A Case Study and Analysis of Leadership Styles, Leader’s

Personality Traits and Employees’ Motivation in CellLife.

Name: Calvin Tan Chun Seong

Student ID: 20200038
Lecturer: Dr Zubair Hassan
Module: MBC 713 Organizational Behaviour

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 Table of Contents Page No.
1.0 Introduction 3
2.0 Company Background 3
3.0 Problem Statement 3
4.0 Comparison of Autocratic and Transformational Leadership Style 4
4.1 Autocratic Leadership by Mark in the Commercial Department 5
4.2 Transformational Leadership by Zain in the Operations 7
Department
5.0 Comparison of Autocratic and Transformational Leaderships based 8
on FFM of Personality
6.0 ERG Motivation Theory 10
6.1 Satisfactory Existence needs 11
6.2 Absence of Relatedness needs 12
6.3 Lack of Growth needs 12
7.0 Conclusion and Recommendation 13
7.1 Recommendation to adopt Transformational Leadership in the 13
Commercial Department
7.2 Recommended Personality Traits for Mark to improve Employees’ 14
Motivation
8.0 References 16

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A Case Study and Analysis of Leadership Styles, Leader’s Personality Traits and
Employees’ Motivation in CellLife.

1.0 Introduction

The purpose of this assignment is to analyse the relevance of Organizational Behaviour

(OB) to the different leadership styles adopted by the Head of Departments in the
Commercial and Operations Departments, leader’s personality traits and the outcome of
employees’ motivation. We will discuss the OB concepts and conclude by recommending the
types of leadership style that is suitable for the organization and ways to motivate its
employees based on ERG Motivation Theory and Five-Factor Model (FFM) of Personality.

As this assignment requires analysis on the company I am familiar with, the information
discussed will be based on my 3 years stint with the organization. To protect the company’s
privacy, we will refer to the company as CellLife.

2.0 Company Background

Incorporated in 2003, CellLife’s core business is to process and store baby’s stem cells from
cord blood and cord lining which can be used for the treatment of blood-related cancer such
as Leukemia and Lymphoma. CellLife has also expanded its service to non-invasive
metabolic screening to detect inborn metabolism error.

CellLife has 150 workforces with the 2 largest departments being the Commercial and
Operations. The former consist of 2 subdivisions - Sales and Marketing while the latter
consist of 4 subdivisions - Laboratory, Logistics, Customer Service and IT. The remaining
departments are Finance, Compliance and Human Resource.

However, for 3 years in a row, CellLife faced operating losses due to the decline in sales and
lack of new products.

3.0 Problem Statement

At its peak, CellLife enjoyed average monthly sales of 1,500 signups for both cord blood and
cord lining storage. However, in the early 2010s, CellLife’s sales started to decline on
average 15% per year and in 2019, average sales dipped to 90 signups per month.

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Numerous challenges contributed to CellLife’s poor sales performance, the main one being
employees’ demotivation in the Commercial Department caused by the inappropriate
adoption of leadership style. This led to a high staff turnover in the Commercial Department
and the constant recruitment of new staffs with less working and industry experience.
Additionally, the Commercial’s team lack of opportunity to explore new ideas has resulted in
the team doing what is required without going the extra distance for the company. From my
observation, there is a lack of team cohesion within the Commercial Department which has
resulted in the projects being poorly executed and ultimately affecting the sales.

4.0 Comparison of Autocratic and Transformational Leadership Style

Researchers suggest that a leader's style may affect the culture of the organization and the
leader is the creator of an organizational culture that represents his or her personal values
and beliefs (Bass, 1998)i; (Schein, 2010)ii. Bass suggests that culture affects leadership as
much as culture is influenced by leadership.

There are 2 distinctive Leadership Styles within CellLife; Autocratic Leadership style that is
adopted by Mark, Head of Commercial Department while Zain, Head of Operations
Department, adopted the Transformational Leadership style. Table 1 compares the
characteristics of Autocratic and Transformational Leadership Styles adopted by Mark and
Zain, respectively.

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Table 1: Characteristics of Autocratic and Transformational Leadership Styles

Mark Zain
Leadership Style Autocratic Transformational
Clearly defined instructions and Seek the highest standards of
Role of Leader
performance standards excellence
Leader’s concern
Little High
for others
Power distance
High Low
from Employees
Leader’s
decision- making Unilateral Shared decision making by persuasion
style
Employees are incapable of
Employees’ Employees work alongside with the
performing tasks themselves and
motivation leader and are highly motivated
are moderately motivated
Focus on None as leader emphasizes
Moderately high as leader focus on the
Employees’ employees to follow instructions
development of employees’ competence
growth only
Source: Hassan et al, 2016iii

The section below will discuss the outcome of Autocratic and Transformational Leaderships
in both Departments.

