Chris,
> in a recent class discussion on leadership in organizations an interesting
> theory came up: There really is not any such thing as participative
> management in organizations because for every manager that lets his group
> provide feedback there is a front line supervisor that is "hardnosed" and
> barks the orders of the managers without active feedback from the group.
I don't think participative management has to be all or
nothing. In the situation you describe, the organization
has some participative management, though not 100 percent.
For me, a little is better than none.
Also, participative management is more than a manager
letting the group provide feedback. It also means involving
people in making decisions, deciding what decisions to make,
deciding how the group will make decisions, deciding ground
rules for the group...
> In other words participative management is something that is simply an
> attempt to keep employees happy. What do you think?
That doesn't fit my experience. But let's suppose that the
only difference participative management made was to keep
employees happy. In my mind, that would be reason enough to
use it.
Regards,
Dale
--Dale H. Emery -- Collaborative Consultant High Performance for Software Development Projects E-mail: dale@dhemery.com Web: http://www.dhemery.com
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