Moved to motivate: joyful leadership results from learning how people are motivated, and developing strategies that move them toward intrinsic motivation.

Are you still trying to motivate staff and students through a controlling environment of rewarding, bribing and punishing? If so, it is time to rethink your approach. We need to focus our strategies on intrinsic motivation, where individuals have a sense of efficacy regarding their work. Joyful leadership is a result of the beliefs we have about employees and how they are motivated in their work.

For years we have been using our personalities and persuasive powers as social reinforcers to get employees to work productively. Moreover, we have used rewards such as individual recognition (teacher of the year), bribes (financial stipends for learning) and penalties (loss of salary) to get people to do their work. The rewards are often for work employees should normally be doing.

Paying people to learn is the wrong approach. Professionals have a personal responsibility to keep current in the field. Motivational approaches to change actually keep employees as laborers in dependent positions and often resistant to change. We need to use strategies that bring joy in work and joy in learning.

We need to think about a different type of recognition. The best thinking in the field is that people are best motivated long-term through intrinsic motivation, in which they are increasing their knowledge and committed to learning.

If we go back to Hertzberg's (1959) research many years ago, he found that a major job satisfier was setting goals and achieving those goals. Vroom (1994) stated that the process of moving toward a desired change was equally as rewarding as the end result.

Deming (1991) spoke often about how the way to high productivity was to move staff to intrinsic motivation, having the capability and authority to bring about change in their sphere of influence.

Often, our conventional approaches to motivation actually produce a competition in the organization that creates fragmentation and lack of cooperation among employees (Downey, 1994). How many of you have seen a "Teacher of the Year" approach really work? Typically, it brings animosity and jealousy.

In the Kyrene School District, where I served as superintendent, we decided that we would not participate in any recognition situations in which one person was selected as better than another. With the teachers association we determined that we would not "recognize the exceptional few;" rather, we would all work toward becoming exceptional. This was a key turning point in becoming a learning community and moving to higher student performance.

This belief carried itself out in our student recognition programs as well. Instead of first-, second- and third-place poetry contests or science fairs, we established a standard we wanted for each student to reach and then recognized it when met. We worked to ensure that each student met the standards. So, for instance, every student prepared a piece of poetry appropriate for the grade-level standard and those quality products were published in a beautiful book of poetry.

Leaders must understand how people are motivated and develop strategies to move them toward intrinsic motivation. Employees should be reinforced and rewarded based on skill improvement, development of new skills and quality-improvement ideas and processes (Downey, 1994).

This premise permeates much of Deming's (1991) philosophy. He elaborates on methods of motivation -- drive out fear; cease dependence on mass inspection; eliminate slogans, exhortations and targets for the work force; eliminate numerical quotas and break down barriers that rob people of pride of workmanship.

Our approach to change has most often been one of compliance rather than commitment. What is the mindset we need and what are the strategies for moving staff to commitment?

First, we have to think about how we view employees. Do we see them as passive individuals who will only change if we motivate through external means, including persuasion? Or do we see each individual as a problem-solver, capable of changing? We need to help people see that the power that lies within them, rather than feeling dependent on others for approval.

Let's examine the conventional approach to motivation with the transformed approach. Where do you find yourself with respect to your beliefs and the motivational strategies you use? (See chart at right.)

A collaborative approach is essential to bringing about a learning community. According to Peter Senge (1990), a learning organization (community) is "a place where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free and where people are continually learning how to learn together."

The following relationships, behaviors and practices support quality work in organizations with professional collaboration (Senge, 1990):

* "Complex problem-solving and extensive sharing of knowledge through strong professional networks.

* Increased risk-taking and experimentation.

* Failures, uncertainty and mistakes are examined openly in an effort to provide support and help.

* Increased job satisfaction and identification with the organization.

* Sustained and comprehensive attempts to improve the organization.

* A shared vision among colleagues and acceptance of disagreements as normal part of the change process.

* The development of collective confidence to respond to changes in a critical manner, selecting and adapting those elements which will aid improvement and rejecting those which will not.

* Interdependence valued and leadership dispersed."

It is time to reexamine your approach to motivation. What type of motivator are you? What impact do your motivational strategies have on moving staff to a sense of efficacy, a sense of inner control, and intrinsic motivation to grow and learn?

MOTIVATIONAL STRATEGIES

Conventional                  Transformational

Extrinsic                     Intrinsic
Controlling environment       Growth environment
Hierarchical structure        Learning community
Reward, bribe, punishment     Personal responsibility: governing
                              through increasing knowledge
Compliance                    Commitment
Independent                   Interdependent
Competitive                   Collaborative
Few winners                   Unlimited success
Recognize exceptionality      Work to all be exceptional
Fear and suspension           Trust
External origin of behavior   Self as origin of behavior
Others for efficacy           Self efficacy
Work as task                  Work as joy

References

Deming, W. E. (1982). Out of the crisis. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Deming, W. E. (March 1991). A system of profound knowledge. Participant material distributed at the Quality Seminar, Santa Clara, Calif.

Downey, Carolyn, L. E. Frase, J. J. Peters. (1994). The quality education challenge. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Corwin Press (SAGE).

Herzberg, F. (1959). The motivation to work. New York: John Wiley and Sons.

Senge, Peter. (1990). The fifth discipline. New York: Doubleday.

Vroom, Victor. (1994). Work and motivation. New York: Jossey-Bass.

Carolyn J. Downey, San Diego State University associate professor of educational leadership, is the architect of the Diagnostic Review used by the California Curriculum Management Audit Centers with H/USP schools. She is also the lead author of a new book, "50 Ways to Raise Test Scores."