Motivating educational teams; avoiding a tug of war!

Does going to school ever feel like a tug of war?

How can leadership in education have an impact on motivation so that we can all pull in a similar direction?

Schools are complex communities in which we work in a variety of different teams; with students, with teachers, with leaders, with parents. At times different individuals, and groups, can pull in different directions. On occasions individuals (both leaders and teachers) can employ an attitude of subordination towards ‘others’, emphasizing differences in power or position: “I’m the boss/teacher, you are here to do as you are told”. This can result in those ‘others’ becoming bored, resentful, and unhappy, some of them waking up in the morning saying, “I really don’t want to go to school”. This can apply to teachers, students and leaders. In this article we wish to explore motivational factors and different leadership structures to understand how we can better work together for the well-being of our school communities.

Theories of motivation

Motivation is the reason for people’s actions, willingness and goals. It is a process that starts with a physiological or psychological deficiency or need that activates behaviour or a drive. The word motivation stems from the Latin word “movere” which means to move. Your personal motivation level is what moves you to participate in an activity and it affects your desire to continue the activity and fulfill the need that requires satisfaction. These needs could also be inclinations or desires acquired through the influence of culture, society, lifestyle, etc. or be innate.

The Fulfilment of Needs

Wenzel and Gordon (2006) emphasised that to motivate people one should think more deeply about each individual’s needs and how to fulfil those needs. Self-actualization is a term that has been used in various psychological theories, originally introduced by Goldstein (1934), to emphasise the desire to fulfil needs (Kiaei, 2014). Maslow (1954) organised these needs into a hierarchy, where unsatisfied needs motivate a person until they are fulfilled. Maslow visualized the hierarchy as a pyramid; at the bottom of the pyramid are survival, next safety and security, then belonging, after that comes esteem, and finally self-actualization (Huitt, 2004). McLeod (2007) recognised that Maslow’s hierarchy of needs has major implications for teaching and leading schools who adopt a holistic approach to education and learning. Maslow looks at the entire physical, emotional, social, and intellectual qualities of an individual and how they impact on learning. According to Mustafa (1992), this model helps leaders to better understand how to create workplace conditions to satisfy employee needs.

McClelland (1961) described the theory of needs focusing on three aspects: achievement, power and affiliation. The need for achievement was defined as the drive to excel and succeed. The need for power was defined as the need to make others behave in a way that they would not have behaved otherwise. The need for affiliation was defined as the desire for friendly and close interpersonal relationships (Rainlall, 2004, p.22). McClelland and Burnham (2003) suggested that people with a high need for affiliation are not the most effective managers or leaders because they have a hard time making difficult decisions without worrying about being disliked. Kreitner, Kinicki, and Buelens (2002), stated that the need for power reflects an individual’s desire to influence others; effective top managers should have a high need for power combined with a low need for affiliation. This is an interesting observation given the importance of a manager/leader in understanding the drives of those who they work with in order to motivate them and contradicts McLeod and Mustafa who underline the importance of a holistic approach to respond to the needs of those we lead.

Leadership styles and motivation

High performing schools have administrators who articulate a vision, help teachers grow professionally, and play a leading role in determining the school’s climate. According to Short and Greer (2012) leadership is a process involving influencing others, within the context of a group, implicating shared goal attainment by leaders and their followers. However, these goals and shared visions can come about in different ways and with different motives, as highlighted by two different leadership styles.

The transactional leader motivates employees by creating clear expectations and it is the leader’s task to tell his employees what is expected of them. Covey (2007) states that transactional leadership seeks to motivate followers by appealing to their own self-interest to receive rewards (extrinsic motivation) which gains compliance from followers, accepting the goals, structure and culture of the existing organization. As a result this type of leadership is ineffective in bringing about significant change in an organisation but is about a uniformity of approach.

Transformational leadership (Burns, 1978), in contrast, is about building a unified common interest between leaders and followers (Gunter, 2001). Burns was influenced by Maslow, believing that the extent to which people will perform effectively in the workplace is affected by the extent to which their needs are fulfilled. Miller and Miller (2001, p.182) state that transformational leadership engages teachers so that administrators and teachers have a positive impact on one another and raise one another to higher levels of commitment and dedication, motivation and morality. Through the transforming process, the motives of the leader and follower merge. It is also interesting to note that intrinsic motivation is associated with transformational leadership, due to the nature of focusing on empowering the individual and collaboration between different individuals which leads to the transformative effect.

Thus transformational and transactional leadership styles are associated with two different views of the individual. Within a transactional model, employees are far more passive and dependent, carrying out duties because of an expected external reward, within an externally controlled set of conditions. With the transformational model individuals are more involved in shaping their environment and have the potential to feel more empowered about their own development and achievements, thus engendering motivation.

Dermer (1975) states that in the majority of administrative settings, the allocation of extrinsic rewards based on performance, is a preferable method to alternative approaches. This is due to the fact that people work with expectations for equitable allocated extrinsic rewards. Extrinsic factors, however, have more of a short-term impact on motivation, and conversely if they are withdrawn, motivation rapidly falls away. Dermer (1975) further explains that extrinsic motivation can destabilize intrinsic motivation as once the rewards run out, people revert to their old behaviours and offering incentives is less effective than other strategies. This results in a lack of a long-term commitment to any value or action (Kohn 1993). Despite this, however, anecdotal evidence shows us that extrinsic rewards seem to be the most acceptable and useful tool used in an administrative setting, maybe because they give more control to the leaders and are a quicker system to implement and support.

Implications for leaders in educational environments

Through the above discussion we have seen that individuals are motivated by the fulfillment of their needs. In order to do motivate others, a leader therefore needs to understand the needs of those individuals which can vary from time to time and be very personal. This is a demanding and complex aim for any leader, although it can be supported through a transformational leadership style. Encouraging leaders to buy into an understanding of those they work with and to invest time getting to know them as individuals means that they can then plan to support their needs, for example through appropriate professional development. The message is strong that to motivate those we work with, one size does not fit all. We have known this in our classes and differentiate in many ways to maximise the learning of our students, why they can we not adopt a similar approach when leading teachers? In a context where international schools are increasingly members of bigger global educational groups, the temptation is towards conformity and uniformity in order to police standards. However we believe that in order to work together and motivate those we work with, we need to recognise the importance of the individual and the value of investment in professional working relationships. This is certainly a more complex approach, but a way to truly share goals, whilst retaining our own identities, address our needs, experience high levels of motivation, and definitely want to get to school each morning!

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