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There are many books about motivation, therefore there are a lot of theories referring to how to apply them to motivate employees to work more efficiently. The ability to motivate is the core feature of effective managers and leaders. However it still remains one of the most difficult parts of their work. The basic area of motivation, in which a manager may succeed most, is the mutual communication based on respect and appreciation to the other person. Motivation is nothing different than building a vision for the future, countenancing a team in order to make a group cooperate, so that they can achieve a common goal.
The word “motivation” is derived from the Latin word movere, which means “to move”. In the context of organizational behaviour, motivation is what “energizes, directs, and sustains human behaviour”. Thus, motivation has three basic characteristics. The first characteristic is the amount of energy or effort individuals are willing to exert; those who exert more effort are more highly motivated. The second characteristic is that their effort must be goal directed. The activity should focus on achieving some objective, because motivation is more than just being busy. The third characteristic is that people persist in sustained activity. Highly motivated people will continue in goal-directed efforts for an extended period of time. (Cherrington, 1994, p.92)
There are a lot of motivational theories, which have been worked out throughout last century. Some of them, the most popular ones, will be discussed below.
A hierarchy of needs was introduced by Maslow in 1971. He named and put into a hierarchy five basic human needs, where the ones in the bottom of the pyramid (the usual way ...