Intervju med sverigeaktuelle professor Edward Deci, världsledande motivationsforskare

Stefan:
Dear Ed, it is a true honor for me to have this conversation with you. Your work on human motivation, most often in collaboration with your colleague Richard M. Ryan, has been highly inspirational and influential for me. Your theory about self-determined motivation, which we of course will define and talk about during this conversation, provides the base for many, if not most, of the services we at the Centre for Leadership offer our client organizations. Not only is it very intuitively appealing, but more important than that it has such a strong empirical support gained from decades of research in hundreds of scientific studies. As we work hard to make a stand for evidence based practices in organizational consulting the latter is the major reason the self-determination theory has been so influential for us. Before running in to detail about that theory I think it would be good to go back to the basics of what we are going to talk about, namely human motivation. Everyone talks about it and have some idea of what they mean by it, and most say it has more importance than capacity (motivation beats class as the saying goes). What can then be a better starting question to ask one of the leading scholars of the field than: What, really, is motivation?

Ed:
At its core, motivation concerns the energy for action. It is what moves people to behave. So motivation is centrally about the energization of behavior, but it is also about the direction of behavior. The key motivation questions are (1) what energizes people’s behavior? And (2) how is people’s behavior directed?

There are three possible ways to address the energization question.

• First, energy can come from basic biological needs (i.e., necessities). All people, for example, need food and water to grow and remain healthy. If these basic biological needs are not met, the person will experience illness or ill-being. If denied satisfaction of these needs for a long time, the consequences are very severe.
• Second, energy can come from emotions. When people are excited, they have energy to behave. When people are angry, they are energized to act. When people are sad they have energy to do particular things.
• Third, energy can come from basic psychological needs (i.e., necessities). All people, regardless of gender, culture, race, or socioeconomic status need to have three psychological needs satisfied in order to develop in a healthy way and to experience ongoing psychological well-being. If these needs are not satisfied, the person will experience some psychological illness or ill-being. The three basic psychological needs are the needs for (i) competence, (ii) autonomy, and (iii) relatedness. That is, everyone needs to feel a sense of effectance or mastery in his or her world; everyone needs to feel able to accomplish goals and obtain desired outcomes. That sense of mastery and efficacy is what we mean by competence.

Further, everyone needs to feel a sense of volition, of willingness to act, of endorsing that which one is doing. This sense of volition is what we mean by autonomy. It is important to note that autonomy does not mean to be independent of others; it means to really concur with what one is doing and to regulate oneself with a true sense of choice.

Finally, everyone needs to feel like he or she belongs within some collective—a couple, a family, or a group, for example—and everyone needs to feel cared for by some others and to care for some others. These then are the three basic psychological needs—competence, autonomy, and relatedness—and their satisfaction are essential for optimal motivation, experience, and performance.

For addressing issues of motivation (i.e., energization) in the workplace or in other organizations such as schools and health care agencies, the energization question is by far most effectively addressed with the concept of the three basic psychological needs. This is because, first, the three psychological needs are directly relevant to what is happening in organizations at any given time. Second, it is because the three psychological needs play a key role in the effective regulation of both biological needs and emotions, so even when the biological needs or emotions are energizing an action within an organization, the three psychological needs must also be operating for the behaviors to be effective. (That last point is, perhaps, getting a bit ahead of ourselves right now.)

The most useful way of addressing the direction question is with the concept of goals. Goals are outcomes or end-states; they are what people are trying to achieve at any time. Goals can be short-term—something one is trying to accomplish in the next few minutes—or they can be broader aims that guide one’s behavior over several years (e.g., the goal of graduating from university).

So, we think about the concept of motivation primarily in terms of the energization of actions by the basic psychological needs, and the direction of that energized behavior by goals or outcomes that people would like to achieve.

It is the case in many theories of motivation that motivation is considered to be a unitary concept. That is, motivation is thought to vary in terms of amount—people are either more motivated or less motivated. However, within self-determination theory, Richard M. Ryan and I have always taken a differentiated view of motivation. We have always thought that it is more important to ask what type of motivation a person has than how much motivation a person has, and the research supports this view. The primary distinction we make is between autonomous motivation and controlled motivation.

Autonomous motivation is motivation that comes from one’s own sense of self; it involves acting in accord with one’s interests or deeply held values. When one is autonomously motivated, the person acts with a full sense of choice. Autonomous motivation involves actions that are self-regulated, and this type of motivation has been found to be associated with the most positive outcomes.

In contrast, controlled motivation is motivation that involves pressure to behave in particular ways. Either forces outside the person, such as a demand from an authority, or forces within the person that have not been accepted as his or her own are the basis for controlled motivation. When one acts to just to get a reward from an authority figure, or when one acts just to feel like a worthy person, one is being controlled. Much of the research that our group has done for the past 40 years has worked with the concepts of autonomous and controlled motivation.

Stefan:
Thank you Ed, so let me try to give a brief summary of your previous answer before turning to my next question, and please correct me if I am wrong. First, a brief definition of motivation is that it is the force that initiates our behavior in a certain direction (i.e., towards approaching or avoiding certain goals/end-states) and then directs the effort we put in it and our persistency in performing it (i.e., what we do, how hard we try and for how long). The driving force behind our behaviors is rooted in basic biological needs that we need for survival and reproduction (such as eating when hungry, sleeping when tired, keeping warm when cold, having sex when in that mood etc.), in our emotions (such as aggressively arguing when angry, socializing when happy, seeking support when sad etc.), and, finally and perhaps most importantly when speaking about motivation in an organizational context, in our basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence and relatedness. These three needs are essential for our capacity to deal with our biological needs and emotions, for our mental well-being and for our development.

I think that, for me, the fundamental importance of these needs is maybe most obvious when thinking about situations in life in which one has not had these needs satisfied. Anyone who has experienced it know how enormously emotionally and functionally devastating it can be, for instance to work for a manager who micromanages and controls everything in detail (need for autonomy thwarted), and/or repeatedly criticizes and points out all mistakes and shortcomings (need for competence thwarted), and/or is cold, detached or even bullying (need for relatedness thwarted).  

With these needs in mind, you also said that the amount of motivation experienced is less important than the kind of motivation one has, and then distinguished between controlled motivation (i.e., “I must or I should”) and autonomous motivation (i.e., “I want to”). Have I understood you correctly if I say that the basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence and relatedness are underlying/unconscious (or at least subconscious) driving forces while the kind of motivation one experiences is in form of conscious thoughts about previous, present and future behaviors? If that is the case, what is the relationship between our underlying psychological needs and our conscious motivation (i.e., In what sense does satisfaction or thwarting of basic psychological needs relate to conscious thoughts about kind of motivation)? Please let me know if the question is fuzzy.
 
Ed:
Everything you said is exactly on target, up to the last paragraph. So let me start there, because that is where your question is anyway. To be autonomously motivated is natural; it is in our nature. There are two types of autonomous motivation: intrinsic motivation and well internalized extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation involves doing something because the activity is interesting and enjoyable in its own right. Children learn and act on the environment because they find it interesting and enjoyable to do so. The reward is in the doing of the activity. Adults, especially during leisure time are sometimes intrinsically motivated, for example to read a book or go skiing. Extrinsic motivation, in contrast, means doing something to get some separate reward such as money or prizes, or to avoid a punishment, or to please an authority.

These two types of motivation are quite different. Intrinsic motivation is the prototype of autonomous motivation. Extrinsic motivation, represented by the carrot and stick—that is, chasing the carrot and avoiding the stick—is an example of extrinsically motivated behavior. Much research has shown that when extrinsic rewards, threats, deadlines, and evaluations are added to intrinsic motivation, the extrinsic factors tend to decrease a person’s intrinsic motivation. So here is a case where, if you add the two types of motivation together the resulting motivation is less than the total should be because the intrinsic motivation will be undermined by the extrinsic motivators.

