This paper examines the career and research of Rensis Likert, an influential organizational psychologist best known for developing the Likert Scale and identifying four distinct management systems. The paper traces Likert's biographical background, outlines his four management types—exploitative, benevolent, consultative, and participative—and explains the theoretical framework behind participative management as the most effective approach. Special attention is given to the practical implementation of participative systems, the contrast between job-centered and people-centered supervision, and empirical evidence from a clinical laboratory study demonstrating the correlation between participative management and improved productivity.
Rensis Likert was an American educator and organizational psychologist best known for his research on management styles. He was born in Cheyenne, Wyoming, in 1903. His father was an engineer who worked at the Union Pacific Railroad, and Likert initially trained to follow the same profession. However, his career path shifted dramatically during an internship with his father's company during the watershed 1922 railroad strike. The lack of communication between the conflicting parties made a profound impression on him and led him to study organizations and their behavior for the rest of his life.
Likert completed a bachelor's degree in sociology and economics in 1926. Sociology in the 1920s was new and highly experimental, incorporating aspects of modern psychology that would inform his later work. He subsequently earned a doctorate degree, during which his thesis produced a survey scale—later called the Likert Scale—which measured attitudes and demonstrated that it recorded more information than competing methods. The 1-5 Likert Scale eventually became his best-known contribution to research methodology.
Likert was a founder of the Institute for Social Research and served as its director from its founding in 1946 until 1970. Upon his retirement, he founded Rensis Likert Associates, a consultancy that advised many corporations. During the 1960s and 1970s, his books on management became extremely popular in Japan, and the impact of his theory can still be observed throughout modern Japanese organizations. His research on major corporations throughout the world accurately predicted their future performance and organizational sustainability.
Likert's research on human behavior within organizations focused on the industrial situation. He studied different kinds of organizations and leadership styles, concluding that to attain maximum profitability, proper labor relations, and high productivity, organizations must make optimum use of their human resources. He determined that the most effective organizational form would be one in which highly effective work groups were linked together in an overlapping pattern by other similarly effective groups.
Likert identified four main types of management styles in modern organizations: exploitative, benevolent, consultative, and participative. Each style reflected fundamentally different assumptions about employees and organizational communication.
Under the exploitative type, decisions were imposed on subordinates, and motivation was acquired through threats. Management had great responsibilities, but virtually none existed at lower levels. There was hardly any communication, and no harmonious or productive teamwork. This system created distance and distrust between leadership and workers.
Under the benevolent system, leadership was condescending and involved a master-servant dynamic of trust. Motivation came mainly in the form of rewards. Managerial personnel felt responsibility, while those in lower levels did not. Like the exploitative type, there was also little communication and minimal teamwork among lower-level employees, though the paternalistic approach occasionally softened the harsh atmosphere of purely exploitative systems.
Under the consultative system, leaders did not have enough trust in their subordinates. However, motivation improved through rewards, and most employees had some involvement in decisions. Those in higher levels held responsibility for achieving organizational goals. There was some communication with leadership and among themselves, along with a modest degree of teamwork. This system represented a moderate step toward more inclusive management but fell short of true collaborative structures.
Under the participative type, which Likert identified as offering the best solution, superiors had complete confidence in their subordinates. Motivation was provided through economic rewards, determined by set goals according to participation. Employees at all levels felt real responsibility toward organizational goals. There was abundant communication and an equally abundant amount of teamwork. Likert considered this fourth system most ideal for organizations concerned with both profitability and human dignity, arguing that all organizations should adopt it. He acknowledged that the changes involved in adopting the system would be hard and long, but he maintained they were necessary and worth the sacrifice if the organization was to realize maximum rewards.
In converting an organization's management style into participative, several main features of effective management must be implemented. Motivation to work must be established through modern principles and techniques rather than the old system of rewards and threats. The management must see employees as persons with their own needs, desires, and values. Their self-worth must be recognized and enhanced through respectful engagement.
Tightly-knit and highly effective work groups must be formed based on commitment to achieving organizational objectives. These groups must be built on mutual respect. They would constitute the nuclei of the participative group system. Their members should be skilled in leadership and able to interact easily. The groups should, in time, develop a relaxed working relationship in which members become loyal to their group and to one another.
A high degree of mutual trust should develop among group members. Each group's norms, values, and goals would be the expression of the values and needs of the members. In time, members would perform a "linking-pin" function, maintaining harmony among the different goals of different groups. This structural innovation allows overlapping group membership to reduce silos and promote organizational coherence across levels and departments.
Rensis Likert believed that the best managers in business and government should develop and install an effective system of management. He distinguished sharply between two supervision approaches. Low-efficiency department supervisors are job-centered and simply keep workers busy through a prescribed work schedule and at a satisfactory or agreed time rate. Workers are trained to produce component parts, and this approach requires constant pressure to achieve output or production goals. Such supervision emphasizes output metrics over worker welfare.
By contrast, high-efficiency departments employ people-centered supervision, focusing on human aspects and building effective work groups in pursuit of high achievement goals. Supervisors try to know employees as individuals, provide general rather than detailed supervision with overall targets rather than prescribing methods, and welcome maximum participation in decision-making. They ensure that employees are capable of joining in the process and feel their input matters.
Likert suggested that managers and supervisors should always adapt their behavior based on actual employees and adjust general principles to match employee expectations, values, and skills. Job-centered organizations may achieve high productivity through control systems, but the attitude of employees toward work and management would remain separate. This system could only result in high labor turnover and greater labor-management conflicts.
The participative system, by contrast, would encourage employee loyalty to the organization, lead employees to link their goals with those of the organization, and develop trust and confidence between hierarchical levels. The supervisor or manager becomes correctly informed about employees' expectations, obstacles, problems, reactions, and failures and extends assistance accordingly. Under this interaction-influence system between the organization and labor, one could determine whether the system was working and what was required to improve the situation. The organization should foster integrative unity in which what happens matters to the individual and what matters to the organization are one and the same.
Likert's theoretical framework gained empirical support through research conducted in clinical settings. Participative management proved effective in raising productivity in clinical laboratories, according to an analysis comparing management styles and productivity in the laboratory departments of twelve medium-sized community hospitals in a Southern metropolitan area. The study examined 300 medical technologists who evaluated the management style of their managers, including directors, administrators, chief technologists, and supervisors.
The feedback demonstrated that productivity improvements occurred as management styles became less arbitrary or authoritarian and more participative, or when employees were allowed to share or provide input to management decisions. Likert's questionnaire, entitled "Profile of Organizational Characteristics," was used to measure the laboratory manager's management style and evaluate how the manager ran the organization. The authoritarian manager was graded lowest, and the participative manager was graded highest. The criteria included confidence and trust in subordinates, open communication, focus on organizational goals, soliciting ideas, the use of rewards and punishment, promotion of teamwork, free information flow, awareness of employee problems, and details about decision-making procedures.
Another questionnaire assessed engineering standards to measure clinical laboratory output per productive employee hour. The subjects ranked laboratories according to productivity and managers according to their management styles. The results of the study clearly showed a relationship between management style and laboratory productivity. Productivity increased as management became more participative. Despite some correlation problems inherent in studies of this kind, trends established the relationship between management style and productivity in measurable terms.
Laboratory managers were advised to treat the results of this study as a basis for allowing input and participation in their decisions and decision-making function. Participative management means management with the firm, requiring consistent, fair, and reasonable management style. This approach would be the key to increased productivity. A laboratory manager who opted to apply this management style could expect a more productive staff, lower costs, and greater contribution to the institution's overall success.
"Summary findings on management style and productivity outcomes"
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