Abstract

Leadership is one of the most integral and valued aspects of business today. Furthermore, one of the major qualities of a great leader is the ability to motivate subordinates to work more effectively and ultimately achieve higher performance. In order to try to understand how leadership affects motivation in the workplace, this research explored the relationships between leadership styles and motivation types. A web survey was conducted. Twenty-two managers from different companies in varying industries completed a leader self-report questionnaire, while their subordinates completed a questionnaire that rated leadership style and subordinate motivation. It was found that there were some relationships between specific leadership styles and motivation types. Transformational leadership was found to be significantly and positively related to autonomous motivation. Active management-by-exception was significantly, negatively related to autonomous motivation and marginally significantly, positively related to controlled motivation. The research findings are compared with previous findings in the literature and contributions of this research are discussed. Limitations and future directions for research in this area are also discussed.