However, all the news is not bad. Although the classic type of extrinsic motivation is quite controlled, it is possible to internalize extrinsic motivation and gradually change it. Internalization is a process whereby a person takes in something that was initially external. For example, children tend to internalize their parents’ values and attitudes. Like intrinsic motivation, internalization is also a natural process. Much research shows that people do internalize extrinsic motivation to some extent, and in the process it is possible to transform extrinsic motivation into self-motivation. Stated differently, if the internalization process has functioned effectively, the person’s extrinsic motivation will have become relatively autonomous, because the person will have integrated the motivation into his or her own sense of self. Some internalization is only partial, however.

Sometimes we take in controlling extrinsic motivation and keep it in more-or-less its same form, so we start to control and pressure ourselves with it. For example, when parents control and pressure their children by making the parental love contingent upon their child doing or being what the parents want, the children will tend to partially internalize the motivation (we use the term introjection for that phenomenon). The children then control and pressure themselves by making their own feelings of worth and lovability dependent on doing or being what the parents want. The point is that autonomous motivation (which is the optimal motivation) consists of intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation that has been fully internalized. Extrinsic motivation that has not been internalized (e.g., carrot and stick motivation) and extrinsic motivation that has been only introjected form the bases for controlled motivation, which is less optimal motivation.

This brings us to the tie-in between the three basic psychological needs and the two types of motivation—namely autonomous and controlled. It turns out that the three basic psychological needs must be satisfied in order for intrinsic motivation to be maintained and for extrinsic motivation to be fully internalized. In situations where the needs are met, people will maintain and enhance their autonomous motivation, but in situations where the needs are thwarted, people will maintain controlled motivation—that is, they will be externally motivated by rewards and punishments and also by introjected extrinsic controls. Or if the thwarting is bad enough, people may lose all their motivation.

So now back to your last paragraph above. The issue is that satisfaction of the basic psychological needs provides the nutriments that are necessary for the natural processes of intrinsic motivation and internalization. Satisfaction of the autonomy, competence, and relatedness needs nourish the natural intrinsic motivation; satisfaction of these needs also nourishes internalization. The processes of intrinsic motivation and internalization are natural in us, but they require nutriments. It is similar to plants: put a seed in the ground and it is natural for the seed to grow. But it requires water and sun to grow optimally. Humans require satisfaction of the three psychological needs (and also of course they require satisfaction of the biological needs such as food) in order to grow and develop in a healthy and optimal way.

It turns out also, that the processes related to autonomy and control can operate both consciously and nonconsciously. So, your questioned distinction between the needs being non-conscious and the types of motivation being conscious is not quite right. People can be conscious of the fact that they need relatedness, competence, and autonomy, for example, and further they can also be autonomous as well as controlled with the regulatory processes being non-conscious. So, the needs describe the necessary nutriments for being autonomously motivated. When the needs are satisfied (which you may or may not be consciously aware of at a given time) you will be more autonomously motivated.

Now, let’s have a look at the role of the environment, which I will only briefly mention in this go round. Specifically, the environment plays a very important role in a person’s need satisfaction. Some environments are very supportive of people’s need satisfaction, and some are not. Parents can be warm and caring (providing satisfaction of their children’s relatedness need) and allow their children’s initiations and choice (providing satisfaction of their children’s autonomy need) and acknowledge their children’s effectiveness (providing satisfaction of their children’s competence need) in which case the children will display more autonomous motivation and a range of positive consequences. Alternatively, the parents can be cold, rejecting, demanding, controlling, critical, and demeaning, in which case the children will be controlled, or even worse the children will lose all their motivation and will be what we call amotivated. So, amotivation means having little or no autonomous motivation or controlled motivation, and it results from all three of a person’s psychological needs being strongly thwarted.

Stefan:
Ok great, thank you for enlightening me regarding conscious and unconscious needs and motives. Actually, now that you say it, it seems quite clear that we can be very much aware of our needs as well as we sometimes can act unaware of our motives for doing it. Regarding our needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness, as I understand it, they need to be satisfied in order for us to be autonomously motivated, either in the purest sense of intrinsic motivation or in an integrated form in which a behavior that was previously externally motivated (tangible or social carrot/stick) has been deeply internalized representing an authentic part of our self and our deeply held values. Introjection on the other hand is a less internalized motive than integration in the sense that it is still contingent on other forces than one´s self image and values. To make this clear for myself and for the readers of our conversation I would like to try to give an example, before digging deeper in to the importance of the social environment, and please once again, correct me if I am out in the blue.

Let us take my behavior at this specific moment, namely reading your previous answer, reflecting on it and writing back to you. It can have a number of possible motives based on what you have described above. First and foremost, which of course seem highly unlikely but anyway, just to exemplify, I could be amotivated. If that was the case I guess that I would be surrounded by colleagues here at the Center for Leadership who were cold, rejecting, critical, mean etc. and that you in your answers to me would be as well. As anyone who knows my colleagues and/or read your answers can tell, this is certainly not the case. Anyway, if that was the case, I guess that I would postpone my reply as long as possible, feeling neither joy nor excitement doing it. I would probably have no other explanation for actually writing a reply than “I don´t know why I´m doing it, I don´t enjoy it, but I don´t know what else to do”.  

This leads to the next possibility, which would be that I am mostly externally motivated to reply on your previous answer. It could be in the sense that I get paid for it, that I would like to receive praise from you for asking such brilliant questions, that I want to avoid blame from colleagues or readers for having done a lousy job, that I don´t want to upset you for having to wait for my reply etc. My motive for replying would not come from within, but rather from outside in the form of an experienced external control of my behavior. If I was purely externally motivated I guess that I would not feel any particular joy or excitement in the process of writing, but instead would do it just for the carrot or the stick. Anyway, based on your answer above, I guess that I would need to have at least some of my psychological needs met in order to be able to feel any motivation at all, even if purely external.

The next kind of motivation could be that neither of the above mentioned tangible or social rewards or punishments from either you, my colleagues and/or readers were at my mind as motives for my reply on your mail, but I anyway felt an internal pressure (i. e., I have to….or I should) to do it, maybe in the sense of feeling bad and ashamed if I did not do it and/or that I had to do it in order to feel good about myself. In this case the control of my behavior would not come from outside, but rather from inside (internal pressure, anxiety, guilt etc.) in the form of an introjection. Anyway, I would still feel controlled to perform the behavior of writing you a reply. I guess that my behavior in that case, for an outside observer, could look like responsible and authentic as there was no explicit external reason that they could attribute as reason for my behavior. Anyway, they could only see my visible behavior, and wouldn´t know that I did not actually enjoy doing it but only did it out of reaching inner peace.

If the behavior of replying on your e-mail were even more internalized than was the case in the above example, it would be integrated such that replying to your e-mail was something that I wanted to do, not because I felt any external or internal pressure, but because I felt that it was the right thing to do, and/or the way to behave that best represents the view that I hold, and want to hold, about myself. For an outside observer it is not sure that they could tell the difference whether my behavior was introjected or integrated. If someone, on the other hand, asked me directly I would now describe my behavior as something that I really wanted to do because I saw some meaning in it based on my ideals and my values (i. e., by replying I contribute to spread valuable knowledge about motivation) and because it was an authentic expression of myself (i. e., I am a person who wants to take responsibility for myself and for others, and I want to take responsibility by actively contributing in this conversation). In this case my motive for replying would be autonomous as I did not feel any pressure or obligations to do it, but instead did it because I wanted to and chose to.

The final possible reason for replying to your e-mail, would be that I was intrinsically motivated to do it. In that case the act of reading your answers, reflecting on them, thinking and preparing for my next question etc., would be gratifying in itself. The pure activity would be fun, exciting, challenging, enjoyable and satisfying. I guess I could easily loose myself in the activity just for the fun of it.  This is autonomous motivation in its purest form.

Without a doubt my true motivation for replying are autonomous (mostly intrinsic but also highly integrated), and I feel great enjoyment doing it.