4.1 Autocratic Leadership by Mark in the Commercial Department

According to (Vasilev et al, 2016)iv, Autocratic Leaders rarely seek input from their
employees, exert unilateral decision and dictate all work methods and processes for the
organization. In extreme cases, an Autocratic leader applies the command-and-control
approach in a highly centralized organization where the leader expects discipline from the
employees, direct command and strict punishment to achieve the organization’s goals.
Additionally, an Autocratic Leader does not trust the group members with decisions and
important tasks. Vasilev added that command-and-control leaders exert absolute power and
control whereby they portray themselves as figures of authority and high status. The top-
down approach draws a strict hierarchy that separates the top management and the
workers.

The characteristics of an Autocratic Leadership matches that to Mark when heading the
Commercial Department. He exhibits high power distance and authority over his
subordinates. For instance, Mark strongly insisted to invite a Genetic Specialist as the Key
Opinion Leader to CellLife’s event in view of getting more sales. Though the Commercial

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team knew that the Specialist will not vouch for CellLife’s products but instead use the event
as a promotional tool for his services, the employees did not voice out their concerns as they
know their voices will not be heard and did as instructed. In the end, the result of the event
was not as expected. The high power distance has resulted in the team building a mentality
of inability to engage in decisions over time (Kathri, 2009) v where the team relies heavily on
Mark’s final decision as they are afraid to take up responsibility (Kallu Dolly et al, 2018) vi.
Furthermore, (Wang and Guan, 2018)vii argued that the greater the degree of authority of
leaders over their subordinates in an Autocratic Leader, the greater the power distance. (Gu
et al, 2018)viii stressed that this caused the employees to be demotivated as their creativity
for innovation will be hampered, resulting in them doing only what is required as their voices
are not heard.

Besides, Mark decides on the Marketing Strategy without taking into consideration his
subordinates’ view. For instance, he decided to spend 40% of the annual marketing budget
into a campaign despite the Marketing Manager’s advice that this will cause overspending
and if the campaign did not generate results, it will erode CellLife’s profit. Mark dismissed the
feedback and proceeded with the spending but in the end, the campaign did not generate
the results he expected. Consequently, Mark began pressuring the Sales Personnel to
deliver the sales target and has caused dissatisfaction and conflicts between the Marketing
and Sales team. Mark underestimates the talents of the Managers reporting to him and
decides matters himself as “I know better than you” (Kececi, 2017) ix. This is further
strengthened by (Dolly et al, 2018)x, whereby Autocratic leaders make decisions without the
consent of team members and when results are not as expected, the subordinates will be
punished which consequently leads to job dissatisfaction among the employees.

Mark uses the political behaviour of divide-and-rule strategy by allowing his Managers and
Sales Personnel to compete with each other to accomplish the department’s objectives while
trying to maintain his power. (Liu and Wang, 2015)xi explained Autocratic Leaders that adopt
the divide-and-rule strategy will not allow his members to know any of his plans to avoid
them having the power control. Mark communicated selectively to Managers and
subordinates on his department’s projects and information was withheld from the rest. This
has caused confusion and mistrust within the team and demoralizes the subordinates that
were left out (Spier et al, 2009) xii. Consequently, the Commercial team lacks collaboration
and fails to remain united as a team, limiting the capabilities of employees to help the team
to achieve the company’s goal (Case et al, 2014)xiii.

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(Krasikova et al, 2013)xiv stated that Autocratic Leaders will exhibit destructive leadership
which includes being abusive if the subordinates disagree with the leader’s decision or lack
of subordinate support for goals valued by the leader as a form of punishment. In this
aspect, Mark displays destructive leadership behaviour whereby he practices favouritism
within the department and isolates Sales Personnel who are against his decision and not in
his favour. This led them to be assigned to areas with fewer sales potential and given a
lower sales budget. Mark’s favouritism has negatively impacted the Sales Personnel’s sense
of belonging in the Commercial Department (Estiri et al, 2018) xv, causing job dissatisfaction
and high staff turnover (Arasli et al, 2008) xvi. The employees’ counterproductive behaviour is
influenced by the supervisor’s interactional injustice of an Autocratic Leadership that are
narcissist (Aryee et al, 2007)xvii; (Burns, 2017)xviii.

