The motivational strategies used by supervisors: Relationships to effectiveness indicators

Abstract

This article introduces a new set of activities that a supervisor might use to heighten subordinate work motivation and performance. These activities, entitled "motivational strategies," consist of six separate dimensions: Personally Rewarding, Personally Punishing, Setting Goals, Designing Feedback Systems, Placing Personnel, and Designing Job Systems. Results show highly significant, positive relationships between five of the strategies and two independent ratings of effectiveness criteria. A comparison of these results with those obtained when using measures of "consideration" and "structure" as independent variables also is made. Results show the motivational strategies to be better predictors of effectiveness than "consideration" or "structure." Implications of the results for future research are discussed.