Leadership And Motivation By John Adair

The book I selected to review is entitled Leadership and Motivation: The fifty-fifty rule and the eight key principles of motivating others by author John Adair (2006). This book was first published in 1990 under titled “Understanding Motivation”. In this book, Adair explores in depth the subject of leadership and motivation. He concluded that leaders and managers must developed motivation skills and know how to motivate others to be successful. Knowing and understanding the theories of motivation is important, but the most important is how to apply them practically in their organization to become effective leaders. Adair divided his book into three parts, and these parts are: motivation and leadership, Maslow and Herzberg, and how to motivate others: the eight principles of motivation.

The book’s main points summary

The author said “This book goes beyond Maslow and Herzberg, however, and it offers a new general theory of motivation. My

Each one of these circles influences the others, and it also influenced by them. He mentions, “The value of the three overlapping circles is that they emphasize the essential unity of leadership: a single action can be multi-functional in that it touches all three areas” (Adair, 2013, p. 13). He also provide a list of leadership duties representing its functional characteristics. He claims that the list would aid in navigating through the overlap of group needs and individual needs. Adair’s list include planning, initiating, controlling, supporting, informing, evaluating.

The central idea in Adair’s book is his own theory of motivation (the fifty-fifty rule). The fifty-fifty rule is about where motivation comes from. The theory principle is “Fifty percent of motivation comes from within a person and 50 percent from his or her environment, especially from the leadership encountered there,” (Adair, 2006, p.