Models For Management

  Discover how we expand our effectiveness as managers and leaders.

• Beliefs about people drive our behavior and thus become self-fulfilling prophecies.
• Guided interactions in Models reveal with startling clarity how values work for or against you as a manager and leader.

Managerial beliefs are like the rudder of a ship - they organize managerial behaviors and steer them in the direction leaders/managers want to go. Being an effective manager and leader requires that we become aware of our own value and belief systems. Our personal system of beliefs, attitudes, assumptions, and theories constitutes the bedrock of our daily practices. Our behavioral practices are an outgrowth of our personal theories and assumptions about the basic nature of people at work. Based on this learned - and sometimes unconsciously referenced - belief system, we develop general guiding principles which result in the specific behaviors, practices, policies, and procedures which define our particular management "style" or approach.

In this module, Douglas McGregor's "Theory X" and "Theory Y" models of managerial beliefs are combined with Robert Rosenthal's work on the self-fulfilling prophecy in the context of a classic study of employee involvement.  Using an actual databased case study, which affords participant feedback on personal beliefs, coupled with subordinate feedback instruments, Module 1 provides an in-depth look at one's personal belief system and how it impacts one's leadership/managerial practices.Comparing one's personal feedback from the Harwood Dilemma with "real world" feedback from direct reports/co-workers (via the Reality Check Survey) acts as a vehicle for participants and direct reports/co-workers to meet together for personal critique, problem-solving, and action-planning - thereby creating more productive working relationships.

This module helps leaders/managers:

• Realize their personal beliefs about people and work
• Understand the impact these personal beliefs have in the workplace
• Explore the benefits of change

• To introduce McGregor's "Theory X-Theory Y" model as a method for analyzing and understanding the attitudinal, belief-driven "why's" and "how's" of managerial or supervisory behavior;
• To introduce an actual classic study which showed, conclusively, that managerial beliefs significantly influence decision making and how Theory Y-driven beliefs lead to extremely effective and productive managerial action;
• To provide personal feedback on the participant's personal value system (assumptions and beliefs about people and work), which can be compared with "real world" feedback from co-workers concerning their perception of the participant's value system and its day-to-day effect on their work;
• To provide linkage with the real world by using the data from above as a vehicle for participants and co-workers to meet together for personal critique, problem-solving, and action planning for more productive working relationships.