Employee Motivation: A Leadership Imperative

Abstract

Employee motivation is a topic that has been studied for nearly a century. Beginning with the Hawthorne Studies in the 1920s and continuing to the current day, researchers have explored the elusive phenomenon of employee motivation. Furthermore, researchers have attempted to understand how leaders can effectively lead their employees in a way that motivates them to reach their full potential. While employee motivation has been, and continues to be, the focus of much research among the social and behavioral sciences on an international scale, leaders today are in need of practical tools that can help them motivate employees more effectively. This paper provides a survey of some of the key research on employee motivation and highlights the important role that leaders play in motivating their employees to achieve high performance. Also included are some practical tools that leaders can implement to increase employee motivation.