A recent article in Talent Management references a study that challenge is the key motivator for executives and managers. Executives are motivated more by challenge than managers by almost 30 percentile points. And even more interesting was the difference in employee motivators between large and small companies. Pride in ones job was a motivator for 77% of all employees in companies with less than 1000 employees while in larger companies pride impacted only 43% of employees. http://bit.ly/V1PrH .
This information got me thinking about the implications it has on a company’s leadership development practices.
If the research is true and there is such a wide difference between executives and managers motivated by challenge, when evaluating managers for future executive roles, should you be identifying those who are motivated by challenge? And if so how would you go about evaluating a manager’s motivations?
I also wonder about the word “challenge”. What is one person’s challenge is another person’s nightmare and thus a recipe for stress and potential failure. As a leader, how do you know when you are challenging a person versus creating stress and negative implications on an employee?
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