442 CHAPTER 11 | YOUR TURN TO BE A MANAGER

Personal Insights: Do I Want an Enriched Job?

Listed here are 12 pairs of jobs. For each pair, indicate which job you would prefer—Job
A or Job B. Assume that everything else about the jobs is the same. Use the following
rating scale for your responses, and try to minimize your use of the “neutral” selection:
1 ⫽ Strongly prefer A
2 ⫽ Prefer A
3 ⫽ Slightly prefer A
4 ⫽ Neutral
5 ⫽ Slightly prefer B
6 ⫽ Prefer B
7 ⫽ Strongly prefer B

1. Job A A job that offers little or no challenge. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Job B A job that requires you to be completely isolated from coworkers.
2. Job A A job that pays very well. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Job B A job that allows considerable opportunity to be creative and innovative.
3. Job A A job that often requires you to make important decisions. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Job B A job in which there are many pleasant people to work with.
4. Job A A job with little security in a somewhat unstable organization. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Job B A job in which you have little or no opportunity to participate in decisions which
affect your work.
5. Job A A job in which greater responsibility is given to those who do the best work. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Job B A job in which great responsibility is given to loyal employees who have the
most seniority.
6. Job A A job with a supervisor who sometimes is highly critical. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Job B A job that does not require you to use much of your talent.
7. Job A A very routine job. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Job B A job where your co-workers are not very friendly.
8. Job A A job with a supervisor who respects you and treats you fairly. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Job B A job that provides constant opportunities for you to learn new and interesting things.
9. Job A A job that gives you a real chance to develop yourself personally. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Job B A job with excellent vacations and fringe benefits.
10. Job A A job where there is a real chance you could be laid off. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Job B A job with very little chance to do challenging work.

11. Job A A job with little freedom and independence to do your work in the way you think best. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Job B A job with poor working conditions.
12. Job A A job with very satisfying teamwork. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Job B A job that allows you to use your skills and abilities to the fullest extent.
Source: Adapted from J. R. Hackman and G. R. Oldham, The Job Diagnostic Survey: An instrument for the Diagnosis of Jobs and the Evaluation of Job Redesign Projects.
Technical Report No. 4 (New Haven, CT: Yale University, Department of Administrative Sciences, 1974). With permission.

