Expect Motivation: G6

The Compact

All staff working in an organization are being paid under contract. They have a self-interested obligation to perform their role and contribute to the organization's success. However, there is also an implicit compact which takes for granted that staff will be motivated beyond this legalistic demand. In organising management, it is natural to expect such motivation.
ClosedMotivation Releasers:

Given this motivation, the agreed goals (G5) lead to a conversion into outputs in accord with the work levels. So here is where staff display their personal consent to the unavoidable hierarchy used by organizations.

  • Work at a higher level naturally takes a larger perspective that calls for leading and directing—and therefore also expects staff in the next lower level to follow,

    and conversely:

  • Work in a lower level naturally follows and accords with guidance as to what is required—and therefore expects staff in the next higher level to lead.

Implications of Leadership

This perspective generates Hexads-G6 because all levels except WL1 lead and direct, while all levels except WL7 follow and accord. The two Hexads overlap as shown in the diagrams. The upper Hexad (G62) requires the exertion of leadership and the lower Hexad (G61) requires the acknowledgement of leadership. To make the distinction clearer, the Hexads are named: leadership-G62 and followership-G61.

Both leading and following are expectations revealing a natural consent to the employment compact. This new quality of naturalness is provided by the additional level of duty.

When it is said that motivation, leading or following must be provided naturally, what that means is that there is no authority, mechanism or formula involved. It is a private and experiential matter that cannot be forced, and personal effectiveness at work depends on it. The Hexads should reveal that managers are not clones and each works in a distinctive way.
ClosedMore

As well as the general releasers of motivation in work noted above, there is a range of other personal factors that leaders (managers) need to take into account in the sensitive issue of handling the motivation of followers (subordinates) e.g. their interactional style. Each person has particular needs, some of which may be appropriately drafted into the service of the organization: a subject that is far too large to consider here.

In the Jaquesian view, engaging with motivation is off-limits because it is psychologically intrusive and liable to breach trust. In the present view, in accord with Jaques, motivation is to be expected as natural and personal. However, by contrast to Jaques, it is held to be a legitimate issue of management concern.

If an enterprise as a whole is to proceed in an organised way and achieve success, managers must be naturally motivated to both lead and follow—as represented by the shaded overlap. Managers are (ideally) leaders motivated to follow and followers motivated to lead. In order to lead effectively, there must be a degree of identification with the organization and its current leadership. That identification can then also power following.

This overlap does not apply to a CEO or to WL1 staff—with these well-recognized consequences:

  • WL7-CEOs do not follow and so are hard to control. They expect their organization (and its Board) to identify with them rather than the other way around. The feeling of ownership and desire for untrammelled power leads CEOs to want a simultaneous (but potentially conflicting) role as Chairman of the Governing Board.

  • WL1-staff do not lead and so their identification can be weak. This generates difficulty in getting effective line-management across the WL2/WL1 boundary. Because WL1 work is fully prescribable and physical, staff can be alienated and still perform more or less satisfactorily. They are prone to unionize, and often battle management over the right to manage: i.e. over what work is to be done and how.

    In the military,Closed where identification is actively fostered, there can be strong leadership within WL1 (e.g. sergeants and corporals), but this may then exacerbate officer-v-men conflicts.

Note: In all Groupings (beyond G1), WL7 and WL1 have been distinctive in that they never lie within overlapping Groups. This has meant freedom from demands and conflicts that most managers experience. See all hierarchical divisions.

  • See further explanations, including usual features and internal structures of the Displays of Consent.

Originally posted: 26-Mar-2014