4.2 Transformational Leadership by Zain in the Operations Department

Transformational leadership consist of 4 dimensions which are Idealized Influence where the
leader’s behaviour is shown as an ideal role model to the subordinates by displaying strong
work commitment and drive to achieve the organization’s vision and mission; Individualized
consideration by treating subordinates as individuals, extending care and personal
consideration; Inspirational Motivation by instilling pride in being associated with the leader
and/or the team; and Intellectual Stimulation by seeking different viewpoints when
addressing problems (Williams Jr et al, 2018)xix.

These Transformational Leadership traits are seen through Zain’s leadership style when
heading the Operations Department. He helped his team to see the organization’s objectives
from a bigger perspective by practising Idealized Influence while maintaining high standards.
For example, Zain always gets to work earlier than his team and focuses on getting his work
done before the day end. This action influences his staffs to see him as a role model such as
the Customer Service team completing and addressing the customers’ concerns on the day
itself. According to (Jiang et al, 2017)xx, Idealized Influence is where the Supervisor
generates trust from his employees and in return will create a positive influence on
employees’ behaviour to take initiatives to follow him.

Zain goes beyond leading by example and he believes in motivating his staffs to be creative
and encourages teamwork. He uses Intellectual Stimulation to inspire his employees to
innovate and challenge themselves. For instance, CellLife laboratory ran out of space in the
Cryopreservation tank to store the stem cells. Instead of purchasing a new Cryopreservation
tank which is expensive, Zain involved his team members from the laboratory and customer

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service team to find a solution together. He constantly sought their advice and helped to
define and overcome the problems by giving clear priorities and guidelines to the team.
Finally, his team decided to restack all the stem cell vials and accomplished it within the
stipulated deadline. Therefore, we can observe that Intellectual Stimulation behaviour of Zain
had a positive influence on the team’s participation in group activities and the team is willing
to help each other (Jiang et al, 2017).

Zain inspires and motivates his team by recognizing their strengths and weaknesses. For
instance, CellLife was trying to obtain the American Association of Blood Banks (AABB)
accreditation. He set up a task team based on their strengths from various departments to
ensure that all sub-divisions under the Operations Department meets all the documentation
and process required. He constantly follows up with the task team to ensure all requirements
are executed in order and CellLife successfully obtained the AABB accreditation, even
exceeding AABB’s minimum requirements. Zain gave recognition of the success to the task
team for their efforts. Zain Inspirationally Motivate his staffs to achieve more than expected
and foster the acceptance and cooperation among the individuals in the task team
(Steinmann et al, 2018)xxi.

Individual Considerations such as concerns and limitations of individuals are also an aspect
where Zain practices. For example, when CellLife entered the Brunei market, the Logistic
team raised their concern on their difficulty to fly into Brunei to collect the stem cells due to
the distance and the availability of manpower. Zain addressed the concern by partnering
with Royal Brunei Airlines to have the stem cells shipped to Kuala Lumpur. By Zain taking
Individual Consideration in his logistic team, it has influenced his team positively to have
initiative behaviour and productivity where they work among themselves and collaborated
with the Laboratory department to ensure the stem cell’s safe shipment (Chibon et al,
2019)xxii.

5.0 Comparison of Autocratic and Transformational Leaderships based on FFM of

Personality

In this section, we will analyse the personality traits of Mark and Zain to their leadership
style. FFM suggest that five basic factors describe most personality traits: Neuroticism,
Openness to Experience, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness and it has
been used in numerous settings such as organizational and other applied research (e.g.
Barrick and Mount, 1991xxiii; Hurtz and Donovan, 2000xxiv; Judge et al., 2002xxv). Table 2
compares the five personality traits of Mark and Zain.

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 Table 2: Comparison of Mark and Zain’s Personality Traits

FFM of Personality
Openness
Leadership to
Leaders style Extraversion Conscientiousness Agreeableness Neuroticism Experience
Somewhat
Mark Autocratic Very high Somewhat high Low high Low
Somewhat Somewhat Somewhat
Zain Transformational high Moderate Somewhat high low high

Mark exhibits a very high extraversion whereby he is outgoing, very assertive and socially
dominant (Bozionelos, 2004)xxvi. He enjoys meeting the doctors in the hospital and bringing
them out for lunch to build positive relationships. Mark’s high assertiveness and socially
dominant is in correlation with his autocratic leadership style (Jiang et al, 2017) xxvii. In this
aspect, Mark always makes a unilateral decision and will not compromise due to his high
preference for hierarchy and dominates his subordinates.

