style of
leadership. Thus, increasing job pressure to certain extent motivate employees. İrigüler (2015)
points out that excess professional pressure results in employee burnout which in in turn eats into
their motivation. Schaufeli and Taris (2014) mention that job stress have detrimental impacts on
the health and mind of the employees. This leads to deterioration in their performances which
ultimately affects the company. Thus, it can be inferred from the discussion that though job
pressure within a certain permissible extent results in motivation, however, excess job pressure
leads to lack of motivation and in fact employee burnout. Excess pressure on employees
ultimately has negative effect on the health of the organization as well.
Impact of job stress on employee health and organizational health:
Abbas and Raja (2015) mention that extreme job stress have detrimental effects on the
health of employees and consequently on the organization as a whole. Watters and Diezmann
(2015) earlier pointed out that a certain amount of pressure enforces sense of responsibility
among employees. The management of the business organisations use the stress and
responsibility ability to measure their eligibility for promotion. However, as Abbas and Raja
(2015) points out stress has negative impacts on the performance of employees and does more
harm to them than benefits. Extreme stress leads to cardiovascular diseases, nervous problems,
sleep disturbances and other health problems. Excess stress leads to makes employees irritable
and they pay less attention to their work. Baron, Franklin and Hmieleski (2016) opine that
feeling performance pressure is a part and parcel among employees holding high posts and
entrepreneurs. However, extreme stress leads to poor performance among employees. Rahim
(2017) in this respect points out that certain factors within the organisations are also responsible

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for stress among employees. he points out that multinational companies are characterised by
presence of multiple layers of decision making. The decision making responsibility usually rests
with the high level managers who often conflict over their own self-interests and ego problems.
This impairs smooth decision making activities within the organisations which often leads to loss
of business opportunities. Thus, lack of dynamism in decision making among managers of higher
level impedes speedy decision making power of the organization, thus affecting organisational
health (Schaufeli and Taris 2014). Thus, stress among employees puts stress on the
organisational health. Jha et al. (2017) points out that excess stress on the employees and
consequently on the organisation ultimately reflects in the customer service. The internal factors
like ego problems among the employees and the slackness of decision making among the senior
management often prevent the junior and front office employees from providing timely services
to customers, especially when provision of such services require senior approval. Lu and Gursoy
(2016) points out that this stress factor is also very prominent in the manufacturing industry
especially, the manufacturing process often involves decision making at multiple levels.
Moreover, in the manufacturing companies, there is more stress to deliver products to clients on
time. The lack of decision making power thus, puts strain on the customer satisfaction and
revenue generation. Thus, it can be concluded from the discussion that though stress to a
limited extent boosts productivity, beyond a limit it hampers both the employees and the
organisation.

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References:
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Iqbal, N., Anwar, S. and Haider, N., 2015. Effect of leadership style on employee
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İrigüler, F., 2015. A research on tour guides’ use of emotional labor and the relationship
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