An overview of a theoretical reflections on Douglas

AN OVERVIEW OF A THEORETICAL REFLECTIONS ON
DOUGLAS MCGREGOR'S THEORY X AND THEORY Y
Egbo A. Ekene (Master - Personnel Psychology) ©2016 Contact: egbo.ekene@gmail.com

INTRODUCTION
In his hugely influential 1960 Book, “The Human Side of Enterprise (McGraw-Hill) Douglas McGregor made the simple
but powerful observation that managerial practice often expresses some very deep assumptions about the nature of
Human Beings. He claimed that two competing theories of Human Nature dominated the managerial thought world
over. He avoided descriptive label and simply called the theories – Theory X and Theory Y.
Theory X postulates that the average human being is lazy and self-centered, lacks ambition, dislikes change and
longs to be told what to do. Therefore, the managerial approach under theory X emphasizes total control. Employee
motivation is all about the ‘fear and pain’.
Theory Y on the other hand posits that human being are active rather than passive shaper of themselves and their
environment. They long to grow and assume responsibility. People will apply self-control and self-direction in the
pursuit of organizational objectives, without external control or the threat of punishment.
Both of these theories begin with the premise that management’s role is to assemble that factors of production,
including people for the economic benefit of the firm. McGregor named this theories after letters of the alphabet in
order to avoid prejudicing the discussion in favour of one or the other, and he further insisted that both theories have
value in the appropriate contexts.
2

THEORY X
Theory X assumes that the average person:
• Dislikes work and attempts to avoid it
• Has no ambition, wants no responsibilities and would rather follow than lead.
• Is self-centered and therefore does not care about organizational goals
• Resist change
• Is gullible and not particularly intelligent
• Work only for money and security.
3

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THEORY X LEADERSHIP
Based on the assumptions of Theory X as enunciated above, the X managers assumes that workers
need to be closely monitored and supervised under a well-developed comprehensive systems of controls
hence a hierarchical structure is needed with narrow span of control at each level.
1. X manager tend to believe that everything must end in blaming someone. These managers feel that
the sole purpose of the employees’ interest in the job is money and security. They blame the person
without questioning whether it may be the system, policy or lack of training that deserves the blame.
2. X managers cannot trust any employee, and they reveal this to their support staff via their
communications constantly.
3. X managers is an impediment to employee morale and productivity
4. X managers believe it is his/her job to structure the work and energize, even coerce (threaten with
punishment) the employee thus they naturally adopt a more authoritarian style based on the threat of
punishment.
5. Essentially, X managers relies chiefly on coercion, implicit threats, close supervision and tight controls
i.e. environment of command and control.
4

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE THEORY X MANAGER
What are the characteristics of a Theory X manager? Typically some, most or all of these:
• results-driven and deadline-driven, to the exclusion of everything else
• intolerant
• issues deadlines and ultimatums
• distant and detached
• aloof and arrogant
• elitist
• short temper
• shouts
• issues instructions, directions, edicts
• issues threats to make people follow instructions
• demands, never asks
• does not participate
• does not team-build
• unconcerned about staff welfare, or morale
• proud, sometimes to the point of self-destruction
• one-way communicator
5

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE THEORY X MANAGER CONT’D
• poor listener
• fundamentally insecure and possibly neurotic
• anti-social
• vengeful and recriminatory
• does not thank or praise
• withholds rewards, and suppresses pay and remunerations levels
• scrutinizes expenditure to the point of false economy
• seeks culprits for failures or shortfalls
• seeks to apportion blame instead of focusing on learning from the experience and preventing recurrence
• does not invite or welcome suggestions
• takes criticism badly and likely to retaliate if from below or peer group
• poor at proper delegating - but believes they delegate well
• thinks giving orders is delegating
• holds on to responsibility but shifts accountability to subordinates
• relatively unconcerned with investing in anything to gain future improvements
• unhappy
6

PITFALL OF THEORY X
• Under theory X, the firm relied on money and benefits to satisfy employees’ lower needs and
once these needs are satisfied the source of motivation is lost.
• Theory X management style hinder the satisfaction of higher-level needs. Consequently, the
only way employees can attempt to satisfy their higher need in their work is by seeking more
compensation.
• Under Theory X, people use work to satisfy their lower needs and seek to satisfy their higher
needs in the leisure time.
• Theory X is usually characterized by hostility, purposely low-output and hardline union
demands.
7

THEORY Y
Theory Y makes the following general assumptions:
i. Work can be as natural as play and rest
ii. People will apply self-control and self-direction in the pursuit of organizational objectives, without
external control or the threat of punishment
iii. People will be committed to their objectives if rewards are in place that address higher needs such
as self-fulfillment
iv. Under these conditions, people will seek responsibility
v. Most people can handle responsibility because creativity and ingenuity are common in the
population.
McGregor recognized that some people may not have reached the level of maturity assumed by
theory Y and therefore may need tighter controls that can be relaxed as the employees develops.
8

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THEORY X LEADERSHIP
Theory Y manager believes that given the right conditions, most people will want to do well at work and that
there is a pool of unused creativity in the workforce. They believes that the satisfaction of doing a good job is
a strong motivation in and of itself. Y manager will try to remove the barriers that prevent workers from fully
actualizing themselves.
1. Y managers assumes that the people they supervise are committed to work and are capable of finding
solutions to work-related problems as they are themselves.
2. Y managers assumes that people inherently prefer to work rather than not to work. As a result they tend to
push responsibility for work down the chain of command.
3. Employees are granted autonomy within their areas of accountability and they structure work so that
subordinates have ample opportunity to identify problems and find creative solutions to them.
4. Structure the work environment so that the employee goals coincide with organizational goals resulting
presumably in greater creativity and productivity.
9

