Management 5: Reflective Journal on Motivation and Leadership

This reflective journal entry, submitted by a student, delves into the critical role of motivation within a management context. The student analyzes their learning from a management course, focusing on the application of motivational theories and their personal experiences. The paper examines various motivational factors, including intrinsic and extrinsic motivators, and how they influence employee behavior and organizational goals. It explores the student's understanding of conflict resolution strategies, particularly in addressing workplace issues related to employee demotivation and unfair treatment. The journal reflects on the student's ability to apply learned concepts, such as the Needs Hierarchy Theory and Expectancy Theory, to real-world scenarios, demonstrating their growth as a future leader. The student discusses the impact of leadership styles, ethical decision-making, and communication skills on fostering a positive and productive work environment. Ultimately, the reflection showcases the student's journey toward developing their capabilities as a manager, emphasizing the importance of self-awareness, empathy, and effective leadership in driving organizational success.

Managing people in organization
1/8/2020

Management 1
Motivation
Motivation is the word that is derived from the work motive which refers to as needs,
desires, wants or drives within the individuals. It is considered as the process of stimulating the
people to actions to attain their own as well as the organisation goals. In the context of the work,
it has been witnessed that there are different psychological factors that can stimulate the
behaviour of the people which consist of desire for money, success, recognition, team work,
satisfaction towards the job and many others. In the present working environment, one of the
most essential functions of the management is to build the willingness among the personnel so
they can perform in the best manner by making the maximum utilization of their skills. The aim
of the essay is to discuss about my learning that I attained in the class and how it support me in
dealing with the different conflicts that inevitably occur within the company. The paper reflects
upon my abilities as well as skills being the manager and following the approach that contributes
in understanding the different aspects to become the successful leader.
Presently, organisations are operating the business in dynamic environment where they
find that every employees work with some or the other motives which they want to meet with the
salary amount and incentives that they receive from the company. I gained the knowledge about
the one of the major functions of the leader that is to ensure that they are working with the
employees who are self-motivated and have willingness to perform the work. Leader always
need a motivated employees as they are the one who can contribute in attaining the gaols and
objectives of the company (Deci & Ryan, 2010). However, I also learnt the fact that employees
working within the organisation with some motives. The possible motives due to which the
employees perform the work include physiological needs, emotional needs, cognitive and social

Management 2
needs (Herzberg, 2017). I attained the knowledge that physiological needs are considered as one
of the basic needs which include food, water and sleep. This need is considered as one of the
most essential due to which the employees perform the work within the company. On the other
hand, emotional needs include need of love, fear, anger and panic (Steers & Sánchez‐Runde,
2017). Further, cognitive motives include perceptions, beliefs and expectations which makes the
employees to work in the environment. I gained the information that employees also abide with
the social motives which include influenced by the friends, family, media and many others. The
managers who are present in the working environment need to ensure that every employee is
able to meet their motives. In my view, managers are the one who perform the activity of the
motivation because they need to ensure that employees are working with full willingness because
demotivated employees will lead to the negative impact on the productivity of the company
(Kuvaas, Buch, & Dysvik, 2018).
Employee lack of willingness towards the work will not only affect goals of the
individuals but it also lead to the impact on organisational goals (Mikkelsen, Jacobsen &
Andersen, 2017). As per my understanding with the help of the class lecture, it is essential for the
manager to ensure that the employees who are working with them are motivated. I learned the
fact that there are wide ranges of issues that leads to the workplace demotivation as well as the
low morale. However, all these factors vary as it depends on the individual. In the event of
working with “The kitchen”, I experienced that the biggest reason due to which the employee get
demotivate because of the managers and their teams relationship. The relationship between the
managers and team member get affected due to the different reasons which include the poor
motivation, poor communication, low level of the engagement among the both (Zhu, Gardner &
Chen, 2018). In the class, I learnt the fact that manager need to ensure that they are able to

