Role of CEO in Motivating Employees

Initiating from the concept of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s, “Motivation is considered as the art through which people are influenced to do what motivator wants them to do, and they do this because they wants to do it. After evaluating this statement, it is clear that power to influence the people and their actions is an art through which number of qualities can be advertised. Motivation is the state which deals with the needs to individual and this needs must be fulfilled, because it encourage the individual to take actions through which there requirements can be satisfied (Achim, Dragolea and Balan, 2013).

Every organization requires the physical, financial, and human resources in terms of achieving their goals and objectives. It is only the motivation factor through which complete use of human factor can be taken by the organization. CEO play important role in motivating the employees of the organization at each and every level, as strategic management theory and transactional leadership are the theoretical models which recognized the contribution of the top level managers in the implementation of strategy and performance of the employees (Simionescu, Bud, Bu?e, Stamin, 2006).

The main aim of this assignment is to discuss the role played by CEO for positively impact the motivation level of employees at each and every level of the organization. Further this report discusses the theoretical models and issues which are related to the strategic leadership in the organization. Structure of this report includes the critical assessment of survey stated in CEO Intellectual Stimulation and Employee Work Meaningfulness: The Moderating Role of Organizational Context (Peng, et al., 2016), concepts and principles related to the strategic leadership skills of CEO, cultural and industry aspects and how CEO can affect the performance and motivation of the employees at each stage of the organization. Brief conclusion is stated at the end of the report in terms of concluding the facts and relevant points of the report.

This section of the paper conducts the critical evaluation of the survey conducted by Peng, A. C. et al., in CEO Intellectual Stimulation and Employee Work Meaningfulness, The Moderating Role of Organizational Context. In terms of conducted this survey, authors contacted from at least 174 CEOs worked in SMEs situated in the north region of China, as all these CEOs agreed to participate in the different and dissimilar project. After knowing the main purpose of this survey, CEOs from almost 443 companies agreed to take part in this study. This survey is based on two factors that are intellectual stimulating behaviors of CEOs and work meaningfulness of the employees.

Theoretical Models and Issues Related to Strategic Leadership Skills of CEO

This survey shows the optimistic association between the CEOs intellectual stimulating behaviors and employees work meaningfulness (Hypothesis 1). Relationship between the two is classified in terms of performance of the firm and dynamism of the industry. It mainly states that, intellectual stimulation of the CEOs reflects the strong connection with the work meaningfulness of the employees at the time when performance of the organization is poor (Hypothesis 2) at the time when environment of the industry is more dynamic (Hypothesis 3).

This survey clearly states that actions and words of CEOs have the important impact on the working performance of the employees, and how employees view their work. This survey further reflects that followers mainly effected by the behavior of leader and in this context direct observation of leader and interaction with them play important role. This survey reflects the importance of CEOs behavior, and stated that direct observations and personal interactions of employees with CEOs are not enough. In other words, employees must recognize their actions policies and practices of the CEOs (Peng, Lin, Schaubroeck, McDonough, Hu and Zhang, 2016).

Evaluation of this survey further reflects that in case employees of the organization perceived vagueness in the reason consequence relationships then they are more interested in resolving it. In case organization is performing not well or any changes are implemented which are discomforting in terms of the changing market circumstances, then intense sense making endorses the development of difficult and individualized cognitive schemas through which adoptions of the CEO fit in potential manner. Therefore, it can be said that behavior of CEO assessed on the basis of the collective enactment process, play important role in the employees cognitive schemas in terms of their work either for good or worse. As understanding of employees in context of their CEO affect the view point of employees towards their own work (Ehrhart, Schneider and Macey, 2013).

It is possible for the leaders of the organization to ensure the important effect on the complete performance of the organization they lead, and leadership on part of the CEO is important for the purpose of renewal of the organizations. In other words, effective leadership on part of the top management level is important for the organizations in both large and small firms because it directly affects the performance level of employees at each level.

Theoretical model of strategic implementation theory clearly recognized the importance of involvement of top management level in the formulation of strategy and performance of firm. This theory clearly suggests that effective leadership approach and some additional skills of top management level make the visible difference in the formulation of strategy and performance of the employees.