Mark displays somewhat high conscientiousness whereby he is goal-oriented, persistent and

dependable. Mark highly concentrates on achieving the company’s sales target by pushing
the team to achieve it at all cost. Studies have shown that high conscientiousness can be
beneficial such as increased performance (Judge et al., 2013)xxviii and the use of more
efficient managing strategies (Carver and Connor-Smith, 2010)xxix. However, studies have
shown that managers with high conscientiousness that are strong in goal orientation have a
tendency for micro-managing and hard to please (Judge and Long, 2012)xxx.

Mark exhibits high Neuroticism whereby he is anxious and occasionally having disruptive
emotions when his team fails to achieve the sales target. These negative emotions are
correlated with instances of abusive supervision (Hoobler and Hu, 2013) xxxi and therefore,
employees find Mark engages in abusive-supervision due to performance-driven motives
(Liu et al., 2012)xxxii. Mark has low agreeableness and openness to experience as he is not
receptive towards new ideas and he feels his ideas are better than the team. Additionally, he
is less tolerant of employees who challenges his ideas or decisions. The low openness has
resulted in low creativity within his team as they are not given the opportunity to explore new
ideas (Xu et al, 2014)xxxiii. This has caused high staff turnover in the Commercial Department.

Conversely, Zain has somewhat high extraversion. Being emotionally expressive, he is

charismatic where he employs rhetoric to persuade, influence and mobilizes others (Gardner
and Avolio, 1998)xxxiv. He is socially dominant where he takes initiative in social settings

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through stimulating social interaction (House and Howell, 1992)xxxv. Zain is moderately
conscientious and somewhat low neuroticism whereby he is goal-driven yet calm and he
does not micro-manage his people by ensuring all tasks are properly planned, directed and
communicated to minimize mistakes.

Zain influences, persuades and mobilizes his team during critical events such as during the
collection of cord blood for mothers that deliver their babies before the expected due date.
His team will go the extra mile and reschedule their plans to cater to such ad hoc events.
Therefore, his adaptable approach has led to his teams’ greater shared satisfaction with him
(Harris et al, 2018)xxxvi. Zain exhibits somewhat high in agreeableness and openness to
experience which he frequently engages in group discussion and is open to new ideas that
would benefit the organization and team. He cares about his team by ensuring no biasness
in workload and responsibilities are equally shared. Therefore, Zain is less generalized and
prejudiced towards ideas and his staffs (Ekehammar and Akrami, 2003) xxxvii; (Sibley and
Duckitt, 2008)xxxviii.

6.0 ERG Motivation Theory

Based on the findings above, we will look into areas where the Commercial team’s
motivation are affected using the ERG Motivation theory. (Oledgi et al, 2016)xxxix argues that
leadership styles have a significant influence on job embeddedness among employees and
(Zhang et al, 2020)xl stresses that motivated employees are embedded in their jobs because
they fit and link with the organization.

ERG Motivation theory condenses Maslow’s five human needs into three broad categories
which are existence, relatedness, and growth (Dostert, 2020) xli. Existence can be described
as basic physiological and safety needs which includes salary, fringe benefits and safety.
Relatedness is people's desires for relationships with significant others such as co-workers
and employers and it can be characterised by a shared exchange of thoughts and feelings.
This involves being accepted and feeling safe as part of an organisation and it must be
mutually satisfied. The Growth needs is the internal esteem and self-actualization which is
the person's desire to have creative and productive effects on himself and his environment
such as to progress toward one's ideal self (Schneider & Alderfer, 1973)xlii. Schneider and
Alderfer added that a person can be motivated at the same time by multiple levels of need
and their priorities can change over time. Figure 1 shows a comparison between ERG’s and
Maslow’s category.

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Figure 1: Maslow vs ERG Theory

Source: Niloofar, 2020xliii

6.1 Satisfactory Existence needs

CellLife employees' Existence needs are met whereby employees are paid according to the
market rates based on their skills and position. All employees receive their monthly salary on
time, yearly bonus, monetary allowances, and benefits such as dental, medical and optical
according to job grade and role. For example, Sales Personnel receives petrol, car
allowances and monthly commissions. For office staffs, they receive parking subsidies while
Managers enjoys free parking. CellLife emphasizes on the safety of their employees and
continuously enhance its working conditions. Therefore, the Existence needs of CellLife
employees are met.