Management 3
manage the way in which they are communicating with the employees. Effective leader is one
who knows the way to communicate with the employees as this is the most appropriate way to
form the good relationship. This is the way to strong relationship between the team and manager.
Thus, this shows that the manager or the leader need to manage different capabilities and skills
so that they can understand the needs of the customers in an effective manner. The major skills
and capabilities include communication skills, proper engagement, high motivation and many
others (Aguenza & Som, 2018). Considering, the high demotivation level, I decided that to learn
the way to communicate with the employees within the organisation as this will help me to
become the leader. Along with this, I started working of these skills and capabilities so that in the
near future I can work as an effective leader.
At my work place I have also experienced different types of conflicts that takes place
between top management and employees, subordinates and employees, employees and
employees. Many times, the issues that takes place in the company are very minor that are
resolved by both the parties involved. However, sometimes their issues result in huge conflict
between both the involved parties which not just impact their work but also the productivity of
the entire organization. The conflicts are resolved at the workplace with the use of different types
of strategies such as motivating the employee, providing a space to both the involved parties in
the conflict to resolve their issues, listening the arguments of both the parties, etc. (Thakore,
2013). During my tenure at The Kitchen, I have acknowledged number of conflicts and being at
supervisor’s position I was involved in solving those issues. While working in the company I
witness an incident related to increasing demotivation among the female employees. This leads
to rising number of female employee turnover in the company which majorly impacted not just
the productivity of the company but also its image in the industry (Surji, 2013). I noticed this

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issue and tried to identify the cause of it, which surprised me because before this I never come
across this type of situation at my work experience. I identified that there were some supervisors
in the company who were only involved in motivating the male’s employees for their efforts but
at the same time were degrading the efforts and hard work of some female employees at the
Kitchen. I found that this degradation affected their productivity as well as willingness to work
that resulted in affecting the goals of the organization. Being the bystander supervisor, I was
equal responsible for the inconvenient behaviour with some of the female employees. Later I
realised that this activity was not atoll ethical and legal in perspective of the organization.
After this realization I took the stand and the responsibility to resolve this issue such that
no more female employees feel degraded in the organization and can continue providing their
precious services. In order to resolve this issue, I got into the touch of those supervisors who
were involved in creating this conflict for the female employees and made them realise their
fault. I arranged a group meeting with those supervisors and presented the outcomes of their
activities. In addition to this, I also got involve with the female employees who were still
experiencing degradation in the company and consoled them about the inconvenience they have
faced and assured that this will not again repeated in this company. In order to motivate those
female employees, I utilized different motivation approaches that I came across during my class
sessions. While working with them I made use of two types of motivation that are intrinsic and
extrinsic motivation. Under intrinsic motivation I worked on providing different types of
recognition to the deserving female employees in the company. Besides this, they were also
motivated by my efforts to promote them at the team lead position. Furthermore, during my class
sessions I learned about different extrinsic motivation which was used by me at that situation. In
order to motivate those female employees, I provided them monetary rewards and helped them in

Management 5
lying at the incentive slab such that they can get motivate and contribute willingly in meeting the
organizational goals. With all these contribution and efforts made, I received a good result under
which female employees were back in their form and contributed in working for the growth of
the organization.
If I will be given the opportunity to relive the same situation at my current workplace, it
would be easy for me to provide better situations because I have already worked on it which has
provided better solutions for my previous organization. I will make effective utilization of skills
and capabilities to stop the conflict or the issue and will take a right step by informing the top
management against my co-supervisors. Another way on which I will try to maintain the track is
to regularly get involve with the junior staff in order to identify the issues they are facing and
providing immediate solutions such that it may not take a huge image that impacts the
productivity of the company. This will also help in reducing the chances of conflicts and issues
in the company.
I found that there are different skills and capabilities that lack such as ethical decision-
making skills. I would like to learn about the decision making skills that I can adopt to deal
effectively in every situation. For making the right decision, I need to listen to the perspective of
the different employees which helps me to take the right steps in the near future. Along with this,
I will also learn for the different communication skills that helps in interacting within the
employees present at the workplace.
In the present era, I found that leaders perform the vital role in reducing the conflict that
generally occurs. I believe the fact that the leaders are the one who take the required steps for
promoting the products. I understood the fact that it is essential to treat each and every employee

