Exploring the Influence of Manager Credibility on Employee Motivation in Strategic Alignment (Essay Sample)

Exploring the Influence of Manager Credibility on Employee Motivation in Strategic Alignment Author Affiliation Tutor Date Exploring the Influence of Manager Credibility on Employee Motivation in Strategic Alignment Introduction Conventionally, effective management is essential to a company's success, particularly when managing people and resources in a way that fosters high-caliber motivation. The right motivation of employees is crucial since each employee has a share that influences competitiveness and productivity. The appropriate management of the assigned space ensures a better result for the company, its sustainability, and the satisfaction of its adjacent workforce, which encourages and pushes employees to achieve greater standards. Workers who believe their bosses are unreliable may become less motivated, resulting in lower output, higher employee turnover, and possibly even an unhealthy working atmosphere (Lees & Dhanpat, 2021). In this sense, organizations struggle to implement efficient management techniques without a clear understanding of how leaders' credibility affects worker motivation, which impedes worker efforts from aligning with company goals and may make them less competitive in the marketplace. Manager Credibility Establishing genuine trust, honesty, and reliability is a quality that every manager should have in the workplace. In this regard, the ability of managers to foster connections and interactions with staff members that motivate and psychologically align them with organizational objectives constitutes manager credibility (Lees & Dhanpat, 2021). According to Kubicek and Cockram (2019), a manager's credibility can also be defined as their capacity to foster relationships and workplace consensus, motivating staff members to exert voluntary effort. Managerial credibility is built gradually via stability and is characterised by an individual's proficiency, coherence, and reliability. Employee Motivation The degree of dedication, ambition, and ingenuity that team members bring to work each day is what motivates them as employees. According to Vavra et al. (2021), employee motivation is a methodical process in which managers continually foster their staff members' intrinsic motivation by discovering and implementing strategies, methods, and initiatives that support employees in achieving their objectives. This is the primary element that links the organization's objectives and tactics, according to Gheta (2018). In this context, Gavrilyuk et al. (2020) noted that employee motivation reflects a sort of desire on their behalf to carry out the assigned tasks, realize the company's strategic goals, and achieve the necessary performance. It is crucial to test many incentive techniques on staff members before implementing the one that most effectively alters their behavior at work. Strategic Alignment Strategic alignment emphasizes the organization's focus on understanding and managing the elements that make up its workplace. The practice of coordinating corporate strategy with threats and possibilities from the outside as well as internal advantages is known as strategic alignment (Lees & Dhanpat, 2021). The core thesis is that a company's capacity to effectively balance its tactics within its socioeconomic context has a substantial impact on performance (Ghonim et al., 2020). Consequently, public and private companies function within specific environments by combining organizational resources, technology capabilities, tactics, and operations. McAdam et al. (2019) state that strategic alignment changes with time. It is thus described as the fluid method of ushering about adaptability to uncertainties and environmental changes. Theoretical Framework The theoretical framework includes a narrative explanation of how the researchers apply hypotheses and underlying presumptions to the topic of interest. In this context, employee opinions of their managers' competency, dependability, communication abilities, and ethical behavior determine their credibility (Williams Jr et al., 2023). Motivation reflects the forces that propel employees to attain their goals. It could be intrinsic, stemming from a genuine interest in the duties, or extrinsic, driven by the desire to circumvent penalties or receive rewards from outside sources (Lees & Dhanpat, 2021). Strategic alignment, which guarantees that staff activities are in accordance with company goals, is a sign of the alignment of individual and organisational ambitions. The leadership style of a manager reveals how they respond to team administration and can also act as a moderator in the relationships between strategy alignment, manager credibility, and employee motivation (Ateş et al., 2020). These authors' theory takes into account different dimensions, including the formalized planning process, administrative competence, strategic consensus, participation of people, and middle-level involvement, to define strategic alignment. A literature review indicates a strong relationship between management credibility, motivation, and strategy alignment, with manager credibility having a major impact on both (see Figure 1). Interestingly, the relationship between manager motivation and credibility is positively mediated by strategic alignment (Lees & Dhanpat, 2021). Leadership's ability to impact team performance depends on how well it synchronizes with higher-level strategic direction (Ateş et al., 2020), highlighting the significance of matching management approaches with organizational strategies. Managers can build credibility by showcasing their abilities and moral qualities (Williams Jr et al., 2023). Subsequently, the conceptual framework incorporates the following essential components: manager credibility, which includes competence, dependability, ethics, and communication; and strategic alignment, which guarantees that employee actions and organizational goals are in line. Figure 1. A conceptual framework Profit‐Maximizing and Competition‐Based Theory The premise behind the theories of profit-maximizing and competition-based business organizations is that their main objectives should be to maximize their long-term earnings and create a sustainable competitive advantage over their competitors in outside markets. This theory revolves around the notion that a company's exterior marketplace position is essential to attaining and preserving a competitive advantage, which is the industrial-organization (I/O) perspective (Omalaja & Eruola, 2011). On the other hand, strategic management was given a rigorous framework by the conventional I/O approach to assess industry rivalry. Resource‐ Based Theory The management theory, which maintains that the competitive advantage of a business comes from its in-house assets rather than its outward positioning, is where the concept of resources first emerged. Therefore, a firm's unique resources and competencies are what provide it an edge over competitors, rather than just considering environmental opportunities and hazards when doing business (Omalaja & Eruola, 2011). The company's resource-based idea states that certain resources it owns and manages can give it a competitive edge and ultimately boost its performance. Therefore, in the context of strategic management, a company's valuable and costly-to-copy assets and abilities are the main source of its competitive edge and improved performance. Regardless of comprehension level, a plan is worthless unless individuals across the entire organization implement it. Some teams frequently fail to execute strategy because they are not committed. According to Ateş et al. (2020), employees who demonstrate a commitment to the strategy acknowledge that their efforts play a crucial role in the organization's effective implementation of the plan. They collaborate with others, act beyond their roles, and are less likely to act in ways solely beneficial to themselves. However, a manager's credibility is necessary for the creation and execution of a strategy to be effective. According to Williams, Jr. et al. (2023), the credibility of a dependable and promising manager is a complex idea that includes leadership qualities, technical proficiency, character traits, and interpersonal expertise. In this regard, the ability to finish tasks is revealed by the technical competence subdimension; technically competent leaders "get things done." Interpersonal solid or social skills, compassion, kindness towards others, sharing values with followers, and successful communication are all indicators of interpersonal competence (Williams, Jr. et al., 2023). Skilled leaders avoid letting their focus stray from the critical issues at hand. A leader's focus conveys resilience and personal dedication, which can improve the perception of a leader's ability. In the meantime, people view credible leaders as dependable, sincere, and morally upright. A trustworthy corporate plan cannot be formulated without a successful manager's credibility. Thus, poor alignment causes business strategy to deteriorate. A manager's credibility influences staff motivation. According to Lees and Dhanpat (2021), a manager's lack of credibility will hurt staff motivation. Workers will not voluntarily engage in optional actions that increase or maximize organizational efficacy and efficiency, such as offering to help without being asked or under duress. An organization will then experience poor strategy alignment due to low employee motivation, leading to competing objectives, which depletes internal resources and breeds resentment. Because demoralized workers are incapable of being inspired to be productive, it paralyzes progress. Methodological and Research Evaluation Qualitative conversations with managers and employees at one of the organizations, as well as a second analysis of strategic consensus, provided more context. To modify the mediation model, Ateş ...