A potential missing link in our current understanding of motivation : a personal and professional leadership perspective

M.Phil.The problem of creating a motivated workforce continues to bedevil managers, leaders and human resource professionals, notwithstanding their knowledge of various motivation theories. A further complication is the changing business scenario and increasing need to develop and maintain a competitive advantage to ensure profitability. In the new global marketplace, the ability to motivate ones employees is consequently becoming a business necessity instead of merely a business advantage. In light of this problem, the specific research problem of this essay centred on two questions, namely: What does the current motivational paradigm look like? What, if any, could be a missing link as far as our current understanding of motivation is concerned, which could aid us in the attempt to address the problem of employee motivation? The study subsequently aimed to describe the characteristics of the current motivational paradigm, in an attempt identify and disclose a potential missing link in our current understanding of motivation. In order to meet this objective, the researcher followed a descriptive strategy and conducted an extensive literature review, making use of word, concept and phenomenological analysis in the process. In attempting to show that our current understanding of motivation might contain a potential blind spot, the research has been done from a Personal and Professional Leadership perspective. This perspective inter-alia contends that our paradigms are the foundations on which we base our beliefs, and that we will only meet needs (whether ones own, others' or that of the organisation), when these beliefs are in line with reality, thereby reflecting things as they really are