Well, that was a long example just to make clear for myself and for others the differences between various kinds of motivation. My main issue so far in the interview has been to ask you about the basics of motivation before we move on to talk more specific about motivation in the organizational context and how to apply these theories in order to create the best conditions for needs fulfillment and autonomous motivation. But first three more basic questions that you can answer in the same mail:

• Can you tell me a little more about the relationship between needs fulfillment and motivation, or actually, do the three needs differ in any sense with respect to what kind of motivation they can lead to when met or when thwarted? Which needs have to be met in order to have any motivation at all and which needs have to be met in order to have autonomous motivation?
• How are the different kinds of motivation related to performance?
• How do you (as a researcher) decide what kind of motivation a person has at a specific moment? Are there various methods of measuring motivation?

Ed:
First, let me say, Stefan, that your example was an excellent one. You got the gist of this. I would add just one thing. Technically, there is actually a fifth type of motivation in this scheme. Most readers would not need it, and could stick with just what is above, but I will mention it just in case someone goes to our academic publications and gets confused. The other type is called Identification, and it is on the continuum between introjection and integration. It involves identifying with the importance of a behavior, but not yet fully integrating that identification with other parts of oneself. It is a pretty autonomous type of motivation. So, I just mention it. It helps solve some theoretical issues, but we don’t need to be concerned with it for our discussions of applied domains.

Now for your first new question. The general statement is that thwarting of any need will have negative psychological well-being effects of some sort. But your question asks for relations between specific needs and specific motivations or outcomes. First, it is satisfaction versus thwarting of the autonomy need that tells whether or not a person’s motivation will be autonomous or controlled. Having some competence satisfaction is necessary for either type of motivation. Without competence satisfaction with respect to a behavior there will likely be amotivation for that behavior. So competence satisfaction is necessary for motivated behavior and both competence and autonomy satisfaction are necessary for autonomously motivated behavior. Now, as for relatedness, some ongoing sense of being related to others is necessary for motivation, but it does not always need to be proximal; it can be more distal. By that I mean, people need to have a general sense of being connected to some others in order not to be depressed and amotivated, but they do not need to have interactions with others in order to be intrinsically motivated for a task—sometimes it is nice to be alone to read a book or take a walk in the woods. But if you had absolutely no relatedness satisfaction in your life, you would probably not be very motivated to do these things or any other constructive activities.

Satisfaction of the relatedness need has been found to be especially strong as a predictor of relational kinds of things. For example, satisfaction of the relatedness need was the strongest among the three satisfactions as a predictor of feeling securely attached to others, although autonomy satisfaction was also a strong predictor of security of attachment to others. Still, in general, there has not been a lot of research relating satisfaction of the specific needs to specific motivations or outcomes.

Second, you asked about the relations of the different kinds of motivation to performance. For starters, almost all of the research has looked at autonomous motivation versus controlled motivation as predictors, so I will start there. In general, autonomous motivation has been found to be a strong positive predictor of outcomes that involve “heuristic” processes—that is, those that involve deeper kinds of thinking and more creative or conceptual engagement with an activity. So, for example, we found in one study that when people were high in autonomous motivation they learned conceptual material much better than when they were low in autonomous motivation. Similarly, when people were high in autonomous motivation they were much more creative. When they were high in autonomous motivation, they also displayed much better psychological health and well-being. In contrast, when people were controlled in their motivation, they tended to do better in rote memorization, but only over the short run—that is, they memorized more, but they also soon forgot more. Controlled motivation did not predict deeper learning or psychological well-being, although there is evidence of some ill-being when people are high on controlled motivation.

This general set of findings about performance being more effective when people are autonomous rather than controlled in their motivation is very rigorous. There has been only a little bit of research comparing the more specific types of motivations. One interesting result in this sense is that when at task requires some discipline and determination—for example, practicing tennis rather than playing tennis—it turns out that integrated motivation is a better predictor than intrinsic motivation. Both of those kinds of motivation are autonomous and have a lot of similar consequences, but intrinsic motivation is a better predictor of doing things that are fun and enjoyable, whereas integrated motivation is a better predictor of things that are important and need disciplined responding.

Your final new question asks how we measure kinds of motivation at a specific moment. There are ways to set up a situation where people are free to do what they want when there are some options available to them. Suppose you want to measure people’s intrinsic motivation for working with a puzzle. You make the puzzle available to them along with other interesting options, and you measure how much time during some set period of time they spend with the puzzles. This would indicate how intrinsically motivated a target person is relative to other people in that situation. This is one way we measure it in experiments, but it is often harder to do in the real world. So, we also measure autonomous motivation with questionnaires. There are some questionnaires developed by Rich Ryan and Jim Connell that focus on autonomous versus controlled motivation for a particular activity or domain of activities, and there are others that measure autonomous versus controlled motivation in general in a person’s life. These various questionnaires get used in our research also.

Stefan:
Ok, thank you Ed, this last answer of yours brings us more specifically to our main theme of this conversation, namely motivation at work. As I see it the organizations in which people work are social entities that have a major risk or opportunity to either thwart or satisfy the basic needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness and thereby influence people’s work motivation. The kind of motivation in turn has been found to be a strong predictor of our well being, development and performance such that autonomous motivation is positively related to these valuable outcomes while controlled motivation is neutrally (at best) or even negatively related to the same outcomes. From this point of view it seems quite self evident that knowledge about human motivation could, if applied wisely, have a positive impact on “hard” outcomes such as job performance as well as “soft” outcomes such as well being and job satisfaction, outcomes of great importance for the employee as well as for the employer.

When we work with leaders and organizations this is actually one of the major goals of ours, namely to support our clients to create conditions that enhances the possibility that people in their organization or work group will do a good job and perform well, not because they feel that they have to but, instead, because they feel that they want to. I would like to talk to you about how to create these conditions for autonomous motivation at work, and more specifically, how to deal with these issues at various levels of the organization, namely:

• Individual level
• Group/team level
• Direct leadership level
• Strategic leadership level/organizational level

I will of course describe what I mean with each level along our conversation, but let´s take one thing at a time and start at the individual level. The first question I would like to ask concerns potential individual differences in motivation regardless of the social surrounding. It seems quite reasonable to me that some individuals, however supporting the work environment is, still feel pretty much controlled while others, working under the worst imaginable conditions, still feel totally autonomous and self-determined. Is there any empirical evidence of such individual differences?

Ed:
Good question, Stefan. Yes, there are indeed individual differences. Rich Ryan and I refer to them as causality orientations, but really they are motivational orientations. We use the term causality orientations because they have to do with the causes of your behavior, and with how you orient toward the environment in terms of the causes of your behavior. Let me explain. There are three causality orientations, and we view them as global level individual differences or personality characteristics. The first is the autonomy orientation. It refers to being generally autonomous in your motivation and actions, and also to viewing the environment or context as need supportive and as a source of useful information in choosing how to behave. So, when high in the autonomy orientation you would not feel controlled by the environment, you would not just see it as pressuring you, but rather you would decide how to behave and you would use the available information in making your choice.

The second orientation is the controlled orientation. It refers to being generally controlled in your behavior and looking to the environment or context as a source of control, as something that is pressuring you to think, feel, or behave in specific ways. The environment then, is not viewed as a source of information that can inform your choices, but instead is viewed as something that is controlling you. When you are high in the autonomy orientation you would, to some degree, be able to see the environment as informational and need supportive even when it is quite controlling. And when you are high in the controlled orientation you would, to some degree, be controlled by the environment even if it is need supportive and informational. The third orientation is the impersonal orientation. It refers to being generally amotivated and viewing the environment or context as something that is giving you signals that you are incompetent and not able to do the job at hand.

Now, there are several important points to be made about these orientations. First, we each have all three orientations to some extent, so the key issue is which are stronger and which are less strong. We have a measure called the General Causality Orientations Scale, and it gives a person a score on each orientation. There have been many studies using these causality orientation scores, and the studies have shown that the orientations do predict many different kinds of outcomes. Second, these orientations are learned over time as a function of our developmental experiences.

For example, if you grew up in a home that was very controlling and went to a school that is very controlling, you would likely have developed a very strong controlled orientation, so you would likely have relatively little intrinsic motivation and your extrinsic motivation would likely be pretty external and introjected. If you grew up in more need-supportive environments, you would likely have developed a strong autonomy orientation. And similarly for amotivating environments and the impersonal orientation.

