Motivation, Emotions, and Leadership

Leadership is motivation and motivation is leadership, say the authors of this important and unique study. The two elements are inseparable, but until now no one has actually conceptualized motivation in a useful way to demonstrate and analyze the connection between it and leadership. The key for leaders is dealing with the emotions that underlie and activate motivation. Maddock and Fulton provide a highly successful, proven, and replicable approach not only to motivate people, but also to train them to lead others. The authors develop an 11 level structure of human motivation that defines and describes motivation in simple, graphic, all-inclusive language. They then show how leaders can use this motivational hierarchy to solve complex problems in the workplace. The result is a blueprint to help executives in all types of organizations manage more effectively, and as they do so, to motivate and truly lead the people who depend on them for guidance and direction. Maddock and Fulton offer several scenarios to show how their ideas work in practice. In the vertical fix they demonstrate how motives that get out of synch with each other can be re-aligned, eliminating the chaos that would otherwise occur. In the lateral fix they show how a person who may be functioning at the extreme edge of motivation can be moved back toward the center, a place where the person's effect on others is most and best felt. Well documented throughout, their book will be important reading for training and development professionals, specialists in organizational behavior, and executives at all levels in public and private sectors.