However, despite CellLife offering a competitive salary and fringe benefits, employees are
still not motivated which resulted in the high staff turnover and job dissatisfaction, especially
in the Commercial Department. According to (Kulchmanov and Kaliannan, 2014) xliv, though
money or fringe benefits can be a strong motivation for employees, it only satisfies intrinsic
and basic needs and could not motivate employees to achieve a higher level of their needs
and increase their productivity. Kulchmanov and Kaliannan stressed that non-financial
factors such as job security, internal relationships and transparency are also an important
motivation factor that needs to be addressed. Therefore, monetary and fringe benefits are
not the main motivating factor for CellLife’s employees but instead, the presence of job

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resources such as supervisors’ and co-workers’ support are vital features of the workplace
and also to improve their work engagement (Kulikowski and Sedlak, 2017)xlv.

6.2 Absence of Relatedness needs

The need for Relatedness within the Commercial Department is void as they are unable to
give their opinions due to Mark’s Autocratic leadership, lack of openness to experience and
low agreeableness. Thus, this has demotivated the team’s morale as they felt that their
voices are not heard and is unable to share their thoughts, ideas and feelings. According to
(Shafizal Mat et al, 2017)xlvi, to satisfy his/her relatedness needs is based on the satisfaction
of the sharing process or empathy by expressing their opinions and feelings when working in
a team.

Mark’s high goal-orientation and high neuroticism had compromised the Commercial team’s
well-being resulting in the team having lower self-esteem due to his lack of understanding of
his team’s welfare (Parent-Lamarche and Marchand, 2019) xlvii; (Anglim and Grant, 2016)xlviii.
Additionally, Mark’s divide-and-rule strategy has caused disharmony and there is a lack of
sense of belonging within the team (Gopinath, 2011) xlix. Without a sense of belonging, the
Commercial team felt demotivated and (Hofstede, 1980) l asserts that individuals place
importance on maintaining harmony in the group to which they belong.

6.3 Lack of Growth needs

The team in the Commercial Department lacks the Growth needs as employees do not find
job satisfaction and there is no proper avenue for them to contribute their ideas on ways to
increase sales. Mark’s low openness to experience has caused the team to do what they are
required only and is not willing to explore new ideas on increasing sales for fear of failure as
leaders can influence the employees' Innovative Work Behaviour (Javed et al, 2018) li. This
resulted in the team doing the same thing without putting their skills to the fullest potential.
According to (Arnolds and Boshoff, 2002)lii, Mark will need to provide the opportunity for
creativity, self-fulfilment, advancement and autonomy for their employees to execute their
work for employees to satisfy their Growth needs. Arnolds added that coaching employees
to do new things on the job, harnessing their abilities, allowing them to make decisions and
providing opportunities to do challenging things at work, will not only meet their growth
needs but also enhance their self-esteem and consequently their performance intentions.

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Mark’s Autocratic leadership whereby he decides unilaterally hampers the employees' need
for self-actualization. According to (El-Zayaty, 2018)liii, leaders that provide autonomy,
personal freedom and the ability for their employees to make choices will see them
achieving self-actualization.

7.0 Conclusion and Recommendation

The main purpose of this case study is to analyse the characteristics of Autocratic and
Transformational leadership styles, personality traits and employees’ motivation. Below are 3
key findings:

 In a short-term project where time is a crucial factor, Autocratic Leadership is useful

as it helps to perform tasks effectively, solve identified problems and meeting
deadlines (Sauer, 2011)liv; (Cunningham et al, 2015)lv. Unfortunately, highly
Autocratic Leadership is not an effective way to increase employees’ engagement
(Zhao et al, 2019)lvi and innovative work behaviour (Zhang et al, 2011) lvii to work
towards organizational success. Hence, Transformational Leadership can motivate
employees better than Autocratic Leadership over a long-term period
lviii
(NawoseIng’ollan, 2017) .

 We concur with (Simick et al, 2017)lix that leadership styles are influenced by the
manager’s personality traits. (Hogan et al 1994)lx added that there are no universal
personality traits that predict leadership effectiveness in all circumstances. However,
some circumstances and organizational environments require specific personality
traits and leadership styles according to the employees’ expectations of the leader.
Therefore, we agree with Hogan that certain personality traits are positively related to
the leader’s effectiveness and team performance.