Third, the causality orientations are not absolute in the sense that if you are very strongly controlled in your orientation you would not be able to detect some autonomy support in the environment if it were there. The environment does matter too; it is just that the orientations do, to some degree, color how you view the environment. Thus, over time, your causality orientations can to some degree change over time even when you are an adult. If you were pretty high in the controlled orientation but worked in a very autonomy-supportive environment (i.e., a need supportive one) you would likely become gradually less controlled and more autonomous in your orientations. [As a side note, the process of psychotherapy can, to a meaningful degree, be viewed as a process in which an autonomy-supportive therapeutic context will help people become more autonomous and less controlled.]

OK, that said, these individual differences and also the quality of the environment both play a role in people’s performance (“hard” outcome) and their well-being and satisfaction (the “softer” outcomes). For example, Paul Baard, Rich Ryan, and I did a study once of bankers, and we measured both their own causality orientations and also the degree to which the work environment (e.g., the workgroup) was need-supportive. We found that the degree to which the people were stronger in their autonomous causality orientation and the degree to which the environment was autonomy-supportive both contributed to their performance ratings and to their sense of well-being. The environment was a stronger predictor than the individual differences, but the autonomous orientation was also a statistically significant predictor. It further turns out that autonomy support is helpful for people even if they have a very strong controlled orientation. People sometime say, “If your employee is controlled in his or her orientation, then you should control him and that will lead to the best results”. However, that is generally not true. Control has negative effects even on people who are controlled in their orientation, and autonomy support has positive effects even on people who are controlled in their orientation.

Stefan:
Ed, this last answer of yours is of true interest for me as I at the moment am writing on a new book on what constitutes good followership and how to promote good followership development, and from your description of the autonomy orientation I think that this personality trait might fit well with my view of a good follower (i.e., responsible, committed, self-determined, relates well to others, and has the courage to constructively challenge authority if needed). I guess that an autonomy oriented follower can influence the environment (for instance a leader) to be more autonomy supportive as well as the other way around (leader influence on the follower) which creates an optimal interaction between leader and follower. Do you think that this seems reasonable, and if you do, what would you suggest to an individual asking for your advice about how to influence his or her environment (for example his or her manager) to be more autonomy supportive?

Ed:
All relationships between an authority and another person are two-directional. The authority affects the motivation and behavior of the other, and it work in the opposite direction as well. Parents affect their children’s motivation and behavior, and the children also have an impact on their parents’ motivation and behavior. Same is true for managers and their subordinates. Mangers have an effect on their employees’ motivation and behavior, and the employees also affect the managers’ motivation and behavior. Usually, we look at the one direction—that is, at the influence of the managers on their subordinates—because part of managers’ jobs is to motivate and influence their subordinates. Much of our earlier discussion was directly relevant to this point, because we considered the difference between the impact on subordinates of managers who were autonomy-supportive versus controlling. However, the astute employees understand that the way they speak and behave affects how their managers will relate to and manage them. The employees can then use that information to their own advantage.
 
Employees who are resistant, who argue and criticize their managers, will reliably pull controlling styles out of their managers, making the managers more controlling than they typically are. When employees get defensive and blame others, their managers will exert their authority and treat them controllingly—you can be sure of it. So, start with the realization that employees who point fingers, deny that they did what they did, and are moody or insistent will be inviting their managers to show their worst sides.
 
What is the alternative? Do your best to maintain a positive attitude, so you speak to your manager in a respectful way, just as the best managers speak to their subordinates in a respectful way. Then, give some thought to what your boss’s circumstances are like. Managers too are likely to be under pressure and stress, and our research shows that when authorities are pressured and controlled they are likely to turn around and pressure and control their subordinates. What can you do about it? For example, you could offer to help out your manager with various jobs that need to be done. Your manager will probably appreciate it. Make suggestions for improving things when the time is right, but do so in an upbeat way (not an irritated way). And be sure that the way you make the suggestions does not imply that your manager was wrong. “I’ve been thinking about that problem we ran into this morning and I wonder what might happen if we tried dealing with it by…,” you could say to your manager, for example.

The bottom line, really, is for you to try to imagine yourself as the manager and think about how you would like your employees to behave toward you. And when things have gone a little wrong between you and your manager try to get a sense of how your manager would have experienced what you did. As you get more insight into how your manager sees you, you will be in a better position to begin encouraging the better sides of your manager—the autonomy-supportive sides—to come to the foreground.

Further, employees who have “tracked” their managers’ behavior may come to realize that there are times or circumstances when it is best to keep a low profile. Maybe certain days of the week—possibly a day when something difficult typically happens in the morning before work (the spouse has to leave early for work that day and that creates tension at home), or a day when your manager always has a meeting with his or her boss—are probably bad days to approach your manager.
 
Employees who are themselves autonomy oriented will be better at doing all this—it will come more naturally to them. So, give some thought to what it means to be autonomy oriented, and that will give you clues about how to draw autonomy-support out of your manager. That means taking initiative, and thinking about better or more-efficient ways of doing your job. Why? Because that is what autonomy-oriented individuals do, and doing it that way is likely to have a positive impact on your manager. Will it always work? Not always. Some managers are more controlling and more rigid than others. But it will go a long way with most managers, and you will be the one who will reap the benefits. In fact, your peers might reap some of the benefits too.

Stefan:
Ok, so it seems quite possible for an individual to influence his or her social environment to be more autonomy supportive, for instance by acting the same way as someone high in autonomy orientation (for example taking initiative and offering solutions to better ways of doing the job). This, I guess, will come more natural for someone who is authentically autonomy oriented than for someone who has a controlled orientation but tries to behave in an autonomy oriented way. Have the General Causality Orientations Scale been used in any recruitment procedures that you know of, as I guess that every employee should be interested in recruiting autonomy oriented people?

Ed:
All of our psychometric instruments, including the General Causality Orientations Scale (GCOS) have been designed as research instruments and validated as research instruments. Thus, there are no “high stakes” associated with people’s responses to these questions when they are completing them for research purposes. They complete the questionnaires with the belief that they can provide truthful answers and that there will be no negative consequences of any sort associated with their responses.

We do not know what would happen if the instruments were used as selection devices because we have never used them in that way, or any comparable way. Presumably, if people were completing these as part of a job interview, they would be oriented toward providing socially acceptable answers, so the responses would not be the most truthful answers. Certainly, you would not get people providing very high “impersonal responses,” and I would guess that you would get responses that are higher on the autonomy orientation than would reflect their true autonomy orientation.

To validate questionnaires as diagnostic instruments requires a different type of validation than is the case for research instruments. Further, even the way the questions are asked, and the kinds of items included are likely to be somewhat different.

So, the bottom line is that I would not recommend the GCOS for use in job selection.

Stefan:
That seems reasonable, what is a valid and reliable instrument when used for research purposes is not necessarily so when used in a context in which the person has personal gains at stake.  So, to briefly summarize, your research has shown that there are individual (i.e., personality) differences in motivational (or causality) orientations such that some individuals have a propensity to be generally autonomy motivated, while others are more controlled in their overall behavior. Still others are generally amotivated. People who are autonomy oriented or act as if they were so, can have an influence on their environment to be more need supportive, whereas controlled oriented people influence others to exert more control on them. This demonstrates the mutual dependency between leaders and followers in the leadership process very clear, where the behavior of one part is always at least partly dependent upon the behavior of the other part and vice versa. Autonomy supportive leaders increase autonomy motivated behaviors on behalf of their subordinates, and such autonomy motivated behaviors in turn increase the willingness for leaders to be autonomy supportive. On the other hand controlling leader behaviors (which we will talk about much more later on in the interview) increase controlled motivation in subordinates who act accordingly which in turn increase the tendency further for leaders to exert more control.
 
