Is The Power Of Reward Enough?

Reward power is referred to when talking about a leadership style that involves giving rewards for favorable work or results (Hughes et al., 1993). I have seen this firsthand working for a company that gave bonuses depending on how you performed. On top of that, I had a manager who would give additional rewards to encourage us to get things done by a certain time. The question is, was this enough? The answer is more complicated than giving just a yes or no answer. It can be enough in some ways but not in others. This may provoke the thought of what the pros and cons are of displaying reward power in leadership.

Stay tuned, I will get to the pros and cons, but you need to understand the workings of this job. We were held to specific standards at this workplace. This was a warehouse and I was in inbound operations. Our expectations were based on speed, accuracy, and percentage of time on task. Occasionally they would change what this structure was based on but this was generally what we were judged from. We had to scan into each task so they could attach that to everything that we did. Now we can get to the pros and cons.

Let us first start with the positives that may show up with reward power. While working at this job I know that almost everyone was always trying to figure out how they could get better at their jobs. We were constantly asking the employees excelling more how they were doing it. We wanted to get faster and more accurate. Along with having a desire to grow this also helped us all to work with more efficiency than I have seen at any other place I’ve worked. On top of that, our manager would offer random incentives like a team breakfast, or taking certain employees out to eat if we got something done faster than normal. This had the same effect. There were times we would unload 4 or 5 pallets of product into our backstock within a 15 or twenty-minute time frame. On top of unloading them, we also were required to cut the tape off every single box so the people picking the product could easily open the next one without stopping to cut it open. The boxes had to be organized into various places as well. We weren’t just throwing them all in one bay, and they weren’t organized on the pallet. This had similar effects as the statistics they tracked. We would get so much done. Another pro was that it could be fun to work this way, especially for the employees who were former athletes. There were so many opportunities to compete.

There were also downsides to having these rewards put in place. When it came to the statistics some people would bend the rules or flat out cheat to get better numbers so their bonus would be better. This wasn’t extremely common but it did happen occasionally, and it was usually pretty easy to figure out because the other departments wouldn’t be able to find stuff in its proper location. People would even avoid products that tended to make your stats look bad.  Due to stats being individual, there were times when it didn’t feel like we were on a team, but that we were constantly isolated rushing around this big warehouse. When it came to the incentives from our manager it was nice to be able to get extra perks when he would give them, but it gave a lot of us the feeling that the tasks and results were more important than people. Most of us felt that our manager was unapproachable and I don’t remember anyone having a good relationship with him. Reward paired with praise can help to create a better atmosphere (Hughes et al., 1993) but our leader lacked the praise part. Hughes (1993) and the others talk about how people show a lack of commitment to things that are extra and can better the organization. This was evident in some of our top performers. They would refuse most overtime and other extras even though they were the best at the job. The lack of commitment also led to our top performers departing for other jobs.

Looking at this specific example of reward leadership does it appear we can conclude whether or not reward leadership is effective? By itself, it doesn’t appear that it is enough. Sure, it will get results out of the employees. A lot of work will ultimately get done in a short amount of time. The problem is getting people to commit is not indicated by this form of leadership. This doesn’t give people a sense of community and puts an emotional distance between followers and leaders. If some referent power is mixed in order to have employees look out for the good of the leaders and the entire team (Hughes et al., 1993).

References:

Hughes, R. L., Ginnett, R. C., & Curphy, G. J. (1993). Leadership: Enhancing the lessons of experience. Irwin. 1993. 0256102783. Ch. 5. pp. 107-131.