Analysis and Interpretation
This instrument is designed to assess the degree to which you
desire complex, challenging work. A high need for growth
suggests that you are more likely to experience the desired
psychological states in the Job Characteristics Model when you
have an enriched job.
This 12-item instrument taps the degree to which you
have a strong versus weak desire to obtain growth satisfaction
from your work. To calculate your growth need strength score,
average the 12 items as follows:
1, 2, 7, 8, 11, and 12 (direct scoring)
3, 4, 5, 6, 9, and 10 (reverse scoring)
Average scores for typical respondents are close to the
midpoint of 4.0. Research indicates that if you score high on
this measure, you will respond positively to an enriched job.
 CHAPTER 11
Conversely, if you score low, you will tend not to find enriched
jobs satisfying or motivating.
You should take away two insights from this exercise.
First, it gives you an idea of your personal preference. Second,
and more important in your role as a manager, it should remind
you that everyone isn’t like you. Some people have a greater
need for growth and thus prefer characteristics like variety and
autonomy in their jobs. But others prefer jobs that offer routine
and standardized tasks. Don’t automatically impose your needs
onto others.
Skill Basics
Attempting to motivate others is a complex task. Unfortunately,
no universal motivators are available that are guaranteed to
work on anyone, anywhere. That said, we do know a lot about
what works and doesn’t work in terms of motivating others. The
following suggestions summarize the essence of what we know
is likely to be effective.
1. Recognize individual differences. People have different
needs. Don’t treat them all alike. Moreover, spend the time
necessary to understand what’s important to each person.
This will allow you to individualize goals, level of involve-
ment, and rewards to align with individual needs.
2. Use goals and feedback. People prefer to have goals.
If you’re in a position to assign or participate in setting
goals for others, help them to set hard and specific goals.
These are most likely to motivate. In addition, individuals
are most likely to be motivated when they get feedback on
how well they are faring in the pursuit of their goals.
3. Allow people to participate in decisions that affect
them. If you are in a position to influence the level of
participation, actively seek input from the person you seek
to motivate. Employees are especially likely to respond
positively when allowed to participate in setting work
goals, choosing their benefit packages, solving productivity
and quality problems, and the like.
4. Link rewards to unsatisfied needs. Recommendations
#2 and #3 apply most directly to managers or team leaders
trying to motivate their employees or team members.
Effectively linking rewards to unsatisfied needs is a more
generalizable action: It applies to motivating colleagues,
friends, spouses, customers—as well as employees and
team members. It builds on recommendation #1 and
individual differences.
Depending on your position in an organization and
your resources, the rewards you control will vary. For
example, senior-level executives typically can control pay
increases, bonuses, promotion decisions, job assignments,
and training decisions. They also can usually control job
design such as allowing employees more freedom and
control over their work, improving working conditions,
increasing social interactions in the workplace, or modifying
the workload. But everyone can offer others rewards such
as recognition or providing sympathetic and sensitive help
with problems. The key is identifying what needs are
dominant and unsatisfied, then choosing rewards that will
help satisfy those needs.
| YOUR TURN TO BE A MANAGER 443
5. Link rewards to performance. The rewards you choose
should be allocated so as to be contingent on performance.
Importantly, the person you’re trying to motivate must
perceive a clear linkage. Regardless of how closely
rewards are actually correlated to performance criteria, it’s
perception that counts. If individuals perceive this relation-
ship to be low, motivation and performance will suffer.
6. Maintain equity. Rewards should be perceived by people
in the organization as equating with the inputs they bring
to their job. At a simplistic level, it means that experience,
skills, abilities, effort, and other obvious inputs should
explain differences in performance and, hence, pay, job
assignments, and other obvious rewards.
Based on V. H. Vroom, Work and Motivation (New York: John Wiley, 1964);
J. S. Adams, “Inequity in Social Exchanges,” in L. Berkowitz (ed.), Advances in
Experimental Social Psychology (New York: Academic Press, 1965),. pp. 267–300;
and E. A. Locke and G. P. Latham, A Theory of Goal Setting and Task Performance
(Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1990).
Skill Application
Sean’s first job out of college is as a supervisor for Lyle’s
Catering Services. One of Lyle’s main businesses is managing
the food service operations at colleges and hospitals.
Sean has been given responsibility for the cafeteria at
St. Paul College. He has a staff of approximately 12 full-time
and 15 part-time workers. The cafeteria is open 7 days a week,
from 6:30 A.M. until 8 P.M.
Sean has been in the job eight months and has become
frustrated by the high employee turnover. Just since he’s been
on the job, 3 full-time and 6 part-time people have quit. Sean
went back and looked at the personnel records for the past
5 years and this pattern has been a constant. He’s frustrated by
the cost and time involved in continually hiring and training
new people. He’s decided he needs to do something.
Sean has begun informally talking to employees. None
seem particularly enthusiastic about their jobs. Even some of
the “old timers”—who’ve worked in the cafeteria for six years
or more—have little enthusiasm for their work. In fact, the
part-timers seem more motivated than the full-timers even
though the average part-timer makes only $11.50 an hour
versus the full-timers’ $15.00.
The class should form into small groups. Assume you are
Sean. How can you improve the staff’s motivation and reduce
the turnover rate?
Skill Practice
1. Think of the worst job you’ve had. Was there anything
management could have done to make the job better
for you?
2. Interview a friend or family member who seems very
satisfied in his or her job. What does this person like
about his or job? What doesn’t he or she like? What does
he or she attribute this high job satisfaction to? How
much of this person’s high satisfaction do you think is
attributable to the job and how much do you think is just
inherent in the individual’s personal outlook on life?
444 CHAPTER 11 | YOUR TURN TO BE A MANAGER

FYIA an Kitche
n
For Your Immediate Action
La Mexic
Manager
ante, Operations
To: Linda Bustam isor have the best food in town (and do!) but if our servers aren’t moti-
ins, Shift Superv
From: Matt Perk vated to provide excellent service, we won’t have any customers.
Although these positions pay minimum wage, you and
I both know a motivated server can make additional money
from tips. But it seems that this isn’t enough to motivate them
to stay. So what would you recommend? Could you jot down
some ideas about how to better motivate our food servers and
send those to me? Thanks!
Linda, HELP! We’re having a difficult time keeping our food
servers with us. It seems like I just get them trained and they This fictionalized company and message were created for educational
leave. And we both know that our servers are key to our purposes only, and not meant to reflect positively or negatively on management
company’s commitment to excellent customer service. We can practices by any company that may share this name.