From this reasoning one could easily see that subordinates, or followers, play an important part in the leadership process and that individual followers who act in an autonomy oriented fashion can have a positive influence on their leaders behaviors while at the same time performing well (particularly at intellectually complex tasks demanding creativity and problem solving) and feeling good about themselves and their behavior. Increasing the level of autonomous motivation in individuals obviously seems a worthy goal for any organizational consultant wanting to help their client organization. As much (not to say most) work in organizations of today is organized around work groups or teams, and job performance accordingly often is measured at this group/team level, I become curious if motivation can be studied (and enhanced/transformed for that sake) at this level of analysis as well, as some kind of group- or teambased motivation (autonomous or controlled). This, I know, has been done with other related psychological constructs, such as for example self-efficacy which at the group level is called collective efficacy or group efficacy. What are your thoughts regarding a group- or team level motivation, does it make any sense at all?

Ed:
Our tendency is to recognize that all motivation resides in people, so I think about individuals being autonomous or controlled for example. However, I also think that people interact and a group of interacting people who are high in autonomy will be a very effectively functioning group--a group that you might think of as an autonomous group--and this group will be very different from one that is made up of people who are all high on controlled motivation. Further, if there is a kind of norm for autonomy, it will help people in the group be more autonomous. So, it is certainly the case that groups differ in the degree to which the dominant orientation of its members is autonomous, and groups that are more generally autonomous will generally be more effective.  I wouldn’t mind someone describing such a group as a high-autonomy group. But I continue to believe that it is important to think about each individual in terms of his or her motivation, recognizing that the group can have a strong and important influence on the person’s motivation. If the group generally functions autonomously and people in it are autonomy supportive of the members, then the members as a whole will tend to be autonomous and you will have a high-functioning, autonomy-oriented group.

Stefan:

Groups and group processes can have a tremendous impact on people’s thoughts, feelings and actions, sometimes for good and, surely, sometimes for worse, probably not least because they can, in a powerful way help satisfy our basic psychological needs. Do you know about any studies that, in particular, have studied on the impact of group/team processes on motivation?

Ed:

In one sense, many of our studies have done that. We have studied classrooms, work groups, and health-care clinics, for example, examining their impact on the motivation and behavior of the students, employees, and patients in those settings. The impact is great, but in these groups there is typically one or more authority figure whose orientation and behavior is often the most important influence on the group members and it is that influence that is generally studied. That is of course quite different from examining a working group as a whole, and trying either (1) to characterize the group itself in terms of its motivational orientation, or (2) examine the effect of the overall group on its individual members. In grappling with these two issues, one has to be clear about the issue of authority. Is there a leader of the group that holds the position because of the structure of the organization—that is, because he or she is the boss of the group? That will make the dynamic different from a group of equals in which the leader emerges. I am not sure what types of groups you have in mind in asking the question.

That said, I also have to say that I am not familiar with research on groups. It is a huge research area, and I do not follow it. I can be pretty sure however that there are no studies of motivation from an SDT perspective in which the group is the focus in either of the two ways specified in the last paragraph.

Stefan:

The vast majority of work groups that I meet actually have one or more formal managers or leaders so the importance of leadership for individuals' motivation is of course of great interest. This is also what I primarily want to talk about because almost all the missions we undertake include actions against managers and leaders at different levels of the client organizations. The reason I am interested in the connection between group dynamics and motivation is that I believe that properties of the group could possibly serve as a moderator to the relationship between leadership and motivation. In practice this means that certain types of conditions or properties in the group makes a specific leader behavior less likely to have any impact on individuals' behavior (and probably motivation), whereas other types of conditions in the group strengthens the importance of the leader behaviors.

Although research on this issue is quite sparse, there are some research within the so-called social identity paradigm that suggest that the leader/manager needs to be seen as prototypical for the group's properties in order to be able to have a positive impact on the group and in order to be generally perceived by the group as their leader and not only as a formal manager. The leader/manager for a group should therefore, in order to have a positive impact on motivation and performance, get to know the group and their ideals, values and behavioral norms and thereafter in accordance with this make sure to be a good role model in his or her own conduct. This is of course not as easy as it might sound as the appointed leader often has his or her own agenda as well as a specified mission from the organization that not always fits with the groups norms of conduct.

Another reason why I am interested in the possible influence of groups on individual motivation is that I am currently responsible for a research project in a large organization that are going to make an organizational change that involves that they will begin to work in so-called self-directed teams where the teams will have more responsibility and authority to manage their own work without or with minimal command and control from any responsible manager/leader.

This way of organizing work groups is more in line with what you describe as groups of equals in which the roles and responsibilities (including leadership) evolves naturally. I will study how a variety of factors are influenced by the introduction of this way of working, including the motivation of individuals. My hypothesis is that it will vary, depending for instance on how successful the self-directed group is in organizing their work, setting common goals, and allocate roles and responsibilities in a manner that is conducive to business and in a manner that all can accept. Perhaps this study can be among the first that specifically ties group processes and SDT.

If we should then shift our focus to the question that for my own part probably is of the greatest interest, namely the one concerning the relationship between leadership and motivation. So Ed, what have you got to say about this relationship? Does leadership have an influence on individuals motivation and, if so, in what sense?

Ed:

You stated that the leader/manager for a group should, in order to have a positive impact on motivation and performance, get to know the group and their ideals, values, and behavioral norms and thereafter in accordance with this make sure to be a good role model in his or her own conduct. I completely agree. An autonomy-supportive manager would do exactly that. A manager’s autonomy support begins by taking the internal frame of reference of the workgroup members. You cannot lead effectively without understanding whom you are leading. All leaders have agendas and they have to work toward the goals of the organization, so their job is both to be working on the organization’s goals while also understanding and supporting the autonomy of their employees. Of course there is a caveat: namely, the leader would not model being controlling and aggressive if those happened to be the values and norms of the group. Instead the leader would still model autonomy support. In part, one must remember, a leader’s job is in part to develop effective employees. Thus, through being autonomy supportive, a leader can move people who are initially fairly controlled toward greater autonomy and responsibility. I agree that it is not easy to be a great manager who can accomplish all this, but it is what good leadership is about. And there is every indication that it is what works as an approach to leadership.

Your study of self-managing work groups is very interesting. Here I think the big question is who makes up the group and is there someone who will emerge to take responsibility for keeping things structured so the group does create its goals that everyone endorses and that are consistent with the organizational goals. Groups need a facilitator, they need someone (or multiple someones) who will keep things moving. Ideally the group would have all members be both autonomous and autonomy supportive of others, and then the necessary work will get done. To the extent that some group members are not very autonomous it becomes even more important for those who are taking facilitative roles to be autonomy supportive to bring the others along and ensure that the work gets done effectively.

As for your main question, leadership is arguably the most important factor for facilitating an employee’s motivation. Further, being autonomy supportive is the single most important interpersonal characteristic for a leader to possess (in addition to things like expertise about the work that the group does). Autonomy-supportive leaders will know, for example, when to make decisions by themselves, when to consult with the group about a decision, and when to allow the group to make the decision so as to maintain motivation and involvement of group members. These leaders will also be able to allow as much choice as possible while at the same time specifying constraints and providing clear and meaningful explanations for when choice is not possible. This all comes back to taking interest in others and allowing them opportunities to satisfy their basic needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness whenever that is possible.

Leaders also need visions; they need to have a clear idea of where the group needs to head and the importance of that goal. Team members can contribute to the visions, but it requires a skilled leader to have a vision that is important and also to allow others’ inputs to inform that vision. Once there is a vision, there can be substantial input from team members in how to carry out the vision—that is, how to move toward the goal. A vision is a positive view of moving toward a meaningful goal, and the expression of the vision in a positive, but not rigid, way is important for people to buy into the vision and work to make it happen.

Stefan:

Ed, your description about the importance of being a good role model, to be autonomy supportive and to have a vision is exactly in line with how we view effective leadership, and constitutes three central ingredients in what is called transformational leadership. Basically transformational leadership, in my point of view, is about transforming people’s work motives from doing it because they have to do it to doing it because they want to do it, or in other words, going from controlled motivation to more autonomous motivation. Transformational leadership constitutes the most effective form of leadership as supported by literally hundreds of scientific studies. Transformational leadership is one of a number of leadership styles as described in the Full Range Leadership Model (FRLM) which is the leadership model that has been the subject of the vast majority of leadership studies the last two and a half decades.

