Job Satisfaction: The Management Tool and Leadership Responsibility

Job satisfaction's tenuous relationship to a variety of work behaviors is reviewed from the perspective of a management tool and as a leadership responsibility. It may be viewed a management tool for accomplishing certain organizational objectives related to reducing absenteeism and tardiness. However, job satisfaction's importance is neither limited to nor justified by its somewhat weak relationship to certain organizational outcomes. Rather, job satisfaction is analyzed as a leadership responsibility with effects that extend far beyond the bounds of any given organization. Some fundamental assumptions surrounding job satisfaction are reviewed, and an argument for job satisfaction as an ethical imperative that results from organizational and management practices that emphasize positive reinforcement, not aversive control, is advanced.