Bringing the Real World to Life

Case Application:
Searching For?: Part 2
“ or many people who work in the tech industry—fresh

F college grads and accomplished professionals alike—

Google ranks near the top of lists of the most
desirable employers.” Yet, Google is now fighting off
Facebook and other fast-growing Internet start-ups who
want to poach its talented staff. It also has found itself losing
employees who give up the fantastic benefits to go out on
their own.
For instance, Sean Knapp and two colleagues, brothers
Bismarck and Belsasar Lepe, came up with an idea on how to
handle Web video. They left Google, or as one person put it,
“expelled themselves from paradise to start their own com-
pany.” When the threesome left the company, Google really
wanted them and their project to stay. Google offered them a
“blank check.” But the trio realized they would do all the hard
work and Google would own the product. So off they went, for
the excitement of a start-up.
If this were an isolated occurrence, it would be easy to
write off. But it’s not. Other talented Google employees have
done the same thing. In fact, there are so many of them who Google is taking aggressive steps to retain its talent,
have left that they’ve formed an informal alumni club of especially those with start-up ambitions. One thing the com-
ex-Googlers turned entrepreneurs. pany has done is give several engineers who said they wanted
 CHAPTER 12 | YOUR TURN TO BE A MANAGER 445

to leave to pursue their own ideas the opportunity to pursue
those ideas within Google. These employees work independ-
ently and can recruit other engineers. In addition, Google’s
resources, such as its code base and computer servers, are
available to them. In addition, from the very beginning,
Google’s founders (Larry Page and Sergey Brin) believed in
giving everyone time—called 20 percent time—to work on
their own projects.
Other Googlers have left because they felt Google had
gotten too big and turned into a slow-moving bureaucratic
company. Again, the company battled to keep the talent. For
instance, when a Google product manager told his bosses that
he was leaving to take a job at Facebook, they offered him a
huge raise. But he told them it wasn’t about the money. So they
offered him a promotion, the opportunity to work in a different
area, or even to start his own company inside Google. Yet, the
former employee says that “At Facebook, I can see how quickly
I could get things done compared to Google.” However, there’s
one other thing that Facebook and other start-ups can offer
experienced employees: They’re still “private companies that
haven’t gone public and can lure workers with pre-IPO (initial
public offering) stock.”
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. What’s it like to work at Google? (Hint: Go to Google’s
Web site and find the section on Jobs at Google and go
from there.) What’s your assessment of the company’s
work environment?
2. Google is doing a lot for its employees, but obviously not
enough to retain several of its talented employees. Using what
you’ve learned from studying the various motivation theories,
what does this situation tell you about employee motivation?
3. What do you think is Google’s biggest challenge in
keeping employees motivated?
4. If you were managing a team of Google employees, how
would you keep them motivated?
5. Reread the chapter section on motivating professionals.
Using this information, what would you tell managers at
Google?

CHAPTER 12
YOUR TURN
TO
BE A MANAGER
Leadership and Trust

Skill Development: Choosing a

Leadership Style
The terms management and leadership are frequently used interchangeably. That’s a
misnomer. The two aren’t the same but they are related. Although you don’t need to hold
a management position to be a leader, you’re unlikely to be an effective manager if you
can’t be an effective leader.

Personal Insights: What Kind of Leader Am I?