I will present and describe the model here so that interested readers of our conversation can have an understanding of it. In this presentation I will try to tie the various kinds of leadership styles to the self-determination theory of motivation which you have described through this interview in such an excellent way. Finally I would like to ask you some questions in this regard. Please feel free to reflect on the Full Range Leadership Model as how you think it is related to motivation if my questions do not capture your thoughts, ideas and knowledge.

The FRLM was developed by Bernard Bass and Bruce Avolio in the 80’s and 90’s and has been the subject of extensive research ever since. The model is perhaps most thoroughly presented in a recent book by John Sosik and Don Jung called Full Range Leadership Development. I myself also wrote a book in Swedish a couple of years ago that is based on that model and is called The 5 Challenges of Leadership. 

First and foremost the FRLM is organized around two axes; degree of activity and degree of effectiveness. The activity axis is concerned with how active or passive the leader is in his or her way of being towards others and towards the aims and goals of the organization, basically his or her level of engagement. The effectiveness axis concerns the effect the specific leadership style has on follower, group and organizational outcomes such as performance, satisfaction, commitment and motivation.

I will walk through the different styles, beginning with the most passive and ineffective style called Laissez-faire leadership (LF) which is kind of a hands-off or absence of leadership in which the leader:

• avoids taking stands on issues, getting involved and making decisions
• are absent when needed
• delays and fails to follow up
• doesn´t emphasize results

Obviously this is not a particularly effective way of leading, which has also been demonstrated in hundreds of studies. It creates confusion, conflicts, low effort and low trust in and satisfaction with the leader.

A slightly more effective way to lead is Management-by-Exception (MBE) which basically means to act and react before and/or after things have gone wrong by pointing out what is wrong and sometimes by punishing. There are actually two forms of MBE, one that is passive (MBE-P) and one that is active (MBE-A). MBE-P is characterized by:

• intervention only if standards are not met
• waiting for things to go wrong before taking any action
• reluctantly reacting to mistakes and wrong doings

Basically a MBE-P leader only shows up when things have gone wrong, and is often experienced as a ticking bomb. As these leaders are barely seen when things are going as planned everyone knows what to expect when they actually show up. This creates a kind of “brush all mistakes under the carpet until the boss has passed” mentality.

MBE-A is an active form of corrective leadership and is characterized by:

• closely monitoring for errors and intervening before errors occur (i.e., micromanaging)
• focusing attention on mistakes, shortcomings, deviations and complaints
• make sure to get to know if and when things go wrong

The difference between MBE-P and MBE-A is that the latter doesn’t wait for mistakes to happen before reacting. Instead he or she checks out more or less all the time in order for mistakes not to happen in the first place. There might be some situations where this style is appropriate such as those situations where everyone agrees that mistakes are very costly or even dangerous and actually ask for tight control in order to avoid such mistakes. In most situations however MBE-A is not an effective leadership style as it makes people to precautious.

Although there might be certain situations in which the above mentioned leadership styles can be quite effective, most often they are not and should therefore be used with great caution. A much more effective way to lead is to use what is called Contingent Reward (CR) which basically is leading by the carrot (MBE is leading by the stick). In practice this means to reward, in some way, the behaviors that are in line with stated performance expectations. The contingent rewarding leader:

• sets goals together with and for his or her coworkers that are specific, measurable, attainable, results oriented and time bound
• specifies what rewards that are to be expected for attaining the goals
• ask for and suggest pathways for the group and for each individual to meet performance expectations
• monitor progress toward goals actively and provides supportive feedback
• provide rewards when goals are attained

This is a highly goal directed form of leadership that, if performed consistently, creates a high level of clarity about what is expected and a high degree of trust in the leader as he or she delivers agreed upon rewards contingent on attainment of specified expectations. This kind of leadership is related to a good level of job satisfaction and satisfaction with the leader, as well as a lot better job performance than the previous mentioned leadership styles. However this kind of leadership also has some potential pitfalls, not least with regard to its influence on human motivation, which I will come back to in my question at the end of this resume over the FRLM.

The MBE and CT leadership styles constitutes what is called transactional leadership which means that they in essence are built on a transaction between the leader and the follower/subordinate/co-worker etc. who perform in accordance with leader expectations and thereby receives some kind of reward (CR) or avoids some kind of punishment (MBE) that the leader is in the position to administer. Basically it is built on extrinsic or controlled motivation. Transformational leadership, which is the highest level of leadership with regard to activity level and effect on individual, group and organizational outcomes, differs from transactional leadership in the sense that it is more based on trying to increase the degree of intrinsic or autonomous motivation.

Transformational leadership consists of four subcategories of behaviors (often called the 4 I’s). These are Individualized Consideration (IC), Intellectual Stimulation (IS), Inspirational Motivation (IM), and Idealized Influence (II).

Leaders who are individually considerate (IC) see every person as unique and build personal and special relations with each individual based on his or her preferences. The IC leaders:

• consider individuals as having different needs, abilities and aspirations
• treat others as individuals and not only members of a group or organization
• listen attentively to others ideas and concerns
• help others to identify and develop their strengths
• coach others actively and regularly
• promote self-development
• genuinely care for others and show this compassion in actions

As I see it individual consideration includes a lot of autonomy support, which we have been talking about earlier in this interview.

Intellectually stimulating (IS) leaders on the other hand emphasize the value of follower’s intellect and rational thoughts and actively encourage followers to:

• challenge old ways of doing things
• seek different perspectives when solving problems
• challenge taken-for-granted assumptions
• feedback the leader and each other
• come up with new ideas
• spend time to brainstorm creative ideas and solutions
• always try to develop new and slightly better ways of performing the job – in a lot of small steps rather than in a few quantum leaps

Creating a climate where it is allowed to come up with and share ideas and to challenge old ways of doing things as well as ones own (as a leader) behaviors should hypothetically be an essential ingredient in promoting autonomy as I see it. People who dare to think and express their thoughts and ideas without the risk of being punished will naturally come up with more ideas and think more about how to gradually develop new and better work methods. These are absolutely essential qualities for a successful workforce of today.

If intellectual stimulation is concerned with stimulation of rational thoughts the next component of transformational leadership, inspirational motivation (IM) deals with the emotional component of the leaders influence on others. Inspirationally motivating leaders:

• talk optimistically about the future and articulate compelling visions
• use a strong and evocative language
• express confidence in others abilities to reach visions and goals
• talk about the mission or purpose for the group or the organization
• Align individual goals and aspirations with the vision for the organization

Leaders who are very inspirationally motivating are often seen as strong and charismatic, a quality that if used for wrong and immoral reasons can be absolutely devastating. It is important to balance the inspirational part of leadership with intellectual stimulation (described above) and the final component, which is idealized influence (II) and which means to:

• walk the talk
• talk about ones most important values and take a strong stand for them
• ask others about their most important values and search for shared values – then sacrifice oneself for the sake of these shared values
• consider the moral consequences of one’s decisions
• not giving oneself advantages others are not given

Idealized influence is the main ingredient in serving as a role model and is absolutely essential in order to gain the trust from others that are needed in order for them to work hard on attaining the vision. By showing that the leader does not give him or her any advantages as compared to others and that he or she is consistently acting in line with shared values his or her level of trustworthiness increases. It should hypothetically feel more voluntary (autonomy supportive) to follow someone who is ready to do the same thing than someone who just tells you what to do but is not ready to do it him- or herself.

Even if it is not a completely perfect match It seems quite reasonable to guess that the various kinds of motivation follow the ladder in the FRLM quite well, such that the LF leader probably promotes amotivation, the transactional leader promotes controlled motivation and the transformational leader promotes autonomous motivation. By emphasizing and showing concern for individual needs, encouraging ideas and creative solutions even when they challenge critical assumptions or even the leader him- or herself, talking about the purpose and meaningful visions of the future and acting as a good role model for shared values and for the group the needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness should have a decent chance to be satisfied.

