Management Styles Directly Impact Employee Motivation

A business’s success can be measured in a variety of ways: financially or competitively, for example, or by the morale of your employees.  Though easily overlooked from the outside, employee morale, I would argue, is the true key to a win-win operation – and your management style can make or break it.

Managers have myriad management styles in their arsenal to encourage employees to perform at their best.  Different methods, of course, work in different situations, and it’s a poor manager who isn’t able to adapt her approach seamlessly.

While management style is difficult to teach in an article, or even in a class – knowing where problem areas are likely to occur, and understanding how and why to fix them, will go a long way towards ensuring that you have engaged employees working at the peak of their ability.

Most importantly, it is important that your employees know who they directly report to and from whom they should take direction.  It’s clichéd, certainly, to mention how many cooks it takes to spoil the broth – yet the saying is apropos in this situation.  Employees who lack clear direction no doubt also lack clear supervision.  Not only aren’t they aware of what is expected from them, it’s also possible that, due to over-managing, they’re getting conflicting messages from too many people.

How you interact as a manager with your staff also goes a long way towards creating an atmosphere of success?  Do you watch over your staff like a hawk (some might call this micromanaging when it’s at its worst) or take a less hands-on approach (in which case you could be known as the “breeze-in-breeze-out” boss and not the empowering, trusting kind)?  Do you have an open door policy for Q&A or are you unapproachable and have employees that feel they are bothering you with questions?  Is your company focused on competition?  Are there contests and prizes for goals being reached?  Do you yell at employees in front others or try a “scare tactic” to drive towards an ultimate goal? 

Motivation should always be key, and your tools to motivate are endless.  You must identify the needs of your employees and act on those needs.  All people are different and what drives one to succeed might be different from what drives another.  It is important to determine which management style works best for each individual.  A bad manager treats his employees as automatons.  A good manager recognizes that there are strengths in every employee, and that is his job to nurture that employee, thereby growing a winning team.  Once you have determined what the motivation need is for the individuals in your group, it will guide you to satisfy that motivation.  This will lead to their success which will guide your company towards being successful. 

Although many people have a competitive spirit, some people don’t want to be singled out.  Being a top producer is a great honor; however, some of us do not want it waved in front of others on the basis comparison.  This always leads to some people feeling they are inadequate even if they are doing a great job.  However, if you have a very performance driven group, perhaps break your employees up into teams and reward the team that reaches the goal.  This might motivate the group as a whole to perform better rather than a one on one contest. 

After consulting with many individuals, both at the management and non-management level, one comment was consistent throughout.  The preference of using encouraging motivation has been effective in the workplace.  Employees tend to be happier and get the job done the better they are treated by their workplace. They do not stray and start looking for other opportunities.  Happy employees are loyal employees.  Remember to keep a positive spirit and the results will show by months end!

The morale of your company is in your hands – you choose if you want to win or lose!