Goal Setting Theory, Optimum Utilisation of Resources - Coursework Example

Goal Setting Theory Name: Institution: Date: Introduction Leadership is a vital attribute and trait imperative for organisations and society’s development. In this regard, it is imperative to develop leadership skills and traits. Theories and empirical studies such as that developed by Buble, Juras and Matić (2014) argued on the concept of leaderships development that focuses on the various management and leadership models and their implications on overall organisational employees motivations. In this case, the situational and contingency leadership theories argue that leadership traits and success is not an inborn trait but one that is developed and nurtured overtime. Therefore, the arguments concluded that it is imperative for leaders to manage and improve these traits. One of the strategic approaches through which leadership is developed and enhanced is through the setting up of goals and objectives. Goals setting are a regulatory performance evaluation through which individuals assess and evaluate the progress and success nature through which their traits and growth process is. Latham and Yukl (1975) stated that through such strategic approaches, individuals assess and proactively develop strategic measures to improve on their leadership skills as well as correct on evidenced shortcoming and negative traits and behaviours. Through this strategic approach, organizational behaviour and success is supported through increased motivation, performance and reduced conflicts. This literature review offers an evaluation of how goal setting in motivation and leadership development. Continuous Improvement As already discussed in this literature review, goal setting is a process through which individuals set benchmarks. In this regard, Tony Boland and (2000) on a focus of the public sector, evaluated the process of goals setting as a benchmark approach development. This was based on the review and theory that goal setting could be applied as a benchmark for leaders. The valuation analysis established that indeed it could be applied as a benchmark. In this regard, it argued that through goal setting, the direction and achievement needs were made clear. In this case, the evaluation concluded that leaders who had good strategic goals demonstrated increased leadership motivation and success. On one hand, as Lunenburg and Irby (2005) argued, goals setting include establishing a definite target to achieve within a specified and specific period of time. Through this approach, the leaders have laid down procedures for achieving such strategic goals. In this regard, the development of goals by the leaders allow for the establishment and development of operational strategies and practices. As such, these were described by Huhtala, Feldt, Hyvönen and Mauno (2013) on an evaluation of organizational cultures as the practices that are often shorter and that are achieved over a short period of time. In this regard, a majority of them are mutually exclusive in that the achievement of one leads to the emergence and start of the next. The most important aspect of the short term strategies is the motivation and the satisfaction gains from such practices. Therefore, through increased achievement of the short term practices, managers are motivated and energized to achieve the overall goals and strategies in the market. Therefore, through goals setting the leaders are instristically motivated and encouraged and supported to work hard in the long run, thus allowing for perfected leadership success. Based on this argument and as Tussie (2009) in reference to the Latin America leadership model argued, it is evident that through setting of goals and the subsequent short term strategies development, leaders acquire and derived increased motivation form the subsequent achievement of the strategies. In turn, this offers the leaders an opportunity to ultimately achieve their overall goals and organizational objectives through the process of continuous improvement. This theoretical process involved identifying strengths and developing on them through regular perfection of the strength traits overtime (Principi, Chiatti & Lamura, 2012). Therefore, through goals setting, individual leaders successfully apply the concept of continuous improvement that allows for strategic leadership traits development as well as the short term gains through short term achievements motivation, that fuel the pressure and energy for the leaders to set even higher goals as well as support their overall success in the long run. Optimum Utilisation of Resources Siddharthan, Ahern and Rosenman (2000) argued on the role of goals setting to increased leadership success through goals setting. In this regard, the evaluation argued that through increased goal setting, leaders in organisations become increasingly objective. As such, the evaluation argued that through increased goal setting, there was increased efficiency in resources use. This can be evidenced further by a research as developed by Abdalkrim (2013). Through this approach, the study argued that organisations with strategic goals setting exhibited increased financial discipline than peers without proper strategic planning in the market. Through these empirical findings, it is apparent that through goal setting there is increased efficiency in resources utilization. On one hand, the development of strategic goals and the argued practical operational short term goals has an implication and effect on resource planning and utilization. Through the development of the short term strategies, organisations and individual leaders have the opportunity to plan the required resources against the targeted goals and objective achievements. Therefore, as Rich (2010) argued, such organisations and leaders acquire the opportunity to apply the matching accounting