Investigating leaders’ influence on private and public employee motivation is relevant given the ongoing discussion within Swedish politics regarding the privatization of public services. Furthermore, the world's increasing globalization, the development of organizations and the individual's changed work culture cause the perception of leadership and motivation being in constant change. Previous research has been characterized by focusing on leaders, but has in recent years focused more on the consequences of leadership. Consequently, the purpose of this study is to explain how leadership style and the leader’s personality affects economists' motivation, moderated by sector.

The study has a deductive approach and quantitatively examines hypotheses about leadership style, personality and motivation through a questionnaire directed towards economists. The measuring instruments Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire, Ten-Item Personality Traits and Work Extrinsic and Intrinsic Motivation Scale were used to design the survey and to measure the main components. The study also examined gender, age, work experience and sector affiliation.

The results of the study confirm previous research by demonstrating a significant relationship between transformative leadership and internal motivation, and between transactional leadership and external motivation. Furthermore, the study found a positive correlation between the traits Openness, Agreeableness and Extraversion and internal motivation, and between the traits Conscientiousness and Neuroticism and external motivation. The study however, could not confirm the effect that sector affiliation was expected to have on the relationship between leadership and motivation, since the moderating effect was either non-existing or opposite the expected. There is therefore a need for more research in the area, with focus on the sector's effect on motivation.