 From our analysis using the ERG Theory, we find that CellLife employees’ motivation
is beyond monetary rewards as the employees are motivated by Relatedness and
Growth needs. Therefore, a leader’s personality plays an important role in influencing
an employee’s job performance and motivation (Mihalcea, 2013)lxi.

7.1 Recommendation to adopt Transformational Leadership in the Commercial

Department

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Mark should adopt the Transformational Leadership style as it stresses on the significance of
building a vision and atmosphere for a leader that motivates subordinates to succeed
beyond their expectations (Robbins, 2013)lxii. According to (Garcia-Morales et al, 2012)lxiii, by
Mark adopting the Transformational Leadership, it promotes innovation within his
department and thus improves his team’s performance as there are collective decisions,
collective goals, and the generation of capabilities which will prevent the department from
being stagnant through continuous learning.

Additionally, the Commercial team's trust in Mark will be developed further when they find
that Mark is caring, helpful and fulfils his promises as Mark focuses on teamwork which
develops a culture where communication is open and innovation is highly laudable (Li et al,
2019)lxiv which can contribute positively to CellLife’s success. This is depicted in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Transformational Leadership influences employees’ innovative work behaviour

Source: Li et al, 2019

7.2 Recommended Personality Traits for Mark to improve Employees’ Motivation

From the analysis of the different personality traits between Mark and Zain, we will
recommend ways to motivate its employees based on ERG Motivation Theory and FFM of
Personality.

Extraversion has the potential to motivate the employees because of the out-going,
assertive, dominant and active personality. However, a very high extraversion can be a
demotivating factor. (Hu et al, 2019) lxv stressed that employees do not like leaders that are
too assertive as it tends to be pushy and leaders that are too warm can be overwhelming for
others who feel pressured to respond in the same enthusiastic way. Hu recommended that a
moderate amount of assertiveness and warmth may be optimal. Therefore, Mark has to tone

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down his high assertiveness, domineering traits and enthusiasm by giving his team more
autonomy to explore new ideas and harnessing their full potential to meet their Growth
needs.

Conscientiousness can motivate employees because the leader is goal-oriented, persistent

and dependable as employees are working with a direction. However, Mark has to adopt a
moderate level of conscientiousness as extreme conscientiousness promotes rigidity that is
maladaptive (Peterson et al, 2003)lxvi.

As Mark exhibits high neuroticism, Mark must control his emotions and collectively work
together with his team to achieve the sales target. According to (Hogan et al, 1994) lx, leaders
who are having emotional instability are more likely to be perceived as weak leaders.
Additionally, for the team members to achieve their Relatedness needs, Mark must work
towards low neuroticism as high neuroticism will tend to have less cohesiveness among
team members and creates high conflict (Barrick et al, 1998) lxvii. Mark should promote a
sense of belonging and build relationship within the department whereby employees can
share ideas, thoughts and feelings openly without fear of being ridiculed or turned down.
This enables the team to be engaged at work by cooperating to achieve the organization’s
sales target and at the same time increase the team’s retention rate (Osborne and
Hammoud, 2017)lxviii.

Mark should adopt higher agreeableness whereby he acknowledges his team’s struggle by
showing care and tolerance. With that, Mark will be able to work with his team collaboratively
to overcome hurdles in achieving the team’s goal. According to (Youshan and Hassan,
2015)lxix, individuals that have high agreeableness tend to resolve problems through
cooperation and avoids conflict by placing the organization’s benefit as a priority.
Furthermore, Mark should adopt a higher level of openness to new ideas and inputs from his
team. In this aspect, Mark has to have the ability to take the risk to try new ideas and in
return, this will motivate his employees (Dewett, 2007)lxx. This allows his team members to
meet their self-actualization needs when empowerment and autonomy are given to carry out
the task and self-esteem needs when the tasks that are successfully implemented are
recognized and appreciated (Alajmi et al, 2018)lxxi.

Employee motivation is crucial to an organization's success which can be accomplished

through transformational leadership (Hautala, 2006)lxxii. With that, employees are more
willing to interact with their leaders because of the leader’s personality and their kind,
motivated attitude. Therefore, it is imperative for leaders to understand employees’ needs, to

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propose clear visions and provide a platform for creativity for employees to make their best
effort for the organization and to accomplish their own goals. This in return motivates the
employees to achieve organizational missions, which play a pivotal role to enhance the
organizational performance (Aunjum et al, 2017)lxxiii.

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i
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