principle. The principle is based on the concept of ensuring that revenues and expected gains are matched against the expenses. Through this approach, it is possible to conduct a successful evaluation of practices and processes. Thus, it ensures that any leadership practices and process whose costs and expenses exceed the gains are either revised or terminated and replaced with other operational functions. Theoretically, the process allows for increased application of the cost benefit operational model. The model as Iselin, Mia and Sands (2008) described, allows for increased organizational focus on organizational processes on leadership practices. Therefore, through the cost evaluation process, organisations and leaders have an opportunity to evaluate the resources and funds required to effect respective processes. On the other hand, a benefit analysis evaluates on the sequential gains that a given leadership and organizational process offers the management and the respective individuals. Therefore, through the development of such evaluations, the leaders are motivated and influenced to apply and seek for the required resources that support overall gains. Thus, this motivates the leaders and organisations the required and desired motivations to search and organize resources (Sporn, 2001). Moreover, in organisations, goals development promotes increased drive to the leaders and other organizational practices to share out resources. The allocation of operational timelines allows organisations and leaders to share out resources through allocating diverse and varied usage and utilization timelines, consequently reducing the overall costs of leadership and operations in organizations as well as harmony and coordination among organizational leaders (Andriopoulos, 2001). Performance Evaluation An additional merit and application of goals setting to overall leadership gains is through its application as a performance evaluation and performance assessment processes. As already discussed in this literature review, it is apparent that goals setting can be applied as evaluation measures. England (1967) in an evaluation of the American managers’ case study, argued on the development and use of goals in organizations as evaluation measures. In this case, the study illustrated that a majority of the organisations applied and used their goals as an evaluation measure. Therefore, through this approach, such practices are applied on two fronts. On one hand, is the evaluation of the goals as a benchmark. Under this approach, organizations apply and use the process of the set goals as a benchmark to assess performance. This is based on the use of expected and actual performances (Latham, Borgogni & Petitta, 2008). On one end, the set goals set the expectations of the overall processes within a specified period of time. However, as evidenced by a series of organizational practices, most of the expected targets are never met. Therefore, there is the use of actual gains over the stated period of time. In order to establish differences the expected goals are based against the actual gains. If the gains are in the excess of the expectations, it is evidenced that the goals were met beyond expectations that calls for the developing of new strategic goals that are increasingly challenging to the organization and leaders (Locke & Latham, 2002). Such achievements and the development of increasingly challenging goals serve as a motivation to the employees. Through such achievements and gains the respective leaders are motivated and influenced to expand their contribution in a bid to increase their success. However, if the actual performance is below the target gains, it is evident that such goals had not been achieved. The evaluations offer a review of the actual areas in which the leaders failed rather than capping the whole process as a failure. Therefore, as Lunenburg and Ornstein (2012) argued, through the establishment and revelation of the processes and instances through which the leaders’ process and goal attainment failure occurred, the leaders are able to identify their weak points and subsequently improve on them. Thus, this literature evaluation concludes that through increased goals setting and their subsequent application as an evaluation benchmarks, the leaders are motivated to perform further and influenced to improve on their specific weakness areas that are showcased and demonstrated by the various failures in the goals achievement process. Clarity in Decision Making An additional application of the goals setting practice in leadership motivation is through offering decision making clarity. Erez and Kanfer (1983) conducted a study evaluating the relationship between organisations decision making and strategic management application through planning and goals setting and their implications on employees. Further, the study evaluated on how such motivation can be influenced in various stages. In its hypothesis, the study argued that there existed a direct relationship between the two. Indeed, in its analysis, the evaluation established that organisations with the development of strategic goals acquired increased efficiency and quality of their decision making process than peers that did not apply the process. Therefore, the study recommended the application of goals and objectives setting as a measure for increased decision making clarity. This argument can be linked with the discussed literature on planning and allowance for operational short term goals development. As such, through the development of strategies, the overall organization communication is facilitated. Thus, all the organizational stakeholders both internal and external are conversant with the expectations and requirements of the organization over a given period of time. Therefore, this allows the respective shareholders the opportunity and mandate through which the organizational