Now to my question which concerns the contingent reward leadership style. As this kind of leadership is almost the norm in many organizations, with incentive packages, pay-for-performance and bonus systems, we sometimes get challenged when promoting the transformational leadership style. I know that you and a number of colleagues wrote an excellent meta-analysis in Psychological Bulletin a number of years ago concerning the effect of rewards on motivation and it would be very interesting to hear your view on if, when and how rewards can be properly used in order to complement the behaviors in transformational leadership. Please let me know if my question is fuzzy, and feel free to also reflect on my suggested connection between the FRLM and SDT.

Ed:

I was glad to see you discuss transformational leadership. I am not a leadership theorist or researcher, but Bernie Bass was a close friend and colleague of mine many years ago when I was a new faculty member at the University of Rochester. He was very supportive of me and my work. I have not followed the TL research, but I have been interested in the theory.

I would begin by dismissing more-or-less out of hand the laissez-faire (LF) and managing by exceptions (MBE) approaches. I don’t think there is any situation where these are useful styles.

In the description of the Contingent Reward (CR) leader, you began with the process of jointly setting goals. This is an excellent point. Many leaders who use contingent rewards as a motivating style do not engage in this type of participative activity but instead impose their own goals. Having joint-goal-setting-meetings (with just one or multiple employees at a time) is an excellent idea and is very much consistent with being autonomy supportive. The early work in leadership and management that is oriented toward facilitating intrinsic motivation (for example, by such early leaders in the field as Douglas McGregor, Chris Argyris, and Alfred J. Marrow) emphasized participation in ways such as joint goal setting. From the Self-Determination Theory perspective, the CR leadership style uses a mix of an autonomy-supportive approach (participation and supportive feedback) and a controlling approach (contingent rewards and close monitoring of progress). Needless to say, it is better than a punishment approach or a laissez-faire approach, but it has its problems, as you pointed out. It is interesting because, my early research on the effects of extrinsic rewards on intrinsic motivation came in part from thinking about this CR type of management (although it wasn’t called that then). Here you have a case of working to make the job intrinsically interesting through participation in leadership and supportive feedback; then you add extrinsic rewards assuming the two types of motivation will add together to form total motivation. What my early studies showed however was that the contingent extrinsic rewards tended to undermine some of the intrinsic motivation that the participation and positive feedback engendered. I will return to this below.

I agree with you that TL is much more congruent with a management approach that is concerned about providing the conditions within which employees will get their needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness satisfied while engaging in the activities that constitute doing their jobs well and being vital. For a leader to be Individually Considerate (IC) is an important starting point. In our words, it means taking the internal frame of reference of the employees in order to facilitate autonomous motivation.

Then, Intellectual Stimulation (IS) adds to IC, but the essence of IC has to be kept in place in order for IS to work effectively. For IS to work well, the IS leader will need to be taking the employees’ perspective and respecting each of them as an individual. With this as a starting point, the leader will then encourage employees to think of new ways, challenge existing viewpoints, and use their own creative capacities to come up with new steps. We (in SDT) often convey this by saying that being autonomy supportive involves encouraging exploration and experimentation. As I see it, you have spell out our idea of encouraging exploration and experimentation in a bit more detail in your bullet points for IS. But people have to be careful with IS.

Part of the reason that it is important for a leader to display IC characteristic while being IS is that we want the employees who are challenging the routine and doing things in new ways to be respectful of others as they do it. We do not want fights to be breaking out and an air of disregard. When leaders are using the IC perspective, they are modeling ways of dealing with other that are respectful, and that can help the “vigorous” employees see the importance of their being respectful of their colleagues and managers as they are doing their “challenging.” Stated differently, if a manager is going to be IS, he or she needs to be IC at the same time or there could be trouble.

As I said in an earlier set of comments, the best leaders will have vision and will engage their vision optimistically and act in ways that will bring their subordinates on board and give them a sense of ownership in helping move toward the vision. Indeed, they will be helping to create both the specific outcomes that operationalize the vision and the means of getting there.

As for Idealised Influence (II), I would say that every good leader has to walk the talk. Without that, someone is not a good leader. Every good leader will not be highly charismatic, but of course charisma will add greatly to a leader being a great leader. The elements of II related to working with values so that deeply shared values work in service of a vision requires advanced skills. You could look at II as being optimal autonomy-support. 

To summarize, all good leaders will be autonomy supportive. An IC leader, an IS leader, an IM leader, and an II leader will all be autonomy supportive. They would not be good leaders if they were not. Being visionary and transcendent, and being able to convey the vision, to integrate the others into it fully, and to give them a sense of ownership represents the best of the leaders—the leaders who rise above even the other good autonomy-supportive leaders.

I agree that LF leadership will likely produce alienation and amotivation. However, MBE is also likely to produce a good deal of alienation and amotivation (rather than controlled motivation). The avoidance of punishment is a terrible motivator, so under MBE people will do the minimum amount of work to keep from getting in trouble. MBE does have some control elements in it, but I predict minimal motivation—that is, it will be closer to LF than to CR in terms of its effects. Yes, CR will produce controlled motivation, but as I explained above it does have quite positive elements in it—the participation and supportive feedback in particular. So, here people should not show much alienation. They would likely become oriented toward the rewards, but it will be a wildly better climate to work in than would the climate created by MBE. And I do agree that TL with its various elements should indeed be need supportive and thus should have high levels of autonomous motivation.

Now to your question. I have addressed it somewhat already, but let me get directly to it. In 1999, I published a meta-analysis with Richard Koestner and Richard M. Ryan. It included about 100 experiments that had examined the effects of tangible extrinsic reward (e.g., money) on intrinsic motivation, and across all these studies, the results showed that the rewards decreased intrinsic motivation (and more broadly, this would apply to autonomous motivation as well). The worst undermining was for the three following conditions: (1) when people got paid explicitly for continually engaging in their job activities, (2) when the amount people got paid was a function of the number of tasks they finished, and (3) when the amount people get paid was a function of the quality of their performance, especially if they got less than the maximum rewards that was available.

The bad news is that these are the typical contingencies that people encounter in the workplace so rewards are likely to be undermining in the workplace. There is some good news, however. First, if rewards are not made salient, they are less likely to be undermining. The point of that is a paradox; specifically, the more managers use rewards in an attempt to motivate people, the more demotivating the rewards will be; but the more the managers simply use the rewards, without emphasizing them, as a way of conveying appreciation for a job well done, the less detrimental the rewards will be. The research is very consistent and clear about these points.

Of course rewards have to be used in organizations, and I would never advocate otherwise. But if I were to say the two most important things to keep in mind when administering rewards, they would be: (1) be sure that the rewards are equitable—that is, don’t pay someone who does a job badly as much as someone who does the job well; and (2) keep the reward non-salient—that is, don’t use them to try to motivate people.

Stefan:

First, I have to say that your last answer was a highly stimulating reading for me. I am actually currently running some studies in which I will test the hypothesized relationship between transformational leadership and autonomous motivation in various settings. I also really appreciated your reasoning concerning the importance to be Individually Considerate (IC) if one is to use Intellectual Stimulation (IS) and that IS otherwise potentially might have negative effects. I don´t know of any research (which of course doesn´t mean that it doesn´t exist) in the field of the Full Range Model that have examined the effects of IC and IS individually and in various combinations (i.e., how the effect of IS is moderated by IC to use scientific terms) but it would surely be important for the deepened understanding of effective leadership to perform such research. Based on your knowledge in the field of motivation it seems very reasonable to suggest for leaders to first emphasize the IC component before starting to challenge the status quo via IS.

With regard to Contingent Reward (CR) I completely agree that it is an effective way to lead, particularly if the goals and means to reach those goals are set in participation with the employees. Unfortunately, as you said, the participative approach is not used by every contingent rewarding leader, which supposedly leads to less positive effects in terms of performance and autonomous motivation than if used in participation with employees and co-workers. I guess that there are times and situations where participation is difficult or even impossible but in general one should always strive for it. I don´t think that the goals will be any easier or lower set just because employees participate in the process. My experience says that rather it is most often the other way around. In the joint goal setting process the leader also has easier to relate the goals to the mission, vision and values of the group or organization (II and IM) and thereby being even more autonomy supportive.