MANAGEMENT IMPLICATION OF THEORY Y
1. Decentralization & Delegation: If the firm decentralize control and reduce the number of
levels of management, each manager will have more subordinates and consequently will be
forced to delegate some responsibilities and decision making to them.
2. Job enlargement: broadening the scope of an employee’s job add variety and opportunities
to satisfy ego needs
3. Participative Management: consulting employees in the decision making process taps their
creative capacity and provides them with some control over their work environment.
4. Performance Appraisal: having the employees set objectives and participate in the process
of evaluating how well they were met.
10

COMPARISON OF THEORY X AND THEORY Y
S/N PARAMETER THEORY X THEORY Y
1 Motivation Assumes that people dislike work; they want to
avoid it and do not want to take responsibility.
Monetary rewards is a prime motivator to make
workers produce more
Assumes that people are self-motivated, and
thrive on responsibility.
2 Management Style and
control
Organization, management is authoritarian, and
centralized control is retained.
The management style is participative:
Management involves employees in decision
making, but retains power to implement
decisions
3 Work Organization Employees tend to have specialized and often
repetitive work
The work tends to be organized around wider
areas of skill or knowledge; Employees are
also encouraged to develop expertise and
make suggestions and improvements
11

COMPARISON OF THEORY X AND THEORY Y CONT’D
4 Rewards & Appraisal Organizations work on a ‘carrot and stick’
basis, and performance appraisal is part
of the overall mechanisms of control and
remuneration
Organizations, appraisal is also regular and
important, but is usually a separate mechanism
from organizational controls. Theory Y
organizations also give employees frequent
opportunities for promotion
5 Application Theory X Management style is widely
accepted as inferior to others, it has its
place in large-scale production operation
and unskilled production line work.
Many of the principles of Theory Y are widely
adopted by types of organization that value and
encourage participation. Theory Y-style
management is suited to knowledge work and
professional services. Professional service
organizations naturally evolve Theory Y-type
practices by the nature of their work; Even highly
structured knowledge work, such as call center
operations, can benefit from its principles to
encourage knowledge sharing and continuous
improvement
12

LAPSES OF THEORIES X & Y
There is a simple and obvious obscurity in McGregor’s distinction between X and Y theory – a congenital
flaw, perhaps, that sheds light on some of the developments that followed.
In theory X as presented by McGregor, and more especially as his successors represented it, the world
of X is in a state of conflict. McGregor makes the point that a command and control environment is not
effective because it relies on lower needs as lever of motivation but in modern society those needs
already are satisfied and thus no longer are motivators. In this situation, it is expected that employees
would dislike work, avoid responsibility, have no interest in organizational goals, resist change etc. thus
making theory X a self-fulfilling prophesy. Workers and managers eye one another across the ragged
front lines of suspicion and mistrust. However in the Y world, it is a state of peace. Workers and
managers embrace one another as partners on the journey to personal fulfilment. And all that is required
to change from one state to the other is making a simple change in one’s assumptions about human
nature. But is this really true? Does all conflict dissolve in a higher state of consciousness?
13

LAPSES OF THEORIES X & Y CONT’D
The Confusion results from the fact that McGregor himself confounds and overlay his
distinction between theories X &Y with a second very different distinction. This is a
distinction not between theories of human nature but between theories about nature
of human relations – or, more precisely, about the sources of human conflict. The
conflicts among human beings always originate in misunderstanding. Eliminate the
false assumptions that individuals carry around their heads, and thus a human
community will return to the natural state of peace.
14

EVOLUTION OF THE 21ST CENTURY MANAGER
(SOURCE: ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR, ROBERT KREINER, ET’AL. 2007, P. 20)
S/N PARAMETER PAST MANAGERS FUTURE MANAGERS
1 PRIMARY ROLE Order giver, privileged elite,
manipulator, controller
Facilitator, team member, teacher,
advocate, sponsor, coach
2 LEARNING AND KNOWLEDGE Periodic learning, narrow specialist Continuous life-long learning, generalist
with multiple specialties
3 COMPENSATION CRITERIA Time, effort, rank Skills, results
4 CULTURAL ORIENTATION Mono-cultural, monolingual Multi-cultural, multi-lingual
5 PRIMARY SOURCE OF INFLUENCE Formal authority Knowledge (technical and interpersonal)
6 VIEW OF PEOPLE Potential problem Primary resource, human capital
7 PRIMARY COMMUNICATION PATTERN Vertical Multidirectional
8 DECISION-MAKING STYLE Limited input for individual decision Broad-based input for joint decisions
9 ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS afterthought Forethought
10 NATURE OF INTERPERSONAL
RELATIONSHIPS
Competitive (win-lose) Cooperative (give and take) – (win-
lose/lose-win)
11 HANDLING OF POWER AND KEY
INFORMATION
Hoard and restrict access Share and broaden access
12 APPROACH TO CHANGE Resist Facilitate
15

THANK YOU
16

An overview of a theoretical reflections on Douglas

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

What's hot

What's hot (20)

Viewers also liked

Viewers also liked (15)

Similar to An overview of a theoretical reflections on Douglas

Similar to An overview of a theoretical reflections on Douglas (20)

An overview of a theoretical reflections on Douglas