development is developed (Hollenbeck & Williams, 1987). Therefore, such a planning process and the subsequently developed clarity in communication and expectations literacy allow the various levels of an organization to develop logical and rational decisions. In this regard, the stakeholders have enough information on the direction and leadership expectation. Such information availability allows the various stakeholders to develop informed decisions supporting the process. Moreover, the approach offers a chance of inclusion and belongingness for all the stakeholders. Through information sharing and direction of course clarity, the various stakeholders acquire the sense of belongingness in that they feel as part of the process of leadership in their respective organisations. The eventual feeling of inclusion and involvement in the leadership process simultaneously promotes and increases the motivation and desire to improve performance by the various stakeholders. Consequently as Barton and Gerrard (2000) in a case study of Singaporean organisations described, such increased motivation plays a significant and pivotal role to enhancing overall leadership development and subsequently eventual success in the market. Therefore, this literature review concludes that through increased goals and objectives setting, organisations acquire the merits of increased participation, communication efficiency as well as the overall motivation by the leadership approaches in the organisations. Summary and Future Research A summary of the goal setting implications on leadership and motivation establishes that there exists a wide pool of literature on the topic. As such, the literature review successfully establishes that such a process has four key merits and positive implications such as continuous improvement, resources use efficiency, clarity in decision making and performance evaluation. A critical evaluation of each of the four practices through an empirical and theoretical literature evaluation for each reveals that indeed goals setting enhance increased leadership traits development, motivation among leaders and the eventual organizational success in the market. However, this evaluation and literature pool is apparently biased towards the evaluation and demonstration of the positive implications. Therefore, this literature review concludes that there is the need for future studies evaluation on the negative implications of goal setting on leadership and motivation. Although a large pool of theoretical arguments to support these criteria, a majority of the researchers have focused and concentrated on the positive implication. Therefore, this is identified by the review as the existing literature gap worth focus and covering into the future. References Abdalkrim, G. M. (2013). The impact of strategic planning activities on private sector organizations performance in Sudan: An empirical research. International Journal of Business and Management, 8(10), 134-143 Andriopoulos, C. (2001). Determinants of organizational creativity: A literature review. Management Decision, 39(10), 834-840 Barton. C., & Gerrard, P. (2000). Characteristics of well-performing organisations in Singapore. Singapore Management Review, 22(1), 35-64 Buble, M., Juras, A., & Matić, I. (2014). The relationship between managers’ leadership styles and motivation. Management-Journal of Contemporary Management Issues, (1), 161-193. England, G. W. (1967). Organizational goals and expected behaviour of American managers. Academy of Management Journal, 10(2), 107-117. Erez, M., & Kanfer, F. H. (1983). The role of goal acceptance in goal setting and task performance. Academy of Management Review, 8(3), 454-463. Hollenbeck, J. R., & Williams, C. R. (1987). Goal importance, self-focus, and the goal-setting process. Journal of Applied Psychology, 72(2), 204. Huhtala, M., Feldt, T., Hyvönen, K., & Mauno, S. (2013). Ethical organisational culture as a context for managers' personal work goals. Journal of Business Ethics, 114(2), 265-282 Iselin, E. R., Mia, L., & Sands, J. (2008). Multi-perspective strategic goal setting, performance reporting and organisational performance. Journal of Applied Accounting Research, 9(2), 76-96. Latham, G. P., & Yukl, G. A. (1975). A review of research on the application of goal setting in organizations. Academy of management journal, 18(4), 824-845. Latham, G. P., Borgogni, L., & Petitta, L. (2008). Goal setting and performance management in the public sector. International Public Management Journal, 11(4), 385-403. Locke, E. A., & Latham, G. P. (2002). Building a practically useful theory of goal setting and task motivation: A 35-year odyssey. American psychologist, 57(9), 705. Lunenburg, F. C., & Irby, B. J. (2005). The principalship: Vision to action. Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth. Lunenburg, F. C., & Ornstein, A. C. (2012). Educational administration: Concepts and practices Principi, A., Chiatti, C., & Lamura, G. (2012). Motivations of older volunteers in three European countries. International Journal of Manpower, 33(6), 704-722 Rich, J. S. (2010). Cornerstones of financial accounting: Current trends update. Australia: South-Western, Cengage Learning. Siddharthan, K., Ahern, M., & Rosenman, R. (2000). Data envelopment analysis to determine efficiencies of health maintenance organizations. Health Care Management Science, 3(1), 23-9 Sporn, B. (2001). Building adaptive universities: Emerging organisational forms based on experiences of European and US universities. Tertiary Education and Management, 7(2), 121 Tony Boland and, A. F. (2000). A systems perspective of performance management in public sector organisations. The International Journal of Public Sector Management, 13(5), 417-446. Tussie, D. (2009). Latin America: Contrasting motivations for regional projects. Review of International Studies, 35, 169-188 Read More