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¶ … Management Theories of Likert, Blake and Mouton, Vroom and Yetton, and Kuhnert and Lewis

Purpose of the Paper

Management Theories of Likert

Management Theories of Blake and Mouton

Management Theories of Vroom and Yetton

Management theories of Kuhnert and Lewis

Areas of similarities

Preferred philosophy as a Employee and as a Manager

Purpose of the Paper:

The purpose of the paper is to provide a conceptual framework of the different theories of management of Likert; Blake and Mouton; Vroom and Yetton; Kuhnert and Tetton and exploration of areas of similarities among them. The paper shall also deal with the choice of a preferred philosophy as a manager and as an employee.

Management Theories of Likert:

Rensis Likert led one of the major set of studies on leadership and participative management. He identified four principal styles of leadership, specifically about decision-making and the extent people get involved in the decision making process. These styles are:

i) Exploitative authoritarian:

As the name suggest, in this style, the leader reserves a low concern towards people and employs methods like threats and other procedures based on coercion in order to get conformance. The process of communications is completely top-down where the decision are entirely made only at the top and the psychologically distant concerns of the people are not given due attention. (Likert's leadership styles) ii) Benevolent authoritarian:

While the leader attaches concern for people to an authoritative rank, 'a generous autocracy' is build up. Now the leader uses rewards to support suitable performance and hears regarding the concerns about the lower rungs of the organization, even what they get the feedback is frequently rosy, being restricted to what their subordinates consider that the boss desires to listen. Even though some delegation of decision might be there nearly every major decision continue to be taken by the central authority. (Likert's leadership styles) iii) Consultative:

The flow of information from the lower rung of the organization to the upper echelon continue to be wary and rosy to some degree, even though the leader is taking true efforts to hear about the ideas cautiously. In spite of this, important decisions continue to be made by the central authority.

A iv) Participative:

At the participative level, the leader does the optimum use of the participative methods, keeping the employees lower down the order involved in the process of decision-making. The workforce throughout the organization is emotionally proximal and function well at all levels of the organization. Communication within the organization is two-way. (Likert's leadership styles) Among the above four approaches the participative approach generates greater productivity, increased individual involvement and improved labor/management relations. People grow into an extremely cohesive team with a high level of job satisfaction. (the relevance of traditional management theories to the 21st Century)

3) Management Theories of Blake and Mouton

Robert R. Blake and Jane Mouton together propounded what is known as the Managerial Grid which is one of the more popular forms of management style and expressed their theory in the form of a Grid. They laid down the concept that management style can be examined along two independent dimensions. In the vertical axis 'Concern for People' is plotted and in the horizontal axis 'Concern for Production is plotted'. This theory of management style is defined as the extent or amount which the manager displays a concern for people and a concern for production. The concern is rated on a 9 point scale where 1 stands for low concern and 9 for high concern. As the two concerns or dimensions are said to be independent of each other, a high or a low score in one axis might be combined by a corresponding high or low score on the other. For instance a 9, 1 style possesses a high score on concern related to production coupled with a low score on concern for people. This style is viewed in Blake's model as authoritarian and commanding obedience. The reverse of that is 1,9 style having a low score on concern for production and high score on concern for people explained by Blake and Mouton as Country Club management. A middle score on either of the dimension is portrayed as 5, 5 which is an organization man. A diagrammatic representation of the Managerial Grid is given below. (Managerial Grid)

Managerial Grid

4) Management theory of Vroom and Yetton

The Normative Model has been propounded by them and they have described five distinct decision procedures. Of them, two are autocratic, which are A1 & A2, two are consultative in nature, which are C1 & C2 and one is Group-based which is G2. Let us get to the details - A1: The leader either solves the problem or taken as individual decision, utilizing the information available at the present moment. A2: The leader gets the required information from his subordinates and subsequently takes a decision regarding the solution to the problem. The decision to disclose before the subordinates regarding the objective of the question rests with the leader as he decides on this aspect. Their input is restricted to the leader's request for information.

