Motivation and people behaviour

When we say leaders can influence people, we need to know how those leaders understand why people behave the way they do, their efforts to influence others will have random, perhaps unpredictable, even alienating effects. I believe most of us have tried or we might try to influence someone and get just opposite effect we expected!!, for instance perhaps we have been trying to get a subordinate to do something at work, and no matter what you do, she/he just won’t respond. On the other hand, maybe your boss has been asking you to do something, and you resist. So what can we say for this action or behavior? If you‘ve ever asked yourself as a leader or a colleague, “Now why did he do that?” you’ve wrestled with this problem. At home, at work, or at play, you have no doubt observed people doing things that were, to you, unexpected or unusual. You may have seen two people in very similar situations respond in very different ways. All of these incidents raise the question, for leaders of why people behave the way they do. This is a very complex subject about which volumes have been and continue to be written.

From my perspective, it relates to the self-awareness and how we act differently to different things. Some people are never able to understand their own motivations and rise above the need to fill personal "holes" from our childhood. I would say it is part of attitude that can positively or negatively affect a person's behavior, so your behavior and the behavior of the people around you, has a major impact on how you form relationships with each other – and birds of a feather tend to flock together!. Therefore, we need to know the way of dealing with people whatever their attitudes and behaviors in order to reach a level that could help leaders to see the effects of leadership in the work environment whether in organization, community or in society. 

In the other side, the motivation plays an essential role in people behaviors and their reaction to the duties or works have been required or asked about. Therefore, the vanilla leaders’ view of motivation generally included two ideas- rewards and punishment. We hold a “carrot” out in front of somebody and expect that he or she will move ahead in order to get the carrot. If that doesn’t work, then we stand behind and beat their backside with whip”. BUT still I believe the motivation of others is the ability to influence the behavior of other people in such a manner as to get them to do what you expect them to do, because the person motivated enjoys doing it.