ESSAY: Article Review MAN4930

You will write an APA compliant paper focused on the topic of your “selected topic research paper.” This is not a product review, but a paper focused on a business topic or theme. You will locate three business related articles for this assignment. Once you have located your three articles, you will write up to a three page review of the articles, excluding front and rear matter. In the review, you will summarize, compare, and contrast the articles and draw conclusions and suggestions for effective leadership for the particular topic.

The suggested broad format for this paper is:

-Opening paragraph

-Body of the paper discussing the three articles in question (ensure you use headings in the paper to clearly identify these sections of the paper).

-The conclusion

-References

Your articles must be from a well-known, reputable source like the Wall Street Journal, Inc., Harvard Business Review, Fortune, Entrepreneur, Forbes, The New York Times, Business Week, Financial Times, Barron’s, or from one of the databases in the FSCJ online library, google scholar, etc….. The articles should have been published within the past 180 days and be comprised of the equivalent of two or more magazine pages. Be careful not to use a blog, wiki, website content or any unknown source for your article review or an article that is too short or doesn’t contain significant substance.

Your review should be primarily, more than 95%, original written work. Under no circumstance should you copy material from an article and represent it as your own work. If you need to quote from an article to make a point, be sure to comply with APA writing citation and reference standards.

The suggested narrow format of the paper is:

An opening paragraph that informs the reader that you intend to review.
The body of the paper: Compare, and contrast three articles. Tell the reader why you selected that particular topic and associated articles to review.
The overall purpose of each article. Restate in your own words.
What new ideas were communicated in the articles?
Were the conclusions valid?
What did you learn from reading the articles that is applicable to your learning and the course?
A conclusion paragraph that briefly informs the reader what you wrote about in your review and your overall findings.

ANSWER

A Review of Articles

Introduction

Leaders can influence their employees’ behavior. As such, employees who remain motivated become an essential component of the company as well as promote effective leadership. Motivation and leadership are collaborative in the sense that leaders can encourage their employees to achieve a common goal. The fundamental principle of effective leadership is to influence the relationship between followers and their leaders providing a more effective attitude towards achieving the organization’s ultimate goal. To this effect, this essay aims to review three articles on motivation and effective leadership from the Harvard Business Review. The main objective of the review is to summarize, compare and contrast the articles, and draw conclusions and suggestions.

Summary of the Articles

The first article “Burnout is about your workplace, not your people” by Jeniffer Moss (2019)talks about the issue of burnout in the workplace. To avoid burnout, employees need to realize the difference between hygiene factors and motivators- Herzberg’s motivation-hygiene theory (Moss, 2019). Motivators include things such as responsibility, challenging tasks, and decision making among others. Hygiene factors include salary, status, and security among others. The removal of the hygienic factors results in burnouts. To conclude, the author says that leaders should, therefore, have better data, ask relevant questions, smart budget, and encourage resilience (Moss, 2019). The overall purpose of this article was to explain the effects of burnout, its causes and how it can be avoided through effective leadership.

The second article “How to motivate your employees during crunchtime” by Rebecca Knight (2019) talks about how leaders can keep their employees well-motivated and enthusiastic, especially in high-pressure situations. She says that, as a leader, asking one’s team to perform more in high-pressure situations will lead to demotivation and loss of morale. As such it will be hard for them to keep individuals focused. The author’s purpose was to propose ways of ensuring employees are motivated in these scenarios. One of the ways is that managers should pay attention to employees, remain confident and calm (Knight, 2020). The other techniques of motivation according to Knight include projecting positive energy, showing empathy, subdividing complex projects into manageable chunks, provide autonomy, rewarding performance, and recognizing employees.

            The third article is titled “Why are we here” by Sally Blount and Paul Leinwand (2019). It talks about how modern age people want to work with organizations whose purpose is clearly defined.  They want companies whose philosophies and missions align with the employees’ intellect and emotions. The author says that most firms fail to live up to their purpose leading to generic mission statements that do not portray what drives the business. She asserts that a clearly defined statement serves two goals: motivating the employees and articulating strategic objectives. Employees become productive when they embrace the company’s purpose and are motivated to be more productive (Blount & Leinwand, 2019). Lacking an effective purpose statement that inspires confidence, makes employees lose direction overtime and may refrain from doing challenging work that fulfills the firm’s objectives.

Comparison and Contrast of the Articles

            The three articles differ in terms of the causes and solutions for demotivation. The first article suggests that the cause for lack of motivation is burnout-related stress where the company fails to address the employees’ concerns. It uses Herzberg’s motivation-hygiene theory to identify causes and solutions to motivation. The second article by Night (2019) suggests that lack of motivation is caused by high-pressure scenarios and the way that employees remain motivated is to pay attention to their employees. The third article says the lack of a clear purpose is the cause of demotivation. However, the articles are all similar since they all talk about effective leadership as a contributing factor to motivation.

Overall Purpose

The overall purpose of the first article was to explain the effects burnout, its causes and how it can be avoided through effective leadership. In the second article, the purpose was to propose different ways in which leaders will ensure their employees remain motivated in high-pressure situations. In the last article, the purpose was to examine how the lack of a powerful mission statement may lead to demotivation and employees’ loss of morale.

New Ideas

The first article articulates the meaning of the burnout as one of the major contributing factors to demotivation. It clearly states that burnout exists in most organizations and they have no idea of how to handle it. The second article by Night (2019) provides new ways of ensuring employees stay motivated during crunch times or high-pressure situations. It brings out new concepts of emotional intelligence: empathy and employee recognition as ways of handling demotivation and loss of morale. Finally, the third article introduces the concept of purpose as a way of motivating the company and retaining customers. These new ideas offer insights into new ways of leadership styles of managing motivation.

Validity of conclusions

The conclusion is valid and justified by the use of supporting evidence from theories, experts and current research. For example, the first article uses Herzberg’s motivation-hygiene theory that explains the determinants of motivation. The second article uses a case study as well as expert opinions to validate the claims. The third one also makes use of expert opinions and research from other scholars.

Conclusion

Leaders have significant influence over their employees’ behaviors. Therefore, happy employees become an essential asset to an organization and its leadership. The main goal of effective leadership is to influence the relationship between followers and leaders providing a more effective attitude towards achieving an organizations’ ultimate goals and targets. Burnout, high-pressure situations, and lack of a powerful purpose are the causes of demotivation. As such, leaders should pay more attention to their employees’ needs and employ emotional intelligence skills to encourage and maintain motivation….