C1: In this situation the leader shares the problem with his juniors on an individual basis. Subsequent to getting their ideas, the leader arrives at a decision. The decision so taken might or might not reflect the opinions of the subordinates. C2: The leader shares the problem alongwith the subordinates present in a group meeting at the time of which he obtains their ideas and views. After this, the leader arrives at the decision at his individual level. The final decision might or might not reveal subordinate influence. G2:- the leader shares the problems alongwith the subordinates in a team work. In a collective manner, all the parties produce and calculate options and try to arrive at an agreement on a solution. The leader makes possible the meeting, trying to keep attention on the problem and taking the group in the direction of a mutually acceptable solution. But the leader does not attempt to sway the group to come to any specific solution. (the Vroom-Yetton Leadership Model)

The decision quality is choosing among the best alternative and is specifically vital when a lot of alternatives are present. It is also crucial when serious implications for choosing or failing to choose the most ideal alternative. Decision acceptance is the extent to which a follower abides with a decision made by a leader. It is seen that the leaders concentrate increasingly on decision acceptance at the time when decision quality is more vital. The situational factors which influence the method are comparatively logical. When decision quality is vital and followers have useful information, then A1 and A2 are not the most ideal method. When the leader sees decision quality as vital, but the followers do not see, in that case G2 is unsuitable. (Vroom and Yetton's Normative Model)

While decision quality is vital and the problem is unstructured and the leader does not possess information / expertise to take the decision in his capacity, in that case G2 is the ideal one. When acceptance is important and the followers might not accept an autocratic decision, in that case A1 and A2 are not suitable. While the acceptance is vital, however followers might disagree with one another, in that case A1, A2 and C1 are not right as they do not give scope for differences to be resolved. When decision quality is not vital, but acceptance of the decision is critical, in that case G2 is the most ideal method. When the decision quality is important, everybody have a consensus on this, and the decision may not emanate from an autocratic decision in that case G2 is the best. (Vroom and Yetton's Normative Model)

5) Management theory of Kuhnert and Lewis:

Lewis and Kuhnert to describe the development of Transformational - TF leaders have generalized the constructivist view. Observing development hierarchically and in stages, Lewis and Kuhnert talked about four qualitatively distinct stages or levels of leadership. At the lowest level ie. stage 1 leaders are mentally not capable of satisfying their own-self-interest and wants, whereas at the highest levels of developmental i.e stage 4, TF leaders function out of personal value system which rise above immediate transactions, goals and personal loyalties. Leaders at stage 4 build or enable understanding out of their world by means of their end values. Hence stage 4 leaders possess a self-determined view of identity. As per the recommendations of the psychoanalytical view, the leader is more directed towards one's self and thus more capable of transcending the interests of the particular moment. This potential of inner-directedness gives a transformational view as an extraordinary energy for taking up goals missions, an eventually the vision of the leader. The feeling of inner-direction, in case it is converted in the right manner, will draw followers who would agree and co-operate with the ultimate values of the leader. (Charismatic Leadership: The Elusive Factor in Organizational Effectiveness)

6) Areas of Similarity:

On comparing the Likert model with Blake's Managerial Grid it is observed that the 9,1 model of Blake is basically similar to Likert's Exploitative Authoritarian model where both show low concern for people and high concern for production. As in the model of Likert, progressively the concern for people increases as we move down the line from 'Exploitative authoritarian' to 'Benevolent authoritarian' to 'Consultative' to finally 'Participative', similarly in the Blake's Managerial Grid the mapping of high concern for people and low concern for production is seen as the score comes to be 1,9. On the other hand a close comparison of G2 stage of the Vroom-Yetton model and the Participative management of Likert model it is seen that both of them bear similarities. In G2 stage of Vroom-Yetton model, the leader shares the crisis and difficulties with the subordinates of his group and based on a consensus all the parties build and evaluate alternatives and try to arrive at a consensus on a solution.

Roughly the same idea is conveyed in the Participative model of Likert wherein the management looks forward to build groups of employees who can arrive on decisions and the process of communication is two way within the organization. However, there are situation where the participative management is best however in other situations it is not. There are a lot of situations when participation is the best. And of late this is becoming increasingly an accepted feature in businesses. In participative approach, participation can range from arriving at decisions exclusively when there is a general consensus to a process in which the manager consults and patiently listens to each and every member of the team, discussing the decision with everybody.

In view of the above it can be seen that a lot of decisions are not suitable to such a process. Major decisions will be appropriate, however the smaller ones would not justify the time that everybody will have to give up. The fact of the matter is that teams who repose trust in their managers are happy to delegate a lot of decision to them. On this note, it is found that there is a general commonality among all the management theories as regards the Participative management. If Likert has Participative model, Blake and Mouton has 9,1 style corresponding to it. Similarly in case of Vroom and Yetton it is the G2 stage which has similarities and last but not the least in case of Kunhert and Lewis it is the stage 4 of Transformational Leadership.