Critical Assessment of Survey Stated in CEO Intellectual Stimulation and Employee Work Meaningfulness

There are number of cases of the failure of strategic implementation in the organizations, and numerous studies suggest that biggest barrier in the strategic implementation is lack of leadership mainly on the part of the top management of the organization (Jooste & Fourie, 2009). With the increase competition between the organizations, shrinking cycles of products and services, breakthroughs related to accelerated technology, and progressively greater globalization the business areas are described in the state of chronic flux with continuous variations in the formulation of strategies and employee performance (Nadkarni & Hermann, 2010). Because of these continuous changes occurred in the environment, it is necessary for the top management to reflect their abilities through effective leadership in terms of adopting the changes occurred in environment and reconfigure their developed strategies. Both the factors are important for ensuring the success of the organization and developing competitive advantage for the organizations.

By using the data of 48 firms out of 500 surveyed, experts evaluates the strategic and charismatic leadership skills of CEOs in terms of the performance of employees at each and every stage of the organization. In this author stated that, relationship between the leadership attributes of CEO and performance of the employees mainly based on the apparent uncertainty occurred in environment, and this fact is reported by the immediate subordinates of CEOs. This uncertainty mainly moderates the connection between the performance of employees and strategic leadership skills of CEOs. However, the interaction of strategic leadership and uncertainty in the environment does not have any important effect in the extension of that charismatic-uncertainty interaction. In terms of the expectation, predicted performance under the conditions of uncertainty but not under the conditions related to certainty (Mwiinga, 2011.).   

Strategic leadership is defined as the ability of individual to influence the others in terms of making the voluntary day-day decisions which increase the long term feasibility of the organization, and also the short term financial stability. In other words, individuals and teams implement the strategic leadership at the time when they implement and influence the operations in such manner and it ensures sustainable competitive advantage for the organization (Rowe, 2001).

It must be noted that, this definition of strategic leadership theory clearly reflects the difference between the leadership and strategic leadership. Hambrick (2001) defines the difference between this and as stated by him, leadership refer to leaders at any level of the organization but strategic leadership only consider the leadership skills of top level management. Another difference is that leadership theory only reflects the relationship with the executive operations of work but strategic leadership reflects the relationship in terms of performance of the employees also. The difference between the two clearly reflects that strategic leaders mainly carry the responsibility to deal with each and every operation of the business organization and this includes the performance of the employees also. CEOs are responsible to conduct the relationship between the formulation of strategy and effective internal environment, which means, internal environment must support the strategies and designed in such manner as it ensures effective performance of the organization. The deduction in this context is confirmed by the assertion that strategic leadership is the leadership for complete organization. It must be noted that, such type of leadership can only be achieved with the ability of an experienced and senior leader who holds both wisdom and vision for the purpose of formulating and implementing the plans and also make difficult decisions in the complex and ambiguous strategic environment (Guillot, 2003).

Conclusion

Those CEOs which are strategically oriented create the game plan that must be understood by everyone, and each and every person of the organization must participate in such manner so that plan leads to the achievement of goal (Hybels, 2002). At the time of implementation of plan the strategy formulated by CEO play important role, as there are number organizations find themselves in difficulty at the time of execution of strategy and having identified the opportunities within their reach (Hsieh & Yik, 2005).

The long term sustainability of any business organization in the dynamic business environment mainly needs the clear understanding of long-term stand-point and implacability of standards that reduce the business failures. The lack of strategic leadership is the main reason for the high failure rate of number of business organizations. In present world, leaders of organization are under the pressure to deliver within the short terms. It appears that modern strategic leaders hold the little opportunity to practice the strategic leadership skills which are important for applying the strategy of the organization. Therefore, all these observations can be directly linked to the assertions that in the short terms, organizations can undertake the new strategies without having the right leaders and this burdened the existing leaders with the additional responsibilities and this left no time for them to play their strategic roles (Mwiinga, 2011.).

After being strategic revolved in the future, ensuring strong decisions and firm commitments, steadily deploying the resources in terms of implementing them, and holding the individual which is single-mindedly and focusing to achieve them (Doz & Kosonen, 2008). However, implementation of strategy in modern firm mainly requires flexibility and agility because of the continuous changes occurred in the environment. It is necessary for the CEOs to be flexible, must find new evidences, and able to reevaluate their past choices and change the directions in the light of new developments. In other words, CEOs must be able to change the game in their favor. Therefore, it can be said that implementation of strategies in modern business require the top management of the organization to make constant changes in the procedures of the organization in context of developing the relevant routes without satisfying the strategic reviews on periodic basis.

