Practical Applying of Theory X and Theory Y in Leadership - Term Paper Example

 An Evaluation of how leadership changes with respect to a practical application of Theory X AND Theory Y Table of Contents 1.0Introduction 1.1Theory X 1.2 Theory Y 2.0 Previous Application Theory X 2.1 Previous Application Theory Y 4.0 Conclusion and the Way Forward 1.0 Introduction Halepota (2005:16) defines motivation as “a person’s active participation and commitment to achieve the prescribed results.”Halepota further presents that the concept of motivation is abstract because different strategies produce different results at different times and there is no single strategy that can produce guaranteed favourable results all the times.” According to Antomioni (1999:29), “the amount of effort people are willing to put in their work depends on the degree to which they feel their motivational needs will be satisfied. On the other hand, individuals become de-motivated if they feel something in the organisation prevents them from attaining good outcomes It can be observed from the above definitions that, motivation in general, is more or less basically concern with factors or events that moves, leads, and drives certain human action or inaction over a given period of time given the prevailing conditions. Further more the definitions suggest that there need to be an” invisible force” to push people to do something in return. It could also be deduced from the definition that having a motivated work force or an environment in which high levels of motivation are maintained remains a challenge for today’s management. This challenge may emanate from the simple fact that motivation is not a fixed trait –as it could change with changes in personal, psychological, financial or social factors Against this background, this paper examines this paper examines how different leadership styles changes with respect to the practical application of Theory X and theory Y. The first part of the paper examines theory X and Theory Y, while the second part if the paper looks at different leadership styles. In the third part of the paper, looks at and presents relevant conclusions and recommendations. 1.1 Theory X Mac Gregory suggested that there exist two sets of employees (lazy and ambitious employees) With lazy employees representing theory X, hard and ambitious workers representing Y. According to him the lazy employee should be motivated to increase performance in an organisation. According to Mac Gregory in this theory, management assumes employees are inherently lazy and will avoid work if they can. The researcher posits further that workers inherently dislike work need to be closely supervised through a comprehensive system of control. The theory X of Mac Gregory further assumes that, a hierarchical structure is needed with narrow span of control at each level. According to this theory, employees will show little ambition without an enticing incentive program and will avoid responsibility whenever they can. Leadership in Theory X tends to believe that everything must end in blaming someone. He or she thinks all prospective employees are only out for themselves (Friedlander, 1966). 1.2 Theory Y As opposed to theory X, Mac posits that, employees are ambitious, self-motivated, and exercise self-control. Mac stipulates further that employees enjoy their mental and physical work duties. A Theory Y leader believes that, given the right conditions, most people will want to put in the best effort to do their work effectively. Leaders of theory Y believe that the satisfaction of doing a good job is a strong motivation. Many people interpret Theory Y as a positive set of beliefs about workers. A close reading of The Human Side of Enterprise reveals that McGregor simply argues for managers to be open to a more positive view of workers and the possibilities that this creates. Theory X and Y are not different ends of the same continuum. Rather they are two different continua in themselves. Thus, if a manager needs to apply Theory Y principles, that does not preclude him from being a part of Theory X & Y. According to Kreitner (1995), Buford, Bedeian &Linall cited in Linder (1998,p3) “the psychological process that gives behaviour purpose and direction, a predisposition to behave in a purposive manner to achieve specific unmet needs, an unsatisfied need, and the will to achieve, respectively. 2.0 Previous Application Theory X According to Bass (1990) leadership is positively related to employee satisfaction and those in role behaviors which constitute job performance. A wide range of factors has been found to affect employees’ performance. Of these, top managers’ leadership style has been identified as being one of the most, if not the most, important. Leadership in its traditional form was conceived of as being a personified attribute, and effective leadership was reflected in terms of inspiring speeches, brilliant tactics, plans and strategies and a solution to fix every problem encountered (Samuel , Sebastian and Seshu , 2004 ). . Jung, (2001) suggests that leaders can affect followers’ creativity in both direct and indirect ways. Leaders can support creativity by establishing a work environment that encourages employees to try out different approaches without worrying about being punished just because outcomes are negative. Leaders can direct employees’ individual and joint efforts towards innovative work processes and outcomes (Amabile, 1996). Leaders can develop and maintain a system that values and rewards creative performance through compensation and other human resource-related policies Leader can be successful through identifying his power and impact on his subordinates (Jung, 2001). Leadership styles are summarized in three main ones: autocratic, democratic and laissez fair. Autocratic leadership believes in power centralization and subordinates are not allowed to participate in leadership process, and they have to refer to the leader before they perform any thing ( Baqi , 2001). Autocratic leader uses reward , punishment policy and depends on the official power granted to him by law. (Baqi, 2001). Democratic leadership attempts to make the subordinate bear the responsibility and participate in decision making. The democratic leader share the power with the