Desirable Managers to Work Under!

An organization often depends upon how good its Managers are. Attitude of a manager is usually directly related to the work culture which prevails at the work place. Manager with a positive outlook can drive his/her subordinates to strive hard to deliver the desired results and there may also be a case when another manager with the same set of subordinates may deliver abysmal results.  

Broadly speaking, we can divide the managerial style in to two categories, X & Y. Theory X is the one where the team members are not motivated about their work, nobody wants to take responsibility and the results are unsatisfactory. Contrary to this Theory Y team members are the self motivated ones who deliver results. Their results are a clear reflection how much they love their work and are rewarded duly for the same. The first thought which comes to our mind regarding these two styles is that, Theory X must be consisting of workers who are not capable of producing the results, or may be not up to the requirement, say the bad employees, whereas on the other hand, we must be thinking that Theory Y is blessed by highly skilled work force, say the good employees. This is where the contradiction lies. These two categories are wholly dependent on the type of managers leading the teams. This is not about the workers involved. Manager being the captain of the ship can dictate the terms. He can either make the environment at the workplace as authoritarian or make it as participative. 

                    Authoritarian Type

Participative Type

As we are talking about the managers, let us assume that there are two types of workers present with any manager. Say lazy workers and not lazy workers. Managers can also assume their workers to be lazy and not lazy.With a simple permutation, we can see that there are four possible cases arising in front of us. I will quoting examples from the place I used to work, subsequently after every case.

• Case A: Given the Workers are lazy and their Manager assumes them to be lazy, then the Manager falls under Theory X.Having worked in a PSU, there were a set of employees who were just promoted on the basis of the years of their service instead of any academic qualification. The usual nature which used to be there with these set of workers was to "let go" things. They hardly used to bother much about the effect of their attitude on the work. Manager knew this very well and he has excepted this, hardly bothering them to work hard and produce result, instead loading the few people who used to work hard. Due to this, the set of workers who were working better than the former ones started feeling that they were being exploited and with due course of time, even they became unproductive. So this type of managerial style falls under Theory X.
• Case B: Given the Workers are lazy and their Manager assumes them to be not lazy, then the Manager falls under Theory Y.
  In the very same organization being talked about, there was a team headed by a different Manager also consisted of team members who were the same as above quoted example. Instead of accepting them as unproductive, he has decided to assign work according to the competencies of the individual. As it is a well known fact that every human on this planet possess immense potential, so it just depends on your guide/mentor, how they can extract the same out of you. With such type of Manger's attitude, the results were quite visible. So, even having a lazy set of workers, the Manager did not assume that his workers are lazy and hence, this type of managerial style falls under Theory Y.
• Case C: Given the Workers are not lazy and their Manager assumes them to be lazy, then the Manager falls under Theory X.
  This particular case is very harmful for any organization. Having a motivated, talented pool of individuals and then assuming that hey are good for nothing just rips off the team dynamics. This case is a very common incident in the current scenario. I have seen many of my friends and colleagues who are a premium example of this case. I will take an example from my work place itself. A very young, dynamic boy from one of the premier engineering institute joins this PSU. Now this boy was very keen on doing things differently, due to which his name was in good books in a short span of time. Manager under whom this boy was working had different thoughts. He thought that due to the pro activeness of this young chap, his position as a flag bearer is threatened so he started side lining him from the coveted jobs. All this made the working conditions for the new boy difficult and hence made the boy to look out for other options. So, we  can say that just because of the wrong doing of the manager, the company had to lose an able employee and it is also sure that many others around him would have sensed what happened. These type of managers can be easily classified as Theory X. 
• Case D: Given the Workers are not lazy and their Manager assumes them to be not lazy, then the Manager falls under Theory Y.
  This is a win-win situation for any organization. The overall work atmosphere is so positive under such kind of managers that the desired results float out automatically. Again coming back to my previous experiences, I would like to quote an example from my six month long summer internship at Mercedes Benz Research & Development India, Bangalore. I was working there as a Research Trainee. My project manager was such a dynamic personality that working under him was a pleasure to any employee. The pool of individuals working under him were all devoted to the cause and so was he to the subordinates and the company. Experiences like this do leave a pleasant patch in your memory which you do cherish year after year. I would say that his manager would be an ideal manager for any organization and he would fall under Theory Y.

With the above cited examples, I would like to convey my message that Theory Y type Managers are always desirable and these are the ones who thrive an organization towards excellence and innovation unlike Theory X type Managers. Now, being in a premier management institute, what I can learn from this is immeasurable. Prior to this lecture, I used to always think that both the workers and managers at fault. But after this session, I being a future manager, have to imbibe these teachings upon me and make a promise to myself that I turn out to be a Theory Y manager. Whatever be the available resources with an individual, he has an immense caliber to turn things to his favor.