Today’s best managers know how employees tend to be motivated. First, employees assess their ability to perform tasks, then based on those assessments, they select performance goals that they believe they can achieve. Once goals are set, then employees devote energy and resources to achieving their goals. In this way, employees self-regulate their behavior and resources toward reaching desirable goals. Today’s best managers can help employees stay motivated by helping them set specific, difficult, yet reachable goals for their own individual knowledge, skills, and abilities.
Source: Vancouver, J. B., More, K . M., & Yoder, R. J. 2008. Self-efficacy and resource allocation: Support for a nonmonotonic discontinuous model. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93, 35-47.