group and take their advice in most of his decisions this leads to raise their spirit moral to increase their loyalty and commitment ( Baqi , 2001). Laissez fair style is the avoidance or absence of leadership. As opposed to transactional leadership, the laissez fair style represents a no transaction (Bass and Avolio l, 1994). Leadership style has an impact on organizations, departments, and teams, as well as work climate and atmosphere, leaders who want the best results should not rely on a single leadership style (Goleman, 2000), Leadership effectiveness is thought to be enhanced if a manager uses the style of leadership that best matches the ability and willingness of subordinates and that a good match between leadership style and subordinate readiness leads to a higher level of subordinate. Wilkinson and Wagner, (1993) found leadership styles involved in relationship-oriented behavior have a positive relationship with satisfaction and performance. Vries et al. (1998) assume that leadership behaviors affect outcomes, such as group performance and goal attainment, by influencing the behaviors of subordinates. 2.1 Previous Application Theory Y Contribution By surveying Students whom constitutes the future work force, this paper was able to gather first hand data and presents a realistic result. The study found Job Satisfaction” to be the foremost important motivational factor and that the motivational value placed on a factor may vary from one person to another. Such findings enhances our understanding of employee motivation and provides a starting point for organisations that may see it fit to design or re-design the employees work or even the organisation as a whole. We may acknowledge that making work interesting is not an easy task for any organisation, but using survey results like this one may guide the organisation in the right direction, which could make a whole lot of difference for both the employer and employee. Thus from our findings, we posit that, a theory X leader is less likely to perform better as compared to a theory Y. Theory Y leader uses all available means to make work interesting for the employees. The overall conclusion of this paper is that in general, Growth factors appeared in theory X more in ranking as motivational factors Deficient factors. Furthermore, this study also concludes that the motivational value placed on each factor may vary according to age and gender. This conclusion is highly supported by Nelson (2001, p.2) who presented that “what motivates people may vary from one person to another and may even vary over time with the same person” In sum, I would argue that the long-term survival of any organisation depends largely on the motivation of its employees be it financial or non-financial. Therefore organisations should be willing to continuously and on regular basis, undertake employees surveys such as this one in order to understand what their employees expects from their current job. The result of such exercises could prove useful for the organisation, because knowing what their employees wants and efforts in meeting these needs facilitate a mutual working environment for both the employees and its management. Finally I believe the results of this study and those presented and discussed in this thesis could be useful in helping organisations determine what motivates employees or job-related motivational preferences of their employees today and in the foreseeable future. 2.0 Conclusion and Recommendation Additional research should be carried out to gain a continuous view, insight and knowledge of what motivates employees to perform best on their job. Employee motivation evens after some 50years of research continue to be one of the problems and challenges facing organisations today. Furthermore factors such as technological advances, globalization, retrenchments etc leave employees with an uncertain future this is because most organisations today do not guarantee life employment’s for their employees as it was the case before. Therefore there is the need for researchers to continue carrying out employee surveys so as to determine what motivates employees to go extra miles and thus put in 110% in their work. Whether supporters of theory X or theory Y, leaders must influence followers to achieve performance. Likewise a theory Y leader is also performance oriented, the two leaders work to improve an organisation performance. The outcomes of such surveys will help organisations be at par with changes in employee’s preferences. The outcome of this research shows that Growth rather than Deficient factors are valued more by today’s employees. Therefore it would be interesting if further research with a much larger sample size could be undertaken to confirm either fully or partly the findings of this study. Further research could also consider other factors such as location of the organisation, other demographic factors and regional tendencies (for e.g. developed and developing countries) References Bass, B. M., & Avolio, B. J. (1994). Improving organizational effectiveness through transformational leadership. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Jung, D. (2001). Transformational and transactional leadership and their effects on Wilkinson, A.D. and Wagner, R.M. (1993), “Supervisory styles and state vocational rehabilitation, counselor job satisfaction and productivity”, Goleman, D. (2000), “Leadership that gets results”, Harvard Business Review, March-April, pp. 78-90. Vries, R.E., Roe, R.A. and Taillieu, T.C.B. (1998), “Need of supervision: its impact on leadership effectiveness”, The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, December, pp. 486-501.54 Friedlander, F. (1966) “importances of work versus Non work among social occupationally stratified groups.” Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 50, No. 6, pp. 437-443. Gordon, G. (1965), “The relationship of Satisfies and Dissatisfies to Productivity, Turnover and Morale”, American Psychologist, Vol. 20, pp.499 Graham, M.W & Messner, P.E (1998), “Principals and job satisfaction”, International Journal of Education Management, Vol. 12, No. 5, pp196-204. Helepota, H.A. (2005) “Motivational Theories and their application in construction”, Cost Engineering, Vol. 47, No. 3 pp. 14-35. Read More