When it comes to the effect of extrinsic rewards, most often monetary, I have had some debates and written some debate articles about it here in Sweden. It is a very strongly held attitude and I meet a lot of opponents when talking about these issues. For instance the vast majority of Swedish managers consider individual performance as the most important factor when designing and implementing new pay systems. This attitude is probably based more on emotions and habits rather than scientific facts. Stanford Professors Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton, in their book Hard facts, dangerous half-truths & total nonsense: profiting from evidence-based management, categorize the so frequently used (in the belief of money as the most effective motivator) performance based pay systems as a dangerous half-truth probably leading to more problems than solutions.

I would say that the three conditions that you listed, in which extrinsic rewards has the most negative effect on intrinsic (or autonomous) motivation is also the criteria most frequently used in the false belief that it will have a positive impact on motivation. Based on the reasoning of controlled versus autonomous motivation it probably has a great impact on motivation, but then we are talking about controlled and not autonomous motivation. In some situations maybe controlled motivation is good enough, but if companies want to compete well in the war for attracting and keeping the talents maybe the emphasis on more and more advanced pay systems is the wrong way to go.

Beside performance based pay systems, do you see any other regularly used management methods/procedures/behaviors that probably lead to more controlled (and less autonomous) motivation but are used in the belief that they are effective for increasing motivation in general?

Ed:

You said, Stefan, that you guess there are times and situations where it is difficult or even impossible to use participation. Of course I agree with that, but I also think that people over-emphasize this point as a way of justifying not using participation. So, I am always a little wary when I hear people say that (but not you, of course). True, it is not always possible to use participation, but it is virtually always possible to be autonomy supportive in their leadership orientation, and that is the key starting point. Managers can always try to understand their employees’ perspectives; managers can always respect their employees; managers can always refrain from pressuring and controlling their employees. And having that as a solid foundation, they can also use participation in the times and places where it is possible. Of course when managers feel controlled by their bosses, and when their own egos get threatened, it is hard for them to be autonomy supportive, but it is important for managers to try to be honest with themselves and to look at when they are being controlling out of their own feelings of threat or inadequacy. By seeing it, they can work toward getting over it.

Victor Vroom’s model of leadership and decision-making deals explicitly with the circumstances when it is appropriate to use autocratic decision-making, when it is appropriate to use individual consultative decision-making, when it is appropriate to use group consultative decision-making, and when it is appropriate to have the group make the decisions. The model takes account of such factors as: who has the information necessary to make a high quality decision? Can employees be trusted to make decisions that will be consistent with the organizational goals? Is the decision one in which group decision-making could lead to conflict and irreparable damage? This model represents excellent and important work, although it would take several paragraphs to do it any justice at all. Still, I raised it to make the point that underlying this theory is the idea that it is good to be as participative as the circumstances allow, assuming the decision is important enough to use the group’s time in making it. If the decision is which brand of paperclips to buy, obviously, it is not worth the time it would take to make a group decision. But having the group make decisions on things that matter to them and for which they have the necessary information to make a high-quality decision works very well to facilitate autonomous motivation.

I agree that often it is the case that the quality of decisions will be better if the group works together to make them. And the good managers are ones who work with group members in such a way as to build trust and facilitate an effectively functioning group. Then the leader will be able to trust the group to make the best decisions.

You asked what other factors leaders should be careful about even though they think otherwise. I would say competition is also very risky. Like rewards it can backfire. When people are directly competing against each other in a zero-sum way, such that when one person gets something another person loses it, the competition is quite dangerous. Many competitions are set up with one winner and a lot of losers, and even when a person loses by a tiny amount the person is still a loser. That can be very demotivating for people. There have to be possibilities for everyone to win if everyone does well enough to win. Competition can be very controlling unless given up the simple win-lose and winner-takes-all mentality that is so often used.

Stefan:

Thank you Ed, I am actually a little familiar with the work of Victor Vroom and agree that it is a very practical and useful model that managers can use when making decisions. I also completely agree with you that it is way too easy for managers to give excuses that justify not using participation in decision making. As you said, even if the circumstances do not allow for complete participation, the decision can be made in an autonomy supportive fashion anyway. I would say that one reason that so many top management initiated change efforts fail (as many as 75% lead to worse or no outcomes) is that they are implemented with too little consideration of the need for autonomy, competence and relatedness, thereby leading to (in best case) only a controlled motivation on behalf of people in the organization to actually act in accordance with the decision made.

Regarding other factors that can decrease intrinsic motivation you mention competition. It is very interesting I would say and also a bit frightening, that pay-for-performance and competition are so often used in organizations, often with the explicit aim to increase motivation. This is an excellent example of why I think it is so important to run a mission of increasing the use of evidence based practices in organizations. The present way of doing things, not seldom based on gut feelings, own experiences or just habits, often lead down the wrong paths. This is a point made explicit in the best-selling book Drive by Daniel Pink, which is almost completely based on your work and that I can recommend to interested readers. The book has very recently been translated to Swedish (the translated title is Drivkraft) and can be found by following the below link:

http://www.bookhouse.se/main/index.asp

Well Ed, I think that we have come to reach the end of this interview. I have to say that it has been highly stimulating to be a part of it and to get to know more about the important and interesting findings from the field of motivation research. I am also delighted to let our readers know that you will actually come to Sweden in April next year to lecture about these things. As a final question (probably the trickiest so far), I would like to ask you about your favorite scientific article, your favorite academically written book and your favorite popularly written book, all in the field of psychology.

Ed:

First let me make one important point, prompted by your referring to my work in the Dan Pink book. I want to make clear to all readers that the formulation of self-determination theory, which is the basis of all that I have said here, is a totally joint effort between Richard M. Ryan and myself. We have had a deep and profound collaboration for more than 30 years, and it is very hard to separate what is his and what is mine. Our thinking is amazingly in sync, and our somewhat different styles in writing complement each other and make each document better. We are coming toward the end of a new book on self-determination theory that we have been working on for several years. It is very long and dense, but it will finally draw all of SDT together in one place. I suspect it will be a couple more years before it actually sees the light of day, but we are getting there.

I also want to say that there are many other SDT researchers from around the world, some with whom we have collaborated and some not. Some of them are listed on the SDT faculty page on our web site:  http://selfdeterminationtheory.org.  It is also worth noting that every three years we have an international conference on SDT research. The fourth one will be May 13-16, 2010 in Gent Belgium (all details on the web site). This year we expect about 600 people to spend 4 days together talking about SDT research. It will be a wonderful event.

Now, let me move on to your tricky questions! Most of the answers refer to the writings that helped me in the early years of my career. These would not necessarily help others, but when I read them about 1970 they really had a major impact on my own thinking. Robert W. White wrote an article titled “Motivation Reconsidered: The Concept of Competence,” which was published in 1959 in Psychological Review. It really built the case convincingly for the necessity of the concept of intrinsic motivation. It was just about the same time that organizational theorists such as Douglas McGregor were introducing that idea into management theories—in McGregor’s case the book was The Human Side of Enterprise (1960) and the theory was called Theory Y Management. That was 50 years ago and much has happened since in the fields of motivation and of management theory, but these important pioneers, along with a few others, were laying the groundwork for what would follow.

Concerning academic books, I would say that Richard de Charms’ book Personal Causation: The Internal Affective Determinants of Behavior (1968) was very important. It gave Rich Ryan and me a handle on how to use the research methods derived from Fritz Heider’s attribution theory to do research on motivation and especially on autonomy. The academic management book that I really liked was Ed Lawler’s High-Involvement Management (1986). To me its most important point was that all policies and practices that exist in an organization affect the motivation of people in that organization.

Finally, and what a place to end: my favorite popularly written book would be Why We Do What We Do: Understanding Self-Motivation. I wrote it about 16 years ago and it provides an easy to read background for the kinds of things we have been talking about in this interview. It came out in paperback in 1996 and is still available. I just looked on Amazon and found that a couple other books have since been published under the name Why We Do What We Do. Oh well, so be it.