Management 6
in a positive manner. I experienced the unfavourable behaviour by the manger or the leader
towards the employees made them demotivated which affect the culture of organisation.
However, from my experienced I learned to manage the safe as well as respectful workplace by
providing the equal level of credit, rewards incentives and many other elements to motivate the
employees. In the near future, being the leader, I want to adopt the situational leadership style in
which I can easily work and take the decision for the company as well as employees based on the
situation. In the complex environment, it becomes hard for the leader to manage the motivation
level among the employees equally (Meier, 2016). This styles helps in understood the opinions
and needs of the people easily and to manage so I can easily apply the different motivation
theories which I understood such as Needs Hirachy Theory and expectancy theory.
I attained the knowledge that both the theories are effective at the workplace. I have the
knowledge that the theory of Needs Hirachy Theory helps in understanding the needs of
employees present in the environment. In addition, the expectancy theory shows the expectation
of the employees to the managers that help them to complete the same (Gibbs, Neckermann, &
Siemroth, 2017). I learned that in the current situation the leader can apply the theory of
expectancy in which they understand the expectations of the female workers so that company can
meet same. I think that the effective implementation of the theories as well as the skills helps me
in motivating the employees and to keep maintaining their willingness towards the work. Being
the manager, I can also arrange the different training session for the employees so that they can
attain the different skills and capabilities that help them to self-motivate themselves.
In the end, this can be summarised from the essay that motivation is one of the most
essential factor to meet the needs of employees and make them to work willingly. In the working
career of mine, I witnessed the issue of degrading the female employees within company and

Management 7
making them feel that they are not valued which made them demotivated. The high level of
demotivation affects the productivity which indirectly consider as hurdle in attaining the
organisation goals. Thus, leaders are one who is responsible for setting the tone of business and
motivating the employees within the company. In the near future, I would like to bring the
improvement in the leadership styles and also by applying the proper theories which helps in
motivating the employees present in the company.

Management 8
References
Aguenza, B. B., & Som, A. P. M. (2018). Motivational factors of employee retention and
engagement in organizations. IJAME.
Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2010). Intrinsic motivation. The corsini encyclopedia of psychology,
1-2.
Gibbs, M., Neckermann, S., & Siemroth, C. (2017). A field experiment in motivating employee
ideas. Review of Economics and Statistics, 99(4), 577-590.
Herzberg, F. (2017). Motivation to work. Routledge.
Kuvaas, B., Buch, R., & Dysvik, A. (2018, July). Individual variable pay for performance,
incentive effects, and employee motivation. In annual meeting of the Academy of
Management, Chicago, USA.
Meier, D. (2016). Situational Leadership Theory as a Foundation for a Blended Learning
Framework. Journal of Education and Practice, 7(10), 25-30.
Mikkelsen, M. F., Jacobsen, C. B., & Andersen, L. B. (2017). Managing employee motivation:
Exploring the connections between managers’ enforcement actions, employee
perceptions, and employee intrinsic motivation. International Public Management
Journal, 20(2), 183-205.
Steers, R. M., & Sánchez‐Runde, C. J. (2017). Culture, motivation, and work behavior. The
Blackwell Handbook of Cross
‐Cultural Management, 190-216.

Management 9
Surji, K. (2013). The Negative Effect and Consequences of Employee Turnover and Retention
on the Organization and Its Staff. European Journal of Business and Management, 5(25),
52-59.
Thakore, D. (2013). Conflict and Conflict Management. Journal of Business and Management,
8(6), 07-16.
Zhu, Y. Q., Gardner, D. G., & Chen, H. G. (2018). Relationships between work team climate,
individual motivation, and creativity. Journal of Management, 44(5), 2094-2115.