Although there are very few organizations which recognize the reason of poor strategy implementation and as stated above lack of effective leadership is the major barrier of effective implementation of strategy in the organization. Therefore, it can be said that strategic leadership on part of the CEOs is the most important thing for ensuring the effective working in the organization in the uncertain environments.

Research and facts stated above in context of meaningful work reflects different types of disciplines and as the result there are different types of concepts related to work meaningfulness (Rosso et al., 2010). Experienced meaningfulness of work was assumed to be particular psychological state that mediated the influence of particular job characteristics of the employees in terms of job satisfaction and other results. As stated by the Lips-Wiersma and Wright (2012), definitions that’s convey the common aspects of maximum contemporary formulations related to meaningfulness work stating that refers to the subjective experience of individual of existential importance or purpose of work. Leaders play important role strategically in motivation and meaningfulness of employees.

Leaders of organization who reflects the intellectual stimulation generally use the language tools such as metaphors and stories in terms of framing the way through which members of organization think about the purpose of their work. Employees are encouraged by number of factors such as they are encouraged to reflect on how their work contributes to the bigger causes of organization or advantages of humankind.  

Theoretical models, Actions of CEO hold the ability to encourage the members to consider the fact how their own actions contribute to important results for organizations such as innovation in products, as this create the meaning for these members (Cleavenger & Munyon, 2013). Leaders who are considered as intellectual stimulating also seek to encourage the employees in terms of reflecting how they do their work and also to think of new approaches that might help them in performing their functions in more effective manner.

By exploring the different approaches in context of cultural and industry dimensions in terms of perceiving the meaning of employees by discovering the new elements and challenges in their work and also recognizes that they hold the capability to apply wide range of skills and knowledge in fulfilling their role in work. CEOs also encourage the unconventional thinking and innovation in terms of involving the employees of the organization in collective decision making and further delegate them authority to confront the emerging challenges (Kark, Shamir, & Chen, 2003).

This further creates the sense of empowerment which generally motivates the employees to bring up the innovative ideas and practice those ideas in the organization. All these process of specific industry dimensions encourage the deeper feeling of aim related to an individual’s work. Leaders of organization further facilitate their perception related to employees work by installing a strong collective identity through the personal charisma which means idealized influence and by articulating an appealing collective vision. However, this mechanism of leaders links the intellectual stimulation of CEO directly to the meaningful work of employees in different manner. Particularly, idealized influence and inspirational motivation creates the sense of purpose mainly by joining the personal values and goals of the employees with the goals and values of organization. This generally involves the appealing approach of employees at the emotional level. In contrast, intellectual stimulating behavior of CEO directly affects the perceptions of employees in terms of meaningful work through the wide lens in which new elements are explored by the employees in terms of their work and their relationship with that work.

Recently, I got the opportunity to lead the team of employees in the organization as the manager of the organization. This organization conducts its business operations in the technology industry. Members of the team I lead hold the recognized degrees in IT and also an effective experience of at least three years in their field. While leading the team, I feel that top level management of the organization is not involving in the operations and process or there is very less involvement of the top level management in the process and procedures of the organization. CEO of the organization fails to play his role in effective manner, as CEO is considered as the link between the board and employees working at all levels of the organization. In other words, it can be said that there is lack of strategic leadership in the organization. Because of this lack, performances of the employees are also affected. There are some other reasons also because of which performance of the employees get affected such as lack of motivation and meaningful work for the employees.

Meaningful work is defined as the work that is experiences as specifically important and holds positive approach for the individual, and it is also considered as the highly valued job characteristics by the employee. There are number of employees which value the meaningful job over other characteristics of their job such as income, working hours, promotions, etc. Experiencing of the meaningful work shows the strong personal links between the employees and their work, and this further motivates the employee to go above and beyond the normal requirements of their work. There are number of   research which reflects the connection between the meaningful work and performance of the employees and meaningless works results and meaningless work results in the disengagement and disaffection of the employee from the work. These researches further discuss the role of CEOs in the area of meaningful work and organizational psychology which have been highly motivated in terms of increasing our understanding about the role played by CEOs in motivation and meaningfulness of works. It can be said that, lack of meaningful work in the organization demotivates the employees and affect their performance (Mwiinga, 2011.). Experience of the employee in their work in terms of meaningfulness occurred when the objectives of the work are in line with the employees own standards and ethics. This experience occurred at the time when personal beliefs, values, behaviors match the particular requirements of work. Whether employees considered their work as meaningful work or meaningless, it mainly depends on the subjective interpretation of work and less on the objective reality. It can be said that, psychological meaningfulness of work mainly represents the cognitive valuation of work as significant and meaningful by an employee. Although people changes their approach in context of the meaningful work because all these peoples are differ in personality, and each and every person considered their work meaningful up to particular degree (Rosso et al., 2010).

