motivational tactics and styles of leadership
- by Andrew Kemp
The situation displayed in this Calvin & Hobbes comic is an excellent example of how certain theories of motivation, leadership and management all combine in order to complete a task. The strip’s main star, Calvin, demonstrates a lack of motivation to do his homework, even after his father has given him advice as to why the task should be enjoyable. This then causes him to consider why exactly he would want to complete the task and finishes with Calvin’s dad using one final motivational tool used to assure the task will be completed.
Calvin begins the comic by stating his displeasure at how he seems to have been forced to do his homework by his dad. At first glance it seems as though Calvin’s dad made one of the common pitfalls of creating a motivating work environment by not giving Calvin the freedom of choice in regards to what task he would have liked to complete. Had Calvin taken part in the decision-making process of how he was to spend his time in the comic strip rather than simply directed by his dad, numerous studies summarized in Alfie Kohn’s book Punished by Rewards demonstrate that Calvin would become more enthusiastic in regards to task completion (Kohn, 1993).
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However, Calvin’s dad cannot be completely faulted for his motivational tactics, as the next frame of the comic demonstrates that he was trying to increase Calvin’s intrinsic motivation in an attempt to get Calvin more dedicated to the completion of the task. By trying to instill sense of meaningfulness in Calvin in order to motivate him to complete his homework, Calvin’s dad is trying to be a transformational leader by demonstrating points from a motivation model proposed by Kenneth Thomas that identifies (employee) rewards and manager behaviours that increase intrinsic motivation. The model identifies four key rewards that increase individual intrinsic motivation; one of which is “Sense of Meaningfulness” (K.W. Thomas, 1997). By trying to demonstrate that the accumulation of knowledge, and learning in general are worthwhile opportunities to pursue, Calvin’s dad is trying to show why Calvin should feel that doing his homework actually matters in life. This situation also portrays an excellent example of the managerial behaviour “leading for meaningfulness” described in Thomas’ model which states that managers can inspire employees and make them model desired behaviours by showing employees that their work has meaning to the company and to their lives (K.W. Thomas, 1997).
Despite Calvin’s dad’s best efforts, it seems by the third frame of the comic strip that Calvin has not been motivated enough to find any type of desire to do his homework. At this point, it seems as though Calvin’s dad had realized that his transformational style of leadership was not effective and switched over to a more transactional leadership role by engaging in a more authority-obedience style of leadership. An authority-obedience style of leadership is characterized by a low concern
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for a people, a high concern for production and arranges work conditions “in such a way that human elements interfere to a minimum degree (R.R. Blake, 1991).” This is indirectly demonstrated by Calvin’s dad in the way that Calvin has been lead to believe in the final frame of the comic strip that if he didn’t begin doing his homework right away, “this would be as old as (he) would get (Watterson, 1993).” It seems as though this leadership style has been relatively effective in motivating Calvin to finish his homework because the whole comic strip is the scenario that has likely occurred after the discussion with Calvin’s dad, where Calvin seems to now be in an environment where he will, albeit rather unhappily, complete the task.