Identify Your Own Personal Theories

According to Osland, Kolb, Rubin & Turner (2007), successful organizations are characterized by good fit among strategy, structure, systems, staff, style, skill, superordinate goals, and also fit the environment. In order to achieve that, managers should do their job or the best way to manage people, and their successful management involves a careful balancing act and the ability to manage paradox (Osland et al., 2007). According to Osland et al. (2007), excellent managers have an unusual ability to resolve paradox, to translate conflicts and tensions into excitement, high commitment, and superior performance. It shows that managers should be able to make the organizations to be adaptable, flexible, stable, and controlled. In fact, managers should work toward growth, resourced acquisition, external support, tight information management, and formal communication. Managers should also emphasis on the value of human resources, planning, and goal setting.

The first step in managing the paradoxes of organizational effectiveness understands one’s own theories of management. Theories are constructed to give an explanation of phenomena (Stam, 2000). Managers have their theories and mental maps about what makes successful managers and organizations. A relevant theory of leadership can then serve as a valuable tool for diagnosing the situation and determining the most relevant aspects of leadership behavior. According to Denzin (1970), there are three functions of a theory: permitting organization of descriptions, leading to explanation, and furnishing the basis for prediction of future events. This is to ensure that managers do not approach leadership problems and situations using trial and error tactics but base their decision-making on principled actions.

Managers need to be aware of the leadership theory or theories they ascribe to because these will determine and provide insights to who they are and the enduring concepts that really define everything about them as leaders. In the effort to understand the various elements that impacts on leadership and organizational effectiveness, much attention and research has been conducted on leadership theories. The notion of leadership has been defined and conceptualized from numerous perspectives. Managers must find the appropriate method to match a given situation because there is no one best way to manage in every situation. There are many leadership theories that can assist leaders confront the complex leadership phenomenon. These converge and create a new framework for thinking about and leading complex change.

According to Osland et al. (2007), some of the theorists’ model of excellent organizations and managers are:

1. Taylor’s Scientific Management, the managers scientifically determined the goals that needed to be accomplished, divided the work up in the most efficient way, trained workers to do the job, and rewarded them by wage incentives.

2. Administrative Theory, the organization would succeed if managers designed the organization correctly and followed the proven principles of management. Managers emphasizes on understanding the basic tasks of management and developed guidelines or principles for managing effectively.

3. Human Relations School, the effective managers were expected to pay attention to people’s social needs (i.e., feelings and attitudes that affected productivity) and elicit their ideas about work issues. Cohesion and morale as a means of increasing the value of human resources.

4. McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y described two ends of a continuum of assumptions about people and human nature. Whether managers incline more to the carrot (Theory Y) of the stick (Theory X) approach to motivation may be rooted in these assumptions.

5. Decision-Making School, the effective managers have to take into account workers’ “minds,” set the premises for employee’s decisions and relied on their rationality to make choices that would be best for both themselves and the organization. Managerial effectiveness consisted of a thorough understanding of decision making.

6. Contingency Approach, the good managers (and employees) analyze the situation and choose the most appropriate action because they believe that effectiveness varies according to the particular situation. They converged on the idea that there was no “one best way” to manage, and they tried to identify which variables would be successful for particular situations.

Each model suggests a mode or type of organizing. Manager must be able to analyze a situation, determine what pattern of leadership behavior is needed to influence processes that are important for optimal performance, and then carry out the behavior in a skilful way (Yukl, 2002). The writer understands that effective organizations exhibit different kinds of leadership. None of the leadership theories offers a perfect solution for all contexts. Each suffers limitations that may make it inappropriate in a particular situation. It can be concluded that appropriate leadership depends on a broad range of internal and external factors. A fruitful approach into choosing an effective leadership theory or theories is for the individual leader to carefully diagnose the situation and choose a leadership approach that best fits the context. Ultimately, our leadership will be judged as effective or ineffective not by who we are as a leader but by what leadership we induce in others.

References

Denzin, N. (1970). The research act: A theoretical introduction to sociological methods. Chicago: Aldine.

Kolb, D. A., Osland, J. S., Turner, M. E., & Rubin, I. M. (2007). The Organizational behavior: Behavior reader (8th ed.). Upper River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Stam, H. J. (2000). Theoretical psychology. In K. Pawlik & M. R. Rosenzweig (Eds.). International Handbook of Psychology (pp. 551-569). London: Sage Publications.

Yukl, G. (2002). Leadership in organizations. (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River. N.J.: Prentice Hall.