This paper examined the role of effective leadership and motivation in financial management drawing evidence from the banking sector. By applying a survey design, and a multiple holistic case analysis, we observed that the traditional model of motivation adopted by the first generation banks is strongly correlated with their employee-oriented leadership style. Similarly, the task-oriented leadership style employed by the newer banks is direct fallout of their human resources model. Our data thus indicate that these twin pillars (leadership and motivation) ginger and sustain the wealth creation objective of financial management as exemplified by their role in the money generation function of the banks in our study group.