As I see number of employees who does not take interest in their work and feel boredom while performing their jobs, and this automatically reduce the quality of their working. I believe that, satisfaction and engagement can be managed with the policies and initiatives of the organization, but organization need to focus on the meaningfulness of work because it is more individual and personal approach. The main aim of meaningfulness is that employees find in their work, as this automatically enhances the performance of the work. While conducting the direct communication sessions with the team of employees I lead, I heard their stories and try to find out the issues which affect the quality of their performance. Employees stated that they do not find interest in their work and their work fails to match with the standards in the line. This ultimately demotivates them and affects their performance in adverse manner.

Number of researches clearly discovers that meaningfulness goes beyond the workplace and mainly relates with the psychology of the individual through the jobs performed by individuals. In current organization, it is necessary for the top management to create the culture which reflects ethics, morals and CSR which mainly focus on the personal values and Work life of the employees. There are number of things which can be done by the organization in terms of resolving the above stated issues and that is strategic leadership and allocating meaningful work to the employees of the organization. Research related to work and organizational psychology clearly reflects that use of strength and effective strategic leadership helps in increasing the engagement and performance of employees.  Use of strength is the recurring concept in the psychology which is positive in nature and use of strength is directly deals with the sustainable well-being of the employee.  

Lack of motivation for employees is another issue which affects the performance of employees in adverse manner. While working at the field, employees feel low and unmotivated and this ultimately leads to the distant and quite employee. There is no motivation from the top level management and CEO, and no actions are taken by the management to resolve this issue. This issue can be resolved, if employees get the chance to discuss this issue with the executives and board.

All these above stated issues create major barriers of profitability for the organization in near future, as it reduce the cost effectiveness in the operation process of the organization or scratched away the competitive advantages hold by the organization. Strategic management of the organization is not right, as there are number of loopholes in the strategic planning process and strategies framed for employees.

For resolving this issue, it is necessary for the CEO to take reliable action because he is the top most manager of the organization and hold responsibility towards each and every person of the organization and not only towards the board and top level executives of the organization. It is necessary that CEO adopts the unique strategic leadership strategy, and for this CEO can follow the successful leaders and evaluates their strategies from different aspects such as strengths, weakness, and experiences. This ultimately results in the experience of the meaningful work shows the strong personal links between the employees and their work, and this further motivates the employee to go above and beyond the normal requirements of their work. The authors reported that disconnection of employees from their values is the major issue for employees in terms of destroying the meaning of their work, and this problem occurred even though there is no similarity between the personal values and work assigned by the organization. In this context CEO and effective strategic leadership of CEO play major role, as they can push the employees by giving them training related to the quality work and professionalism because of the bottom line of organization. This theory clearly suggests that effective leadership approach and some additional skills of top management level make the visible difference in the formulation of strategy and performance of the employees. It is necessary for the top management to reflect their abilities through effective leadership in terms of adopting the changes occurred in environment and reconfigure their developed strategies (Simionescu, Bud, Bu?e, Stamin, 2006).

After considering the above facts, it is recommended to the top level management to ensure the adoption of the effective strategies in terms of ensuring motivation and meaningful work for the employees, as both the factors directly deals with the good performance of the employees.

Conclusion

After considering the above facts, it is clear that CEO play important role in the development of the performance of the organization. Survey conducted in the renounce journal shows the positive relationship between the CEOs intellectual stimulating behaviors and employees work meaningfulness. It mainly states that, intellectual stimulation of the CEOs reflects the strong connection with the work meaningfulness of the employees at the time when performance of the organization is poor at the time when environment of the industry is more dynamic. Theoretical model of strategic implementation theory clearly recognized the importance of involvement of top management level in the formulation of strategy and performance of firm. Research and facts stated above in context of meaningful work reflects different types of disciplines and as the result there are different types of concepts related to work meaningfulness. Experienced meaningfulness of work was assumed to be particular psychological state that mediated the influence of particular job characteristics of the employees in terms of job satisfaction and other results. Leaders play important role strategically in motivation and meaningfulness of employees. Leaders of organization who reflects the intellectual stimulation generally use the language tools such as metaphors and stories in terms of framing the way through which members of organization think about the purpose of their work. 

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