By: Tara K. Lalonde
In a previous post, we defined leadership as a process of influencing others toward a shared vision. As such, we must consider motivation as a key process leaders utilize. We can bin motivation into two categories: extrinsic and intrinsic.
Leaders tap into extrinsic motivation when they use transactional exchanges: if you do X, then you will have an outcome of Y.
Common examples include reward systems: if you meet your performance goals, you receive a bonus, or if you achieve specified benchmarks, you receive a promotion. Organizations also use negative outcomes to motivate behavior: if you are late to work, the organization docks your pay, or if you fail to follow organizational policies, the organization terminates your employment.
This approach to motivation is common in many organizations, although with resulting efficacy limited to the short term. As organizations need to motivate longer-term, innovative solutions, leaders cannot rely solely on these methods. Leaders must tap into intrinsic motivation. But how do they do so? This is where vision and values come into play – both personal and shared within the organization.
Values as a Source of Intrinsic Motivation
A personal vision answers the questions: Where do I want to go? Who do I want to be? Similarly, an organizational vision should inspire a future state that the organization collectively strives toward. These aspirations incite an individual’s action for accomplishing lofty goals and pushing beyond the status quo. But vision alone does not provide the motivational means; it is values that ground the decisions and behaviors within the core of one’s being.
With vision functioning as the north star, providing the GPS location to which we hope to arrive, values serve as the guideposts for getting to the desired outcome. Our core values represent the underlying principles that matter the most to us. When we use our values to steer our behaviors, Susan David, author of Emotional Agility, refers to this as “walking your why.”[1] Our values help us navigate the twists and turns in the road. When we live our values through our actions, we benefit from the satisfaction of being true to ourselves; we feel steadied, knowing we are grounded in purpose. As David points out, allowing our values to guide our decisions changes the narrative from one of “have to” to one of “want to” and hence, how our core principles serve as intrinsic motivators.
Conversely, when there is misalignment between our behaviors and our values, we experience an internal conflict, which can lead to feelings of anxiety and depression or resentment and even anger. Suppose you value using your education and creativity to solve complex challenges but work in an organization where your boss micromanages how things are done. Chances are, even if you are enthusiastic about the organization’s vision, you aren’t going to wake up excited to go to work. In this way, a misalignment between your values and your environment acts to demotivate.
Organizational Alignment – Collective Intrinsic Motivation
As you might logically conclude, it follows that organizations should ensure the values they promote align with the values their employees hold near and dear. According to expert Ken Hultman[2], effective organizations operationalize shared values, driven by a shared vision, via shared norms. In other words, there is alignment between personal and organizational values and vision. These values are not simply espoused by leadership; rather, they are embedded in routine processes, policies, reward systems, and decision-making activities.
On the other hand, prolonged incongruence between personal and organizational values can lead to disengagement, diminished commitment, increased turnover rates, and potentially even ethical issues. To illustrate what this might look like in practice, let’s examine a vignette, elaborating on the example above.
Illumination Tech Solutions Group (TSG)[3] is a rapidly growing technology and engineering company with a vision “to transform the future through bold innovation.” The vision is compelling, attracting talented people. The company recruits new hires specifically because they are “out of the box” problem-solvers and collaborators. During recruitment, candidates are told that Illumination TSG offers an environment where they can experiment and where leadership values people who “think differently.”
However, it doesn’t take long for the new hires to realize that the cultural norms are not aligned with the values espoused during recruitment. When Maya, a new hire, proposes an experimental pilot to improve an outdated process, she receives support from her immediate supervisor, but quickly discovers that every new initiative requires multiple levels of approval, and once approved, the project better not fail as you will be made an example of – and not in a good way. Although leaders frequently use phrases like “fail fast” and “continuous improvement,” project reviews focus on who made a mistake rather than what the organization learned.
Collaboration presents a similar contradiction. Leaders encourage cross-functional teamwork, but performance evaluations emphasize individual accomplishments. Departments compete for limited resources, and managers are reluctant to share high-performing employees with other teams because doing so could hurt their own performance metrics.
Consequently, employees stop proposing unconventional ideas, avoid decisions that could expose them to criticism, and share information selectively. Many of the employees eventually become frustrated because the organization recruits for one set of values and socializes employees into a culture that prioritizes conflicting values. The people who were initially attracted to the vision begin to leave. It’s not that the employees were unmotivated; rather, the value incongruence demotivated them.
On the other side of the fence, leaders can tap into the collective intrinsic motivation of the organization through values alignment.
How Can Leaders Ensure Values Alignment?
As a leader, it is critical to understand where there may be misalignment within your organization. You can start by identifying the values that provide the foundational guideposts for obtaining the vision. In the above example, a vision centered on innovation must be grounded in values such as learning, risk-taking, collaboration, knowledge-sharing. If your vision involves achieving superior service, cornerstone values will likely include things like compassion, caring, flexibility, and honesty.
Then ask individuals to identify both their desired values and the actual values operationalized in organizationally acceptable behaviors. In other words, what values are the most important to the people within the organization and what values are enshrined in policies, procedures, and tacit norms. A misalignment between individual desired values, the values defined by the vision statement, and the practiced values is a flag for organizational change, be that in a revised vision, updated systems, or a revised recruitment strategy.
On a closing note, when leaders preach values that do not align with their own behaviors, the result is a climate of mistrust. There is nothing that sabotages motivation faster than employees who do not trust leadership. So, the biggest thing you can do as a leader to foster values alignment is to make sure you are walking the talk.
[1] David, S. (2016). Emotional agility: Get unstuck, embrace change, and thrive in work and life. Avery.
[2] Hultman, K. (2002). Balancing individual and organizational values: Walking the tightrope to success. Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer.
[3] Note: this is a fictitious company used solely to illustrate the example.