The following items describe aspects of leadership behavior. Circle the number on the
scale that best describes you. Use this scale for your responses:
1 ⫽ Strongly disagree
2 ⫽ Disagree
3 ⫽ Neither agree or disagree
4 ⫽ Agree
5 ⫽ Strongly agree
446 CHAPTER 12 | YOUR TURN TO BE A MANAGER
1. I like to stand out from the crowd.
2. I feel proud and satisfied when I influence others to do things my way.
3. I enjoy doing things as part of a group rather than achieving results on my own.
4. I have a history of becoming an officer or captain in clubs and/or organized sports.
5. I try to be the one who is most influential in task groups at school or work.
6. In groups, I care most about good relationships.
7. In groups, I most want to achieve task goals.
8. In groups, I always show consideration for the feelings and needs of others.
9. In groups, I always structure activities and assignments to help get the job done.
Source: Based on S. P. Robbins and P. L. Hunsaker, Training in Interpersonal Skills: TIPS for Managing People at Work, 6th ed.
(Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2011), pp. 220–221.
Analysis and Interpretation
This leadership instrument taps your readiness to be a leader and
your leadership style. To calculate your readiness score, add the
scale values you circled for items 1 through 5. Your leadership
style score is composed of two subsets—a task-oriented score
and a people-oriented score. Add your circled values for items 7
and 9; that’s your task-oriented score. Add your circled values
for items 6 and 8; that’s your people-oriented score. Subtract
your lower score from your higher score to calculate the
difference and determine whether you are more task- or people-
oriented.
If your readiness score is 20 or more, you are likely to
enjoy being a leader. If your total score is 10 or less, at this time
in your life, you are likely more interested in personal achieve-
ment than being a leader. If you score in the middle range, your
leadership potential could go either direction, depending on
events.
Your leadership style preference is indicated by whether
your task-orientation or people-orientation score is higher. The
difference between these scores indicates how strong this pref-
erence is.
The best leaders are ones who can balance their task/
people orientation to various situations. If you’re too task-
oriented, you tend to be autocratic. You get the job done, but at
a high emotional cost. If you’re too people-oriented, your lead-
ership style may be overly laissez-faire. People are likely to be
happy in their work but sometimes at the expense of
productivity.
Skill Basics
Simply put, leadership style can be categorized as task- or
people-oriented. Neither one is right for all situations.
Although a number of situational variables influence the
choice of an effective leadership style, four variables seem
most relevant:
1. Task structure. Structured tasks have procedures and
rules that minimize ambiguity. The more structured a
job is, the less need there is for a leader to provide task
structure.
1 2 3 4 5
1 2 3 4 5
1 2 3 4 5
1 2 3 4 5
1 2 3 4 5
1 2 3 4 5
1 2 3 4 5
1 2 3 4 5
1 2 3 4 5
2. Level of stress. Situations differ in terms of time
and performance stress. High-stress situations favor
leaders with experience. Low stress favors a leader’s
intelligence.
3. Level of group support. Members of close-knit and
supportive groups help each other out. They can provide
both task support and relationship support. Supportive
groups make fewer demands on a leader.
4. Follower characteristics. Personal characteristics of
followers—such as experience, ability, and motivation—
influence which leadership style will be most effective.
Employees with extensive experience, strong abilities, and
high motivation don’t require much task behavior. They
will be more effective with a people-oriented style.
Conversely, employees with little experience, marginal
abilities, and low motivation will perform better when
leaders exhibit task-oriented behavior.
Based on R. J. House and R. N. Aditya, “The Social Scientific Study of Leadership:
Quo Vadis?” Journal of Management (June 1997), pp. 409–473; and G. A. Yukl,
Leadership in Organizations, 7th ed. (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2010).
Skill Application
You recently graduated from college with your degree in
business administration. You’ve spent the past two summers
working at Connecticut Mutual Insurance (CMI), filling in as
an intern on a number of different jobs while employees took
their vacations. You have received and accepted an offer to join
CMI full time as supervisor of the policy renewal department.
CMI is a large insurance company. In the headquarters
office alone, where you’ll be working, there are more than
1,500 employees. The company believes strongly in the
personal development of its employees. This belief translates
into a philosophy, emanating from the top executive offices, of
trust and respect for all CMI employees. The company is also
regularly atop most lists of “best companies to work for,”
largely due to its progressive work/life programs and strong
commitment to minimizing layoffs.
In your new job, you’ll direct the activities of
18 policy-renewal clerks. Their jobs require little training
and are highly routine. A clerk’s responsibility is to ensure