Richard
Much as I believe in my soul and my heart that a "Theory Y" approach to
management/leadership is the "right" way to run an organisation, the only
research I ever remember seeing on this issue (I saw this ~30 years ago
during my MBA, so don't ask for references!) concluded that both X and Y
approaches could and did work equally well. All of my experience since
reading that conclusion confirms this. True leaders are leaders. Some do
it by hugging you, some do it by kicking you in the ass, some even do
both. In (not so pleasant) fact, if you look at today's "high performing"
companies, Theory X leadership is probably in the ascendant. Bill Gates?
Jack Welch? Percy Barnevik? Larry Ellison? Not exactly Douglas
McGregor's sort of guys.
Respectfully
Richard Goodale
Managing Partner
The Dorncoh Partnership
> As to LO - democracy linkages:
>
> NO WAY the high-involvement of company members, necessary for LO or any
> other element of "participative management" or "modern management," will
> occur without members feeling their work, culture and company governance
> is guided by the principles Gould uses.
>
> How do we know: look at high-performing companies and see how many are
> managed by democratic values and practices, vs. those that feature
> "top-down, KITA (backside), one-best-way, managers know best, "my way or
> the hi-way?"
[Quote of prev msg trimmed by your host... Rick]
--"Richard GOODALE" <fc45@dial.pipex.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>