How Leadership, Strategic Direction and Reward affect Employees

The consensus from leadership is that for a business to perform there is a need for quality employees. Besides being capable of doing their job well, employees also have to be flexible and capable of adapting to a constantly changing and evolving competitive environment. One of the key tasks of leadership is performance management and this involves many roles which include leading by example, being a compelling and effective communicator as well as being able to partner up and collaborate as stated by Blunt and Jones (1992). The need for staff to perform at their peak consistently is no longer negotiable and the need to retain exceptional performing staff in the financial services sector is of utmost importance (Arnold & Boshoff, 2000). Financial rewards, both variable and fixed, Short Term Incentive Plans (STIP's) and Long Term Incentive Plans (LTIP's) are reward schemes used by leadership in the financial services sector with the assumption that it is beneficial to employers (PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2012). This research studied the relationship between employee performance